Funding Through Growth and Transition: What Philanthropy Can Learn from the Race Equity Programme – Part 2

In our previous blog, we explored the Catch-22 facing many racial justice organisations: expected to grow in order to demonstrate impact, yet often becoming more vulnerable as they do so.

The experiences of organisations within the Clothworkers' Foundation Racial Equity Programme suggest that this challenge is not inevitable. They point towards a different way of funding, one that recognises that organisational development is rarely linear and that meaningful social change requires more than investment alone.

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Trusting Organisations to Lead

A central lesson from the Race Equity Programme is the importance of funders trusting their partners and being willing to hold risk rather than defer it. Too often, organisations are expected to absorb the uncertainty that comes with growth while funders remain at a distance.

Yet if philanthropy is serious about supporting racial justice, risk cannot sit solely with those already operating with the least margin for error. Trust-based relationships create space for organisations to be honest about the challenges they face. They enable genuine partnership rather than performance and allow support to be shaped by what organisations actually need rather than what funders assume they need.

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Why Core Funding Matters

Core funding plays a vital role in making this possible. It enables organisations to operate strategically rather than reactively and allows them to extend their planning horizons beyond immediate funding cycles. While the Foundation's support is provided as an initial three-year commitment, this kind of flexible funding can still fundamentally shift how organisations think about the future.

As one leader explained: "...now we're able to start looking 10 years ahead, which is not something that a lot of organisations have the privilege of being able to do." That shift matters. It creates the headspace to strengthen organisational infrastructure, invest in staff, build partnerships and respond more effectively to community needs.

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Creating the Conditions for Innovation

Core funding does something else that is often overlooked: it creates the conditions for innovation. Many of the most transformative ideas begin long before they are fundable. They require experimentation, relationship building and sustained effort before they can be translated into programmes, projects or proposals.

Without flexible funding, much of this work never gets off the ground. Core funding provides organisations with the runway to develop ideas, test approaches and create the foundations for future investment.

Rethinking What Success Looks Like

If philanthropy is serious about advancing racial justice, it may also need to reconsider how it defines success. Growth is not always the most meaningful measure of impact. Nor should organisational turnover be treated as the primary indicator of health or effectiveness. Some organisations will scale significantly. Others will remain relatively small while playing indispensable roles within communities and wider ecosystems. Both models have value. Meaningful social change depends on a diverse ecosystem of organisations performing different but complementary functions. This includes Black-led infrastructure organisations, whose role is often overlooked or undervalued.

There can be an assumption that generic infrastructure support is sufficient. Yet Black-led organisations often navigate challenges shaped by systemic racism, chronic underinvestment and exclusion from networks of power. Black-led infrastructure organisations bring specialist expertise, cultural understanding and trusted relationships that are difficult to replicate elsewhere. Funders therefore need to recognise the importance of Black-led infrastructure organisations, community-based organisations and those that sit somewhere in between.

The goal should not be growth for growth's sake, but ensuring organisations have the resources they need to fulfil their mission.

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Moving Beyond a Failure of Imagination

Perhaps most importantly, philanthropy must challenge its assumptions about what Black-led organisations can become. For too long, many organisations have been viewed through a lens of scarcity. They are seen as niche and specialist, and through this lens, it is almost inevitable that they would remain small.

Yet there is no reason why Black-led organisations should not feature among the UK's largest and most influential charities. The question is not whether they have the capability but whether funding systems are prepared to support that possibility.

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Funding the Full Journey

The experiences of organisations within the Racial Equity Programme point to a deeper truth: social change is not linear. Organisations evolve in response to the needs of the communities they serve. They experience periods of growth, consolidation, experimentation and transition. If philanthropy continues to reward growth without supporting the transitions that growth requires, it risks leaving some of the most impactful organisations stranded.

Supporting racial justice therefore requires more than investment. It requires a willingness to walk alongside organisations, not only when they are visible, not only when they appear safe, but in the complex and often uncertain space in between. That is where trust is built. And ultimately, where lasting change becomes possible.

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This two-part blog was written by Natalie Cleary of Liberating Knowledge, and Dee Breacker and Derek Bardowell of Ten Years’ Time. Liberating Knowledge and Ten Years’ Time are the Learning Partners to our Racial Equity Programme, and have been working with The Clothworkers’ Foundation and the four Racial Equity grantholders over the last three years.

Click here to read part 1 of this blog, we explore what we are learning from the Clothworkers' Foundation Racial Equity Programme about the funding trap facing racial justice organisations.

The Racial Equity Programme provides core funding to support the strategic development and growth of the four organisations, and these blogs describe the ‘funding trap’ that can hinder racial equity organisations as they grow, as well as the way funders can act to avoid this.

Click here to read Part One.

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