An update on how we’re supporting our partners
As part of Co-op, we believe our differences make us stronger, and we welcome and value everyone, regardless of their background or identity. We know we can work together to stand up, speak up and advocate for social justice and positive change. Alongside Co-op’s new inclusion strategy and the work they are doing to support communities, here at the Foundation, we are working to support our funded partners with issues that they face.
We’re aware that hate divides communities. We know co-operation builds them.
Last month, as minoritised and racialised communities in the UK were being impacted by far-right riots, the Co-op Foundation shared our statement of solidarity with those communities. We also made a commitment to speak to our impacted funded partners to see how we could help them.
Since then, we’ve been working on what further support we can offer our partners. We reached out to them individually to see what they needed, as we were aware this would be different for each of them.
Impact on our partners
I’m sad to say, some of our partners had to adapt their services out of safety fears, and some had to cancel them altogether. Some of those working with racialised groups, young people, refugees and those seeking asylum, reported their service users feeling afraid to go outside. Though the violence on our streets was thankfully short-lived, we cannot underestimate its impact on those communities targeted.
What we are doing
After reaching out to our partners with our message of solidarity we are now in conversation about how we can provide any additional support. This includes potential financial support and working with partners if they need to redirect their funding. This approach is a vital part of how we deliver on our commitment to be a flexible funder.
We’re acting on requests we have had from them. These have ranged from requests to share insights and learning to providing support for other organisations in their communities working to combat racism.
We are aware that scale and co-operation is needed to combat racism and support Black and global majority communities across the UK. This is why we are currently working alongside other funders, because there is a need to fund nationally and avoid replication. Through uniting with others in the funding community we hope to get funding to communities where the need is highest.
Next steps
We’ll continue to listen and learn from our partners through continued dialogue. We’ll be looking at all further requests from partners as they come in and discussing these at board level to see how we can accommodate them. We’ll continue to build solidarity, working alongside other funders to increase our reach and impact.
As we said our original statement of solidarity, actions speak louder than words. We are committed to doing everything we can to not only mitigate the impact of the far right’s actions in August, but to deliver on our own commitment to equity and equality, in line with our co-operative values.