On Wednesday 18th August 2021, we were excited to welcome members of the GM Funders Forum BAME* Communities Collaboration group to hear from Forum member, Ella Sips, North West Manager at the Lloyds Bank Foundation.
Ella spoke about the work that the Foundation has done over the last year to support BAME-led groups and organisations to access funding more easily. She outlined the changes that they have made around their funding processes and the impact that this has had. You can read more about the Foundation’s racial equity journey on their website. Following Ella’s presentation, there was a chance for attendees to ask any questions, and to share insight and reflections.
It is great to see the collaboration group having an impact on funding in Greater Manchester. Funders have been able to refer grant-making organisations to others within the GM Funders Forum for support in developing their processes to be more inclusive, and to reach smaller BAME-led organisations through ‘meet the funder’ events.
In May 2021, Thea Monk who project managers the GM Funders Forum and Forum member Henry Ngawoofah from Young Manchester featured in the Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF) Trust and Foundation News, a magazine for members published three times a year. Thea spoke about the importance of collaboration throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and Henry highlighted how being a member of the BAME Collaboration Group has helped to create change in his organisation.
Wednesday 8th September 2021 saw the third online open event for GM Funders Forum members; Jim Cooke, Head of Funders’ Collaborative Hub at ACF spoke about the benefits and challenges of funder collaboration and explored how the Hub can support members of the GM Funders Forum. Dana Kohava Segal, international Fundraising and Management Consultant explored the linguistic barriers and unconscious biases we may be exercising as funders that prevent these people from securing funds. Thank you to everyone that was able to join us.
The Greater Manchester Funders Forum is jointly supported by GMCVO and 10GM, and facilitated by GMCVO. The Forum exists to enable independent grant makers, social investors and public sector funders to collaborate and coordinate programmes.
*GMCVO uses the BAME abbreviation as we believe it is widely understood, but we acknowledge many feel this term is inadequate and limiting. We are therefore currently reviewing of our use of the term. Our principle is to refer to individuals, organisations or networks by the terminology they themselves prefer.
