A more hopeful future is in our line of sight. It’s on all of us to align our strategies with the possibilities.

Written by Raji Hunjan, CEO

What would it take to wake up in a world rooted in abundance, instead of the chaos of poly-crisis? What would this mean for how we approach our collective strategies today?

At Tudor, we see how the shared ambitions of our partners and those in their ecosystem, reveal the world as it should be. One where communities hold power, wealth, and dignity together.   

Our redesigned grant-making, through the lens of learning, has enabled us to walk alongside the organisations and leaders creating conditions for systemic change. Now we have completed our second round we are ready to move forward with greater conviction and pace. We will do this in community and in the spirit of ecosystem building.

A near future system

We have begun to see the inter-related and necessary components of a transformed system where wealth is more than money, and communities coexist in abundance. This includes:

• Land justice and the stewardship of assets for regenerative purpose.
• Care, wellbeing and healing to confront underlying historical harm and enable strategies rooted in joy.
• Community power and organising so that we build resilience to transition away from hate and polarisation.
• Narratives that shift our relationships with culture, knowledge and influencing as routes into systemic change.
• Governance, funding and infrastructure so that we are building long-lasting systems of change.

These are not separate themes, but rather the emerging functions that ebb and flow together towards the new.

Shifting away from the binary requires transformation 

Today there is a gap between the ambitions of those seeking funding and those with access to money. We can close this gap by moving from the binary role grants play in propping up existing systems to a transformational understanding of systemic change. This means intentionally building an ecosystem in community and having clarity about the inter-relationship of each grant. Instead of competitive grant applications, we apply deeply relational processes, building trust and taking away the burden of working to funder expectations. We recognise that this needs greater transparency about what we want to achieve and how we work. This takes practice and requires us to lean into the power of our own conviction and commitment.

Building a just ecosystem 

We believe the role of funders in ecosystem building is to be systems thinkers, learning from others and continuously evolving and iterating, at a pace that meets community need. Our commitment to the ecosystem is to bring not only our money, but also our knowledge and networks, to partnerships with those who share our vision for racial justice. This includes absorbing risk on behalf of communities and ensuring that shifting power is central to our approach. 

We are building our longer-term strategy on the principles that we set out in Change We Seek. We have made hard choices about shifting away from funding projects focused on immediate need. There are other funders who have the right infrastructure to scale up and sustain vital front-line work at the grassroots. This work is critical to building resilience and defending immediate rights. The infrastructure we have designed at Tudor has given us the tools to not only imagine, but also build, a path towards a more hopeful future. Collectively, this work is reliant on each other to build the case for a more just world.

Whilst we have taken a transformed role, we are in community. We share our aspirations with everyone committed to looking back ten years from now, knowing that together, we stewarded power and assets responsibility when we had the chance. 

See our list of grant partners.