Digging Deeper - A call for scaled, sustained, and engaged investment into racial justice
“Organisations still have to work extremely hard to secure funding and gain trust with mainstream funders”
– Baobab review respondent
Baobab is here to support the scaling and liberating of resources for Black and Global Majority people resisting racial justice in the UK.
Our aims are simple, flexible, long-term and transformative support to our communities, groups and organisations.
We know the road to JUSTICE, UNITY, and FREEDOM is a long one, and together with our amazing community of members, radical friends and solidarity partners, we are walking it now, together.
In March 2021, Baobab launched its first research with a series of conversations which reflected on funder perspectives on the issues and steps needed to bring about change in our funding systems.
This was produced alongside and in collaboration with the Ubele Initiative, Future Foundations UK and the Funders for Race Equality Alliance, to whom we are grateful.
We made six key calls to action to the funding community:
Deliver on large scale, sustained (5 years +) and flexible funding to organisations led by and for Black and Global Majority people and communities experiencing racial injustice in the UK.
Address the significant disparities in funding provision for groups outside London and those tackling intersectional oppression at multiple levels.
Build strategic partnerships with organisations led by Black and Global Majority people and communities experiencing racial injustice to tackle
structural inequities across a range of social justice priorities.
Adopt transformative policies and practices to address inequities in large-scale fund distribution and to take ethical investment portfolios to the next level, focusing on anti-racist investing.
Improve cultural competency, representation and trauma-informed practices across funding to reduce harm, including fully acknowledging the leadership and labour of Black and Global Majority people in making this happen.
We need to prioritise transformative justice models integrating reparative and restorative approaches to funding and investments in our strategies and practices.
Check out our findings here:
“The report reinforced our desire to put racial justice and intersectionality at the heart of our new Housing and Homelessness funding strategy. It reminded us of the importance of multi-year core funding and our role in actively engaging with the sector; seeking out organisations who share our commitment to tackling root causes and that we can strategically partner with.”
Raji Hunjan, Director of Housing and Homelessness, Oak Foundation
