Agenda:

1. Approval of notes of the last meeting
2. Sharing any current issues / topics / dilemmas related to the group’s focus
3. Expanding the membership of the Group
4. Whether to engage with other groups/organisations
5. Any points arising from the ACF conference last week
6. Agenda, date and leader of next session.

Notes:

1) Notes of the last meeting were approved by all.

2)  Sharing any current issues / topics / dilemmas related to the group’s focus

Key topics we discussed in this section included:

• Stepping our grant support up in 2020/21 and board discussions concerning this
• ACF’s Stronger Foundations Cross Cutting Themes paper and Briefing for Chairs paper and the fact they do not include racial justice within the documents
• How groups of foundations with issues in common (eg family foundations, corporate foundations, etc) might come together to support each other to work through the Stronger Foundations framework within their organisations
• Staff recruitment and integration – particularly when the new staff intake represents a significant diversification of the team
• The EDI/Power and Privilege strategies currently being developed within some of our foundations.

3)  Expanding the membership of the Group:

3.1 The group agreed that we should try to expand our membership in order:

• to encourage and support other Chief Execs to take action on racial justice.
• to add to the momentum for change on this issue in the foundation sector.

and there was a discussion of how best to do this whilst continuing to have good discussion and input from every attendee.

3.2 If a high number of new attendees are interested in joining the group could we create new learning circles where we are able to share the model, structure and suggested agendas to share our learning?

3.3 James has agreed to speak to the Funders Alliance for Racial Equity (FARE) to communicate the purpose of our group.

3.4 The group agreed that we should add our names and the foundation we are CEO of to the Just Foundations website. We will highlight that we attend this group in a personal capacity. We will then add an info@justfoundations.org email address for people to contact the group directly. Joe to check this with Paul Carbury.

3.5  The group agreed to use our personal comms channels to invite others to join the group.

3.6 James to prepare tweets for all to share and a draft for Funder Network. Get feedback before we go live with invitation. 14^th December – invitation to go out.

3.7 We will offer a conversation with one of the original group members to anyone that wants to join and invite them to the next meeting which has been set for Friday 5 February 2021.

3.8 February’s meeting will give a chance for all to Introduce themselves and we will tell new attendees more about the group, what we have achieved so far and next steps. Depending on the numbers that are interested, we can manage in the meeting how smaller groups can work together going forward.

4. Whether to engage with other groups/organisations

The group agreed that we should wait until after we have opened the Group up to new members before we engage with other groups/organisations. This will be after the 5 February meeting.

5. Points arising from the ACF conference last week.

The Launch of ACF’s Stronger Foundation’s self-assessment tool was highlighted in the group:

https://www.acf.org.uk/stronger-foundations-self-assessment-tool

6. Agenda, date and leader of next session.

6.1 The next meeting will be on Friday 5 February 2021, 1.30pm – 3pm.

6.2 The group will need to discuss the format of the next meeting at the end of January based on the number of attendees confirmed after our communications.