FREA Racial Justice Audit
2024 was the fourth time BLCF contributed to the FREA racial justice audit, showing our commitment to addressing 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.
2023-2024 saw 20 funders submit details of a total of 1813 grants in the audit. The total value of the sample size was £133.3 million. 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.
These findings show the national average compared to the results of BLCF. This year, we have remained on track with our percentage of grants awarded to groups led by representatives of the communities they serve (defined as 50% of management and 75% of the board), and are above the national average of 22% of grants going to groups led by those with lived experience of their beneficiaries. We have also remained on track for the percentage of grants awarded to groups led by people who have experienced racial inequality, with BLCF reporting 35% against a national average of 24%.
Nationally, groups that work to benefit Asian/Asian British communities receive the lowest percentage of grants, which is not reflected in our grant giving. 13.5% of our total grants went to groups with a specific charitable aim to support Asian and Asian British communities, compared to a national average of 2%. We are in line with the national average of 9% of total grants benefiting organisations benefitting Black/African/Caribbean led organisations at 9.5% of our total grants. We continue our commitment to reflecting the diversity of our communities across Luton and Bedfordshire across our grant making and will continue to look at ways to bolster this commitment.
We have continued to look to address the short-term nature of our funding, which remains a core challenge to supporting our grantees in working to address root causes or symptoms of racial inequity in funded work, and are continuing to work with funders to support multi-year grants to support organisations in delivering core work and to look at specific interventions in consultation with the community.
