Lucy’s message went out in our first ‘Year in Review’ newsletter, replacing our traditional Report on Activities. You can sign up to future newsletters here.
As an independent human rights and social justice foundation we are very aware how challenging and difficult the past year has been for many people and particularly for our partners in the UK, and in Africa. The cost-of-living crisis, the continued impact of the COVID pandemic, attacks on human rights and civil society and the rise of authoritarian, right-wing politics have all had a major impact.
We continue to have three different, focused grant programmes, arts and mental health; supporting UK civil society in the use of the law to achieve social justice and the international programme, empowering LGBTI communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite these quite different areas of work, we have found that there are underlying issues which resonate across all three programmes. The need to address the enormous pressure on frontline staff and volunteers and the toll taken on individual’s health and wellbeing. The need to rebuild capacity after the trauma of COVID and the importance of support that is flexible, responsive and respectful of the context in which groups and organisations are working. And the value of collaboration and learning between and across organisations working in similar fields.
One of the most positive common issues that was very evident last year has been the importance of active partnerships. From the Foundation’s point of view, that means being a good partner to our grantees and also partnering with other funders and organisations that can leverage professional, technical or policy expertise to help achieve the objectives of the respective programmes, as you will see below.
Amongst much else, the Arts Programme has continued to focus on supporting the arts and mental health sector to be more reflective of the UK population and to provide opportunities for Global Majority artists in this field, including a successful gathering at the venue of one of our grantees Brixton House in June.
In the Arts programme we now have joint funds with three of the national Arts Councils operating in the UK. A joint fund with Creative Scotland made its first grants this year to 13 organisations working with people with mental health problems. A new joint fund with the Arts Council Northern Ireland will focus on supporting the arts and mental health sector there. And we are now in the third year of our partnership with the Arts Council of Wales, which supports all the health boards in Wales to deliver “Arts and Minds” projects engaging people with mental health problems.
We also partnered with the Arts Council of England in 2023, jointly funding a successful creative ageing conference in Newcastle in October (creative ageing being a theme we have continued to support from our previous Arts programme). We will also be jointly funding a conference on creativity and young people’s mental health in May 2024.
As well as continuing to support a portfolio of dedicated organisations using legal action to address racism in the criminal justice system, the Strengthening Civil Society programme also developed strong new partnerships last year, particularly around human rights and access to justice. This includes a partnership with the City Bridge Foundation for a £1.75 million fund supporting human rights-based approaches to help communities in London achieve tangible change; making a significant grant to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Fund hosted by the Community Foundation of Northern Ireland and being a founding funder of a new Scottish Human Rights Fund alongside the Corra Foundation. We also gave a grant to the Access to Justice Foundation to highlight how the use of the law, including legal advice, can be used to bring about social change and galvanise independent funders to support this work.
As well as continuing to support the three Africa-based activist-led foundations (ISDAO in West Africa, UHAI in Eastern Africa and The Other Foundation in Southern Africa), the Baring Foundation’s International Development programme has been working intensively for a number of years on a joint programme with the UK Government to support grassroots LGBT+ organisations. This has finally born fruit. In November the Equal Safe and Free partnership fund for LGBT+ rights was launched. This is a new multi-donor fund where the Baring Foundation alongside the UK Government Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and other leading private foundations will support grass roots LGBT+ organisations in the Global South and East. Worth £25 million over the next four years, the fund represents a 25% increase (compared to 2019/2020 levels) of funding to these regions.
I want to thank my fellow trustees and particularly our previous Treasurer, David Elliott, who retired in the summer. We welcomed Toby Nangle as a new Trustee and to our Investment Committee. Shauneen Lambe has taken over as Chair of the Strengthening Civil Society Committee, stepping down as Vice Chair and Rob Berkeley has become the Foundation’s Vice Chair. My thanks also to ING Bank who remain generous and supportive hosts.
The Director and our small staff team have initiated and developed the wide range of work described in this newsletter. I am grateful to them. Most importantly, we continue to find inspiration in the work of our grantees promoting social justice and human rights in very uncertain times. Our sincere thanks to all of them and our best wishes for the year ahead.