Comment on Lankelly Chase Foundation closure

“All money is dirty”, he replied, by way of an answer. “The question is, how much dirt are you comfortable with?”.

I was reminded of this exchange when, earlier this week, the Lankelly Chase Foundation – one of the UK’s larger grant-giving bodies – announced plans to abolish itself.

“We all know the gravity of the social, climate and economic crises through which we are moving globally”, the Foundation states in an FAQ sheet explaining its decision. It continues:

These times call on us to act boldly and very differently. We have been innovating and changing over the last decade to try and shift power, and this has brought us to the point of acknowledging that philanthropic institutions are structured in ways that inevitably repeat the harms and patterns of colonial capitalism that we urgently need to interrupt and stop.

Over the next five years, the Foundation announced, it plans to redistribute its assets – over £130 million – “so that money can flow freely to those doing life-affirming social justice work”.

The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies is not directly affected by this decision. We last received a grant from them two decades ago. We are, in any case, selective about the grant funding we accept. Currently, it only accounts for around 10 to 15 per cent of our total income.

The ripple effects of its decision will, however, be felt by many, including small charities heavily reliant on grant funding. Other grant-giving trusts and foundations, facing scrutiny over the sources of their wealth and how they distribute it, will also be following this development closely.

The Lankelly Chase Foundation is inviting an open dialogue on the decision. In this spirit, I want to raise three questions: about the decision itself, the underlying rationale for the decision, and how the Foundation plans to distribute their assets.

The decision to close down

The Foundation has previously raised concerns that its operating model risks reproducing, rather than challenging, systemic social problems. Their decision to disband nonetheless took many by surprise.

It was taken by only a few senior people, as the Foundation explains:

Why didn’t you consult before making this decision?

We shifted the profile of our board to bring in movement and community leaders who could assess whether our organisation could be improved to make it fit to deliver on our mission. Their view was that the contradictions were insurmountable and, in the context of global crises, they had a moral and legal duty to act. If we had consulted, we would have been involving people in a decision that was already clear to the people who hold responsibility for that decision.

This may be correct in strict governance terms – the trustees have sole responsibility for the Lankelly Chase Foundation assets – but it strikes me as a missed opportunity.

Participatory democratic models, for instance, highlight the value of the widest possible involvement in important decisions, on the basis that it results in better decisions. Dialogue and consultation once the decision has been taken is not really the same thing.

The Lankelly Chase Foundation has a proud and important history, having operated, in one form or another, for over sixty years. Yet four of the six trustees who made the decision to close it down have been in post for less than three years.

A sense of history and a strong institutional memory at board level can act as a drag anchor on necessary change and innovation. It can also be very valuable in helping to test assumptions behind far-reaching decisions.

The underlying rationale

The decision to close down appears motivated by a wide-ranging critique of the very nature of grant-giving bodies, and the accumulated capital from which they draw their wealth. As the Foundation explains on the investments page of its website:

Although Lankelly Chase’s endowment may not appear to have originated in overtly harmful colonising practices, we believe that capital accumulation occurs through ongoing processes of colonial appropriation and exploitation...

While we have tried to approach our investments in a way that actively builds towards the change we seek, we can no longer reconcile our position as an owner and active accumulator of private financial capital with a mission anchored in social, and particularly racial, justice and equity. The contradiction is profound and we are currently exploring mechanisms by which this can be resolved, including reparations and redistribution.

The Lankelly Chase Foundation money, it seems, is just too dirty for its trustees. And while the Foundation claims it is “not saying every endowed foundation should follow our direction”, the implication of its critique is surely that most should.

The notion that capital accumulates through appropriation and exploitation has been a mainstay of Marxist theory and practice for over 150 years. But as Marx himself pointed out in Capital, short of revolutionary change, there is no ‘outside’ to capitalism, no pristine space of thought and action free from its effects.

The capitalist may have more power and wealth than the worker. Neither capitalist nor worker, however, can opt out of a system they simultaneously create and are controlled by. The same is true of philanthropic wealth derived from capitalist accumulation.

The Lankelly Chase Foundation can abolish itself. It cannot abolish the dynamics of capital accumulation it finds so troubling. The new custodians of its wealth will face exactly the same dilemmas the Foundation’s trustees concluded they were unable to resolve.

Distribution of the Foundation’s assets

If things go according to plan the new custodians of the Foundation’s assets will continue and deepen its work, shorn of the baggage of what it considers a discredited philanthropic model and less tainted by the stain of “colonial capitalism”.

For reasons already given, this strikes me as an unrealistic expectation. As the Foundation itself acknowledges, its bold plan could also fail, even on its own terms. The result could well be one of fragmentation, declining financial assets and lost opportunities.

Conclusion

Like all institutions, including the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, grant-giving and other philanthropic institutions sometimes make poor decisions, apply opaque criteria and demonstrate muddled thinking.

They are compromised by the networks and institutions of globalised capital in which they are embedded, and from which they draw their wealth. This is the inescapable capitalist reality that no institution, however bold or ambitious, can hope to avoid or opt out of.

The consistent, predictable presence of grant-giving and philanthropic institutions is also a vital component of the wider civil society ecology, sustaining and supporting many excellent organisations and initiatives. The Lankelly Chase Foundation has been a much-valued part of that ecology for decades.

The Foundation’s trustees believe that abolishing themselves and redistributing their assets will help to address the social, economic and political challenges and contradictions they appear to find overwhelming. I hope they are right. But it’s a huge gamble.

If they get it wrong, the long-term loss of funding and support for many small charities, community and activist organisations will be considerable.