Funding (In)Justice: 6 Ways to Engage in Transformative Funding Practices

At a recent roundtable hosted by Glitch, funders, philanthropists and change makers discussed our collaborative efforts to disrupt funding practices that exclude Black women and Black-led charities. We’ve been reflecting on some of the lessons and insights from the conversation, which are helping inform our approaches to fundraising in 2024, and thought we’d share the good gospel from those already doing the work to collaboratively create a more just and inclusive future. Our hope is that we inspire others to join us in ending online abuse, because we really need more organisations stepping forward to meet this opportunity for a safer, more joyous internet for all.

Lesson one: Trust those closest to the work

The funding discrimination experienced by Black women leaders in the third sector, and the charities they lead, is a form of institutional misogynoir. The impact of misogynoir in the funding ecosystem is staggering. Research shows that in 2018, out of nearly $70 billion in foundation giving globally, less than half of one percent went to Black feminist social movements. Less than half of one percent. This means that charities like Glitch, whose work is led by and centres Black women, are overlooked when the solutions we originate and recommend would result in wide-ranging improvement in the lives of everyone online. This, then, is an issue of trust.

When we can evidence that our solutions would improve the lives of Black women and all others, What prevents funders and decision-makers from taking chances with Black women when they take chances with other groups? When we can outline productive, innovative and creative ways to use diverse pots of funding, how might our collective impact be reinvigorated by challenging exclusions that leave Black women and Black-led charities behind? The change we need requires more people to challenge their biases and trust Black women.

Lesson two: It's about more than money!

According to Dylan Sparks, Policy Advisor at Reset Tech, funders and allies could think more expansively about the resources available to them that might benefit charities and their leaders. When there’s not a specific fund or when budgets have been allocated for the year, alongside adding charities to future funding lists, organisations can make products within their corporate arsenal available. From leadership training, branding and creative support, invitations to networking events and press opportunities, organisations can give, even when money is not an option.

“I think that’s something funders might often forget: it’s not just what you can give, in terms of resources and support; it’s the networks, connections and other partnerships with other funders that you have to offer to grantees.” – Dylan Sparks, Reset Tech

Lesson three: Positive experiences with funders have more to do with individuals than institutions

Our Founder and CEO, Seyi Akiwowo , lovingly refers to Will Perrin of Carnegie UK as “the white guy with the cheat codes”. Will is one of the allies within the funding ecosystem who utilises his access and position to disrupt a system that withholds funding and support from Black founders and Black-led charities. The impact of allies cannot be underestimated. As Nani Jansen Reventlow , founder of Systemic Justice, made clear at our Funders Roundtable, positive experiences with funders have more to do with individuals than institutions:

“What’s been helpful is people who understand the system and help you navigate it, and who can help you make the sell, so to speak.” – Nani Jansen Reventlow, Systemic Justice

Catherine Miller , Director of the European AI & Society Fund, says her experience as a charity CEO informs her experience as a funder. With firsthand experience of how the system places remarkable pressure on civil society leaders, from the application process to reporting and events, she sets herself and her team a challenge: Does this process make sense for the people who have to do the work?

“Put yourself in the shoes of the person doing the work and then listen to what they need. You’re likely to do something more useful than not.” – Catherine Miller, EU AI & Society Fund

In this way, allyship offers up two important questions for those who’d like to be part of movements effecting change: How can I use my position to challenge processes that exclude marginalised people and communities? What do I have within my power to improve for good?

Lesson four: We need to win the win

Glitch’s commitment to ending online abuse manifests in various streams of work. We create free resources to empower vulnerable communities online, provide strategic and critical policy recommendations to big tech and government, and collaborate with wider movements to end violence against women and girls offline.

So, at any one time, previous wins (i.e. having women and girls named in the Online Safety Act) result in more work to sustain the wins (i.e. working with Ofcom to ensure effective implementation of the Online Safety Act). This is true across the streams of our work: free resources must be consistently updated to incorporate new learning and approaches, our policy and advocacy teams must adapt to changes in leadership and shifting political landscapes, and we create or collaborate on new campaigns to keep driving change.

This means it’s crucial that funders and digital citizens alike understand our work as cyclical, not linear. This helps manage the expectations of funders, who look for hallmark wins to hang their proverbial hats on, and digital citizens, who may turn away from the work once a milestone we campaigned on has been reached. In other words, our work is best described by the maxim: we need to win the win.

Lesson five: Metrics are only as helpful as the impact they measure

Couched within opportunities to reform a funding system that continues to exclude Black women and the charities they lead, is a need to reassess how we measure impact. Glitch, for example, works with funders on programmes about “media literacy”, which improve the awareness and understanding among digital citizens about online abuse: how to spot it, protect yourself from it and show up for others when they’re experiencing it. Impact measurement, therefore, must be two-fold: the actual number of workshops delivered, coupled with an assessment of feeling: “Do you feel empowered to navigate the internet more safely after this workshop with Glitch?”

Too often, there’s a preference for scale, or sheer numbers, when the more muscular measurement to build upon is more subjective. It’s in the qualitative data that we learn how to refine and improve our resources, for example. Impact measurement is effectively a measure of value: “Is this charity or programme or leader worth our investment?” But fiscal value and transformative value are seldom the same thing, and funders who work closely with charities to understand where fiscal value and transformative value meet are those more likely involved with system-changing work.

Lesson six: Find them and fund them

Nani Jansen Reventlow affirms what Black women leaders have long known: “Leading any organisation as a Black woman takes twice, if not three- or four-times, the amount of resilience and leadership than the people who are currently best funded to do so. Black women are more than worth your investment.” Yet within the funding ecosystem, data shows that funders prefer to support organisations and founders who most closely resemble their own lived experience and identity. Even when encouraged to build more diverse grantee lists, institutions and organisations will lament being unable to find organisations that would diversify their effectiveness and impact. Glitch joins Nani in saying that’s not quite good enough, friend: “You must find them and fund them.”

“I’m always surprised to hear ‘we don’t know where they are’. We engaged a very deep community engagement process: we managed, on a shoestring budget, to map thousands of organisations working across Europe in social justice. We tripled that dataset this year, again on a shoestring budget. If you’re a well-resourced foundation or funder, there’s no excuse.” – Nani Jansen Reventlow, Systemic Justice

At Glitch, we are grateful to be supported by a small number of funders who have evidenced that proactive, flexible and trusting investments in our charity and mission are a worthy allocation of their resources. With the support of the EU AI & Society Fund, Carnegie UK and Reset Tech, we’ve been able to deliver our work in caring and sustaining ways. And we share these lessons for two reasons: 1) we, too, are always learning about what to look for, which relationships to nurture and where to hold firm; and 2) we want to invite others into the collaborative process of changing the world for the better.

If these lessons have inspired you to action and you’d like to learn more about the diverse ways to support our mission to end online abuse, fill out this short form and we’ll be in touch after a hard-earned holiday break.

And for those who have the means to support Glitch with a donation, we welcome your generosity with immense gratitude .

From all of us at Glitch, may your holiday period be restful and joy-filled.