Communities Experiencing Racial Inequality III (360G-CR-4926931)

Imkaan is a second-tier infrastructure organisation serving the black minoritised and migrant women’s community. Established in 1998, the idea for Imkaan was to create a federation for the specialist BAME women’s sector. At the time, BAME organisations did not have a nationally representative body that could advocate on their behalf. BAME women’s organisations raised concerns about justice issues, the need for greater equality and representation, and the disproportionate impact of funding and resourcing they experienced. Their voices were seldom heard in shaping policy and strategy and that they lacked local presence in strategic decision making.

Communities Experiencing Racial Inequality III (360G-CR-4926931)

AHPN have a desire to grow as an organisation with increased staff but also to develop their intellectual advocacy and political lobbying. This would give them the confidence to speak Truth to Power. AHPN want to build on their learning from phase 1 both what worked well and what didn’t. They would like to develop a more rigorous approach and ensure safeguarding and due diligence are fit for purpose. They are currently working on these issues internally and have made considerable progress. Like many organisations, they are having many individuals having to cover different roles. They would benefit in having the additional financial support to allow certain members of staff to specialise in different fields – separating delivery from administrative, and then also having the space to develop the infrastructure of this grant giving area going forward. Although they have developed a degree of bid writing expertise they do not currently have the capacity to utilise this fully. This means that they will have to expand to fully realise their grant-winning potential Organisation would benefit from having certain policies and procedures, not just relating to processes regarding grant delivery, but in a more expansive sense. AHPN would benefit to some extent from a skills audit, recognising what skills exist in the organisation and where they can grow. This is especially the case if they want to expand the grant giving work. AHPN would like to have the confidence, the means and the support to both secure larger grants, and to engineer themselves into a position to assist other Black led organisations to secure these. Onward grant making: AHPN would like to work through a trust-based approach and one which democratises grant giving to the communities which they work with. AHPN would like to make large grants in September 2023 to organisations in their network that are delivering real impact. They would like to fund organisations led by and working with communities who are of African descent as they feel phase 1 highlighted that they are in most need. AHPN have not fully determined an area of focus or theme yet but will explore both their area of expertise in health and wellbeing as well as the cost-of-living crisis, though it was felt that September 2023 maybe too late for the latter.