Advancing racial justice

The Just Foundations Initiative (JFI) was a group of foundation chief executives working to advance racial justice in our foundations and the sector more broadly. We came together in a personal capacity to build our understanding, stretch ourselves, exchange experiences, ideas and challenges – all to embolden our action on racial justice.

The group was formed in response to a session led by Fatima Iftikhar and Fozia Irfan, as part of ACF’s webinar on foundations and racial justice in June 2020. Our aim was to create space so we could reflect on the power and privilege we hold as white chief executives. In particular, to take responsibility for long overdue action to address racial injustice in our organisations and our sector. 

Several chief executives responded to our 'founding' tweet, and four of us began meeting in mid-July. We started by getting to know each other, working out how the group would run and agreeing ground rules. 

Forming an agenda for action

One crucial point from the outset was accountability: how to ensure we were guided by the calls from people of colour for change within the foundation sector. As a result, we formulated our Agenda for Action.

The JFI decided not to follow a “curriculum” approach, which was already well served by the DEI Coalition – a movement for change within the philanthropic sector. Instead, we agreed to take a more fluid, responsive peer-to-peer approach. We focused on where we were each currently at, as well as what we were dealing with in our own and our organisations' development. Our meetings were initially structured as an initial “go round”, where everyone shared their current issues associated with advancing racial justice. This was followed by discussion of a mutually agreed topic related to the above agenda for action. 

Expanding our group

In December 2020, the initial group decided to invite others to join. We changed our name from 'The White Chief Execs Group' to the Just Foundations Initiative (JFI). Following a general call-out on Twitter and some direct approaches by JFI members, five new chief executives joined (one of whom stepped down in June 2021).

The expanded group met for the first time in early February 2021, with another new member joining in July 2021. We had chief executives from family, corporate and private foundations, local and national bodies, large and small grant makers. 

The way we worked

The JFI had no chair, organiser or leader. It was a collective of individuals who shared responsibility for the group as well as for our own learning and action on racial justice. We felt the group of nine was about the optimum size to allow for trust to develop and for everyone to have an opportunity to contribute. We covered many topics including: 

• the importance of strong recruitment practices in improving the diversity of staff teams and boards 
• different approaches to building trustee commitment to this agenda 
• the dilemmas of trying to work systematically vs. grasping opportunities for action as they arise
• keeping a focus on this agenda amid competing priorities 
• the findings of our respective Funders for Race Equality Alliance funding audits and our own equity audits 
• steps towards learning about and considering the implications of the origins of foundation wealth 
• personal actions outside work that demonstrate our commitment to shift power and redistribute resources. 

Another part of our commitment to accountability was publishing notes of our meetings.

The value of meeting together 

The meetings provided an opportunity for us to share some of the opportunities and challenges we were experiencing in trying to advance racial justice in our roles. They were also a space where we could support and challenge each other and exchange ideas for action. Our roles and the nature of white supremacy mean we hold a significant amount of power and privilege. The JFI supported us to use that power and privilege to advance racial justice in our sector, and, crucially, to account for these efforts.