ACF MILESTONES

We have… acf.org.uk/strategicreview

• Held a month-long conversation with ACF members and stakeholders so their views and ambitions for ACF could influence our future strategic direction. This was part of our fiveyear strategy review. Carol Mack OBE, ACF’s chief executive, wrote a weekly blog series to reflect on what we’ve been learning.

• Published our annual research on giving, income and assets among the top 300 largest foundations. Foundation Giving Trends 2021 found that charitable spending has more than kept up with growth in the value of assets, and with both growing significantly more than the overall UK economy over the last 15 years.

• Created a new member-led network on economic justice, which aims to understand the links between the economy and the social challenges the UK philanthropy sector faces.

• Started a series of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) learning events, designed to help members understand the importance of collecting DEI data, how to engage the board in DEI and applying a DEI lens to grant-making.

• Relaunched the Funders Collaborative Hub to help funders all over the UK share, connect and collaborate on a

variety of issues. The Hub includes a searchable directory of emerging and existing collaboration opportunities, which can be filtered by location, issue, and type of collaboration.

• Brought together funders with an interest in the social impact investment landscape around topics like social investment and DEI, social investment legal structures and how social investment can be used to revitalise high streets.

• Analysed practice reported by members through the Stronger Foundations self-assessment tool, which we summarised and published in the report Becoming a Stronger Foundation

• Welcomed several new co-convenors to guide ACF’s member-led networks. Online network meetings are now free for members.

• Announced that our chair Janet Morrison would be stepping down, with Jessica Brown taking over as interim chair.

• Hosted a letter from several foundations expressing concern about proposed reforms to the Human Rights Act, which we submitted to the government’s consultation. This followed a briefing session jointly organised with Ariadne (the international network of funders and philanthropists working on social change and human rights) as part of ACF’s Members Policy Forum.

• Surveyed foundations that had signed the Funder Commitment on Climate Change about the progress they’ve made in the last year. This is part of an annual reporting process which helps us to understand and communicate how signatories are taking action on climate.

• Exchanged ideas with philanthropy networks across Europe on topics like gender justice, racial equity, climate change, money-laundering prevention, and the risk of shrinking space for civil society.

• Shared a summary report with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport of seven members’ experiences of delivering funds from the Community Match Challenge to aid with fund evaluation.

• Held an event on public interest news, exploring how all funders, regardless of mission, can use funding journalism as a lens through which to pursue their objectives.

• Engaged with the Cabinet Office on its project to develop a centralised grants portal, This will manage the application and award process for all grants issued by the government.