5 years of solidarity.
What next?
Five years ago, when Camden Giving was set up as a charity, someone nervously asked the question: “what happens if businesses just don’t want to be part of this work?” Thankfully that hasn’t proven to be the case, but we still have questions....
How big is the social impact of businesses in Camden?
It’s huge. 5 years later, hundreds of grants given, and tens of thousands of people supported, we know businesses do indeed want to be part of this work. The positive impact of businesses in Camden reaches every corner of this borough. From Hat Trick productions supporting people with autism to access the job market, to Google funding digital artwork sessions for black primary school children, British Land making space available for community groups, and Camden Watch Co making a watch to help fund youth leaders. These acts of solidarity are too many for one blog.
And each of the businesses who have given funding to Camden, have also given up power and transferred it straight to the hands of people who live here. The power to decide how money is spent is easy to take for granted, but for someone who has experienced abuse, poverty, or discrimination, the ability to give a grant to a charity that will stop someone else experiencing the same thing is part of healing from that pain.
Our supporters learn from meeting the amazing charities that they fund and over the last 5 years they have done so in droves. Volunteering, mentoring, becoming Trustees and sharing what they have with the people of Camden.
What is the untapped potential?
It’s tragic that 5 years into Camden Giving’s work, poverty and inequality is continuing to grow. Within neighbourhoods, things are changing for the better, but the inequality continues to exclude some people more than others. That’s why Black Londoners are twice as likely as White Londoners to say they are struggling to make ends meet.
We talk about ‘inequality’ as a thing, a monster that we need to fight, but it’s not, it’s a system of man-made structures that were designed before any of us were born and we’ve learnt to recreate them (mostly) without even knowing we're doing it. We can also learn to find equitable solutions. That’s why we’re a participatory grantmaker, because the way we work together as people, businesses and charities of Camden matters.
There are world-leading examples of how businesses and communities work together in Camden, and we think these strategies and initiatives can and should be applied across the country. For instance, Google paying local people to co-design the huge community space within their new building, to Zappi using their products to help better understand inequality and participation in Camden. By working with Camden Giving acts, both of these become pieces of a larger puzzle, the insights we gain from Zappi Store, for example, can be shared with the people who co-design community spaces and, collectively, our impact grows.
Over the coming years we need to scale this approach to match the size of the structures we’re pulling down. To be clear, that means more money needs to be put in the hands of under-funded community leaders who are finding new solutions based on joy, trust and community. Like Nazma Begum, who runs ‘BSL and Biriani’ club because she wants communities to come together with joy and create solidarity for deaf and racialised community members. The amount of funding in the hands of people like Nazma, does not match the scale of the issue. Community leaders like Nazma should be able to access funding that enables them to grow their impact at the same rate that businesses are growing. This isn’t the same as paying taxes, it’s something altogether more joyous (not more important) than taxes.
The businesses that meaningfully contribute to the community are those that recognise they can play an active role in positive change and allocate resources accordingly, unlike companies that give out of obligation (legal, reputational or other). Less “we’re doing this because we need to tick a box” and more “we’re doing this because we should”.
How can we keep improving our approach?
We all participate in propping up the structures that allow some people in this borough to thrive and others to struggle. These structures and systems are manmade; we build and maintain them, but we can also dismantle them. Camden citizens always have the answers to these challenges, and by ensuring they can participate in and lead social change, we will find a more equitable future in this borough. This is partly through ensuring citizens with experience of the inequality having funding to lead community projects, and also about being able to participate in everything Camden has to offer: the cultural institutions, the jobs, the outdoor spaces and office spaces.
The good news is that where participation is already taking place, it is benefitting everyone. The benefits of more diverse workforces are well documented, as are those of staff pride in businesses. Participating in the local community isn’t a fluffy thing to do on the side of corporate life, it’s critical to successful businesses.
These aren’t acts of charity, they are acts of solidarity and have more in common with the work being done by ‘Diversity and Equity teams’ than by ‘Charity Teams’.
Camden’s Businesses locate themselves here because of the transport and the economic power of London, these are institutions built on the theft and labour of working class, black and brown people. Diversity, equity and inclusivity needs to be central to future relationships between London’s businesses and it’s communities. The good news is that DE&I teams have existed within companies for a decade, as we move a decade in to the future, we’ll see community engagement and DE&I start to become one and the same and achieve a greater impact.
Solidarity, not charity, is the answer. No business located itself in Camden for the cheap rent, let’s be honest. They’re here because this is a special place, businesses do well here, they’re here for the great transport link. Those transport links are the same reason that some of Camden’s older social housing was built, to house railway workers, and that social housing now houses some of the most deprived communities in the country. Businesses are here for Camden’s diversity and culture, but those diverse communities have histories routed in injustices that are still present today.
Businesses, unlike government, have the potential to think long-term about how they support inequality. Most of the businesses we work with will be around for a while, meaning they can support the sustainable growth of community leaders.
As we look to the future, we want businesses to start viewing their role in their communities differently. In 2030, we should look back and say that the things that needed to change in Camden, have happened and been led by local leaders with solidarity. from Camden’s growing business sector.
Is ending local inequality a bit of an unachievable mission?
Maybe, but then again maybe not. There’s enough resources in Camden for everyone to have enough to eat, enough wonderful people for everyone to feel celebrated for who they are and enough opportunities for everyone to make choices that make them happy.
We believe that citizens can unlock the impossible, if everyone pulls in the same direction, as we are doing through the We Make Camden Kit, then we can shift Camden’s inequality. We also know that much of the work we need to do will happen outside of the ‘walls’ of Camden Giving, that’s one reason that we have written an open letter to our supporters, highlighting how they can play a deeper role in ending Camden’s racial inequalities.
As we move into our next 5 years, Camden Giving will continue to provide much needed funding. We’re proud to be participatory grantmakers. We aren’t “making space at the table” for people with lived experience of inequality, we are picking up the table and putting it in communities where inequality bites the hardest. But as we move forward, we need to make sure that tour table grows in size to accommodate everyone that needs to be around it and that it has influence beyond our own walls.
What can businesses do right now?
Businesses are great at creating opportunities for local people, but there’s a lot of duplication and some people who aren’t being supported. Read our Connections report and consider how your business could fill these gaps.
Read and share our report into Racial Inequalities in Camden and use it as a starting point in any action you take.
Make sure that community leaders have the funding to learn, grow their work and take a day off from time to time. Over the next 5 years we want to grow our Equality Fund so that it is giving £1.2million to 20 local community leaders per year. Crucially these aren’t leaders who are just responding to crisis's, they are tackling underlying injustices within Camden, the work they are doing is difficult and slow and they need to be resourced. Book a meeting with us to chat about how your business can financially support community leaders.
Collectively, Camden’s businesses are unique, they are financially backing participatory grantmaking in a way that businesses i other parts of the country aren’t doing. As a borough we are leading a revolution in who decides how money is spent, what we do together next matters in Camden and beyond. But as we look to the future we need to find a different way for businesses to give local people the funding they need to dismantle unequal structures for the long-term.