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Q: Sammy, can you tell us a bit about why you decided to get involved with participatory grant making in the first place?
Sammy: I was encouraged to apply by a friend who runs her own voluntary group in Camden. I live in the area and have quite a bit of experience working with local VCSE groups. But this was something I’d never done before, so it was also a bit daunting. I knew nothing about funding but I thought, ‘Okay, I'm gonna go for this’. I've learned so much from being involved in panels the last couple of years....I didn't realise it at the time, but it goes way beyond just reading the application. It’s a lot more than that, and it's definitely opened up my eyes, my ears and my mind. It’s given me the opportunity to meet new people, and share our experience, love and passion for groups in our local community.
Natasha: It’s interesting because Sammy is not one of our ‘usual’ panellists. About two thirds of our panellists are not involved with the voluntary sector in any way. It’s really good to have a mixture of people like Sammy that can speak to the sector’s experience but also people that are coming to it with completely fresh eyes.
Q: What was it like being part of a PGM panel?
Sammy: It was really positive! We got anti-racism training before we started reviewing applications which meant we all went into it with a non-judgemental, impartial mindset.
I also learnt a lot about how we could work together as a group of residents, understanding each other’s perspectives and being mindful of each other as well. We definitely had challenging moments where we’ve had to work through our disagreements, but I think that’s healthy and meant we were able to be more honest with each other.
Q: Natasha – how do you deal with tensions that might arise on a panel? As a funder, do you step in and try to mediate, or do you leave it to the panellists to work out any disagreements that might arise?
Natasha: While there are tensions sometimes, it’s not as much as you might think. There is so much discourse about how divided communities are, but we’ve actually found that when people get together, they’re really patient with each other. When you bring together a diverse group of people – some who might be neurodiverse – it heightens people’s patience within a room because they’re consciously thinking about being inclusive. As a team we’ve sort of readied ourselves to deal with instances of transphobia, Islamophobia and antisemitism coming up more in panels but actually, we’ve not seen that come up. It’s quite the opposite, there is a huge amount of solidarity between panellists.
We also have a voting model so at the end of the day, we fund the projects that get the most votes. But we tend to interrogate the themes that are emerging – typically we see women-led projects being supported less than other project so we will reflect that back to the panel and ask if they are happy with making that decision.
To believe that people who aren’t white men sitting in boardrooms can’t think about the long-term and can’t think about complex things is rooted in massive bias, caught up in ageism, sexism, racism and ableism
Q: Natasha, can you tell us a bit more about what happens to people after they’ve been part of one of your panels? Are they assisting with the one panel, or do they end up becoming involved longer-term with Camden Giving’s grant making?
Natasha: Any Camden citizen who has been given a grant, who has run a community project or sat on one of our grant making panels automatically joins our alumni programme. This is already about 370 people in total. They are asked to vote four times a year through a voting platform called Plinth, on things like our grant making strategy. This year for example, we asked people to vote on whether or not we should increase the size of smaller grants with the knowledge that it would we have less grants to give. So, we recorded a video, explaining both sides of the argument and giving people as much information as possible so we present it in the most unbiased way we can. And everyone who is getting that vote has already done some training with us.
I think we’ve seen that for some residents, being involved in grant making can open out other opportunities locally, as they can see what can be done beyond what they thought was possible. I’d say this is particularly the case for residents who don’t have any previous experience of the voluntary sector. It’s hard to measure this, but when people have been historically excluded from decision-making and told they can’t be trusted, there can be a big improvement to their mental health when they are given power to make decisions.
Q: What’s being part of the alumni programme been like for you Sammy?
Sammy: That’s been good, having Camden Giving staff go through all the elements of what a decision means is really helpful and helps get a better understanding of what we are voting for.
Q: Sammy, is there anything you would like to see done differently by other funders?
Sammy: As a way of the VCSE groups reporting on their grants, I did a lot of coffee chats with them a year after they secured funding from Camden Giving. What’s come out of these chats is the passion they have for their communities. But they do find applying for and reporting on their grants really daunting so having this in-person chat as a reporting mechanism is a lot more beneficial. So, what I hope for is that instead of reading applications, funders go down to visit these potential VSC groups and really get a sense of what they do and why they are applying for funding.
Natasha: Just to add that there is no way our staff team could do all of the things Sammy mentioned, from a practical point of view. We have so many more people talking to grantees and community members than we could possibly dream of having as a staff team. And we couldn’t capture that rich knowledge Sammy was talking about through a survey for example, we can only gather that by having panellists and community members talking directly to the projects we’ve funded.
If you are interested in trialling participatory grantmaking, Camden Giving have created a PGM toolkit for London Funders’ members and place-based funders. The toolkit outlines the benefits of PGM, core values and how to work well with partners. Check it out here.
