White Privilege and Goodmaking

NB: This is not it. This is not a token blog post. This is just the start of a conversation and learning process.

Until last week or so, I had made the assumption that there is under-representation of people of colour in the social enterprise and charity sector. I believed this to be true because it is my experience. I know more white social entrepreneurs and charity workers than I do people of Black and other ethnic origins. Recent events have me asking so many questions of myself, my assumptions and things that I have been told and not questioned or sufficiently researched and those that I have accepted and done nothing about.

Firstly, I needed to get my facts straight.

The NCVO’s UK Civil Society Almanac, 2019, reports that 91 per cent of the charity sector’s workforce is white, and that this have remained unchanged in six years.

ACEVO’s annual survey of leaders ACEVO’s Pay and Equalities survey 2019 found that only 3% of charity CEOs were BAME, and 92% of all charity trustees were white.

As of 2019, 13% of social enterprises are BAME led and 35% have BAME directors making social enterprises much more representative of the population as a whole.

Yes, the charity sector and charity leadership is woefully under represented but encouragingly the social enterprise fairs better.

So what next?

I’m interested in the ‘good making’ sector, it’s my job and my passion. I develop tools and learning experiences that support people doing this work. I regularly use examples from my own experience and others to support learning points and showcase best practice. When I do hear of interesting, thought-provoking projects, I tell others, share links, use them as examples in course materials. I contribute to their story being told and re-told. So how many examples relate to organisations led by BAME social entrepreneurs? It’s not none but it’s not many and I’m fairly sure it’s not representative. And so my actions of sharing and retelling and promoting and lifting up as examples are just compounding mine and others assumption as well as compounding the representation problem.

I have come to realise how passive I’ve been in how I find examples to refer to. Those I hear about are the ones I either see on my social media feeds or those sent to me by other people in my extensively white network. I say passively because these examples come to me, I rarely actively search out examples.

So step one of, oh-so-many steps, to address my white privilege in this area, is wanting to know more. I want to meet more and learn more from social entrepreneurs and charity leaders from a range of BAME backgrounds. I want to be able to help promote those ideas, charities and businesses that should be promoted and I want to work with others such as #charitysowhite to listen to the conversation about how under representation in the charity sector can change and what is appropriate for me to do to help.

To anyone interested in this micro slice of the issue, this is an invitation. An invitation to introduce me to BAME leaders and founders running interesting social enterprises and charities. An invitation to goodmakers to contact me directly and introduce themselves. It’s also a commitment from me to reach out and introduce myself to leaders and founders.

If you know of inspiring examples of creative solutions to social problems, collaborations, and unique resource models — please get in touch.