EDI
Bedfordshire and Luton Community Foundation is committed to transforming the way we distribute funding to ensure it is equitable, transparent and representative.
We believe it is imperative for philanthropy to become more equitable, diverse and inclusive in its practices for three main reasons:
1. Advance the common good. Those of us in philanthropy have dedicated ourselves to promoting the common good. Advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in our organisations and grantmaking helps us live up to our values.
2. Increase effectiveness. Diverse perspectives within foundations can help build better relationships with grantees, improve team problem-solving, and lead to better outcomes.
3. Enhance impact. The communities we serve, our partners in business and government, are becoming increasingly diverse. We need to understand and reflect this rich variety of perspectives in order to achieve greater impact.
Delivering This Commitment
BLCF has an EDI Strategic Framework that shows our commitment to supporting the most vulnerable and most disadvantaged in our communities and our own Strategic Plan: Local Focus, Lasting Change shows its core mission through 2 of its 3 Golden threads to.
1. Address inequality across all protected characteristics
2. Listen and learn from our community partners
The BLCF EDI Strategic Framework
BLCF has an EDI Strategic Framework that outline our commitment and processes for ensuring equity in all areas of our work and for all protected characteristics. BLCF is proud to be an Associate Member of BAOBAB Foundation, an alliance of local and national community organisations, private sector organisations, private philanthropists and trusts & foundations committed to empowerment and putting power where it matters with the community. We are also an active member of The Funders for Race Equalities Alliance, a group of charitable foundations working together to achieve race equality in the UK. The aim of the alliance is to increase funders’ focus on race equality; seeking more and better funding for race equality, with a key focus on BAME-led organisations; and improving meaningful racial representation within foundations. We are signed up to the IVAR – Institute for Voluntary Action Research, 8 Principles of open and trusted grants making to ensure we increase accessibility and openness in our work.
In 2024 we were part of the 2023/24 cohort that completed the Foundation Practice Rating. The result can be read HERE
Whilst we achieved and overall rating of B we scored lowest on diversity and therefore have focused here to address this.
Diversity
Since 2022 we have focused on diversity and as we move forward, we will do a deep diver into all protected characteristics to share what we are doing to reduce inequity there but address gaps in our knowledge and lived experiences. To ensure we fully understand the challenges.
As an organisation we are striving to be more diverse and to reflect the communities we serve. We are addressing this in the following ways.
Our People
Our staff and trustees reflect the communities we serve and do so through lived experience and protected characteristics.
We are working hard to recruit people with protected characteristic and those that bring lived experience to paid and volunteer roles at BLCF. To find out more about current paid and unpaid vacancies HERE
Our Grant Making
What we have delivered already
Our priority for last 2 years has been in diversity and going forward we will do more to engage other protected characteristics. Since 2022 we have delivered 5 grants, aimed primarily at/for diverse led groups and communities or those with wider protected characteristic to specifically address the inequity in funding. We delivered
1. Community Recovery Fund – aim to target most disadvantaged groups impact by covid , primarily those with disability and diverse communities. In total we awarded £1,094,678 benefiting 53,832 people.
2. Collaboration Funding – to group sustainable and transformational partnership between VCSE groups especially those working with the most marginalised communities. In total we awarded £294,046 benefiting 3,528 people
3. **Three rounds of Luton Citizens Fund –**aimed at reaching all wards in Luton with a fast track option for groups who face barriers to accessing funding. In total we awarded for £527,940 to 153 applicants with potentially 52,440 beneficiaries
4. Supported the Bedfordshire Community Support Fund (Windrush fund) – targeted grassroots groups and supported process of application writing. In total we awarded for £44,853 to 10 groups and 7075 beneficiaries.
5. Three rounds of the Stability Fund – to support core work of charities who engage with those with highest levels of needs and who face inequity. In total we have awarded £875,472 to 36 groups with 55,554 beneficiaries
Our annual grant making
Overall we deliver annually around £5m in grant funding. Our latest data for 2024-25 is here and a comparison can also be drawn to past years here https://blcf.org.uk/our-impact/
Comparing ourselves across the sector
We report all our grant making through the Funders for Race Equality Alliance (FREA) racial justice audit, and we continue to see positive results in our mission to address inequality as outlined in our strategic plan.
The audit looks at and holds funders to account in their aims to address the levels of inequality experienced by global majority communities and those experiencing racial injustice across the funding sectors and helps them to see where barriers can be removed. These findings show the national average compared to the results of BLCF and will be used to help us shape our thinking going forward.
2022-2023 saw 14 funders submit details of a total of 1897 grants, 1362 of which were included in the audit. The total value of the sample size was £64.3 million. Unlike most, BLCF continued to contribute all of our funding programmes across our regional spread to show a truly representative example of our work, rather than submitting a smaller sample. More information on the result of our audit can be found here https://blcf.org.uk/our-impact/#frea
More than diversity
Although our focus for the past 2 years has been on diversity we are always looking to support the work of groups with lived experience across a range of protected characteristics. Whilst we strive to support all we recognise there is always work to be done and will work hard to address this through our programme, INSIGHT, data and reach.
In 2023-2024 BLCF awarded the following grants against all the protected characteristics.
EDI Framework
Our new Strategy is delivered through our EDI framework to ensure we look at how we use the Listen, Learn Adapt and Change approach to inform our work.
