Insight Meeting: Why 2022 is an important year for democratic engagement

To ensure that our members are informed about how current events, demographic trends and policy decisions affect the lives of the communities we serve, London Funders hosts monthly member-exclusive insight meetings. The purpose of these meetings will be to provide a space where members can access reports, intelligence, and data on cross-cutting topics that are affecting Londoners right now.

With local elections taking place across London in May, our first member insight meeting of the year focussed on why democratic participation will be important in 2022 and what funders need to know.

Research from the London Voices Project shows that civil society organisations across London are making a huge contribution to civic participation (e.g. volunteering, community events, signing petitions). However, only around a third have organised initiatives around voter registration or other democratic awareness activities. There is a clear gap in how comfortable civil society feels organising community events, compared to events related to elections. As a result, London Voices called on funders, civic, democratic and political institutions to support civil society to deliver non-party political democratic awareness initiatives.

This has become even more urgent with the Election Bill returning to Parliament this year – a piece of legislation which has attracted opposition from civil society and parliamentarians because it will require voters to show photo ID before voting, a move which “could see 3.5m people who lack ID locked out of the ballot box while making it harder for everyone to vote”

We were delighted to be joined by expert speakers in democratic and civic participation who have been involved with the London Voices project to discuss what 2022 holds for democratic participation and funders role in supporting it:

• Dr Alexandra Bulat, Young Europeans Network Co-Manager, the3Million and author of London Voices report
• Fiona Weir, Chief Executive, Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust
• Dr Elisabeth Pop, Lead Officer for Active Citizenship and Democratic Participation, GLA

Resources from the meeting can be found via the links below:

• Data insight 
• Meeting notes 
• London Voices presentation