Five years on: reflections from the racial justice fund

Racial justice fund lead, Ugo Ikokwu, reflects on the highs and lows of the work so far, and its place in the wider system of change.

When we first began developing the racial justice fund back in 2020, the world was in flux. The pandemic was exposing deep cracks in our social fabric, and the murder of George Floyd had reignited global demands for racial justice. There was very little money flowing into the space and the funding that did exist was often marginal, fragmented and transactional. Many funders were still unsure what long-term commitment to racial justice might look like.

At Trust for London, we decided to commit to long-term work. To focus not just on service delivery, but on work that would build power and contribute to lasting change.

We know focusing on work like this can create frustrations, when so many organisations are doing fantastic support work under huge financial pressure. Service delivery is vital work that we admire and value. But our strategy is about tackling the bigger picture so that, in the future, fewer people need those crisis services at all. We're focusing on the underlying problems like unfair housing rules, low wages and discriminatory practices.

We want to see more people in Black and minoritised communities earning fair wages and having secure incomes so they can cover essentials and plan for the future. But we also know that income alone isn’t enough. That’s why we set out to help these communities build wealth like savings, assets, or ownership of businesses and homes so they can create stability for future generations and have more control over their lives and shape their own futures.

It's also been important to us that the fund isn't just a series of stand-alone projects. So we're trusting the communities themselves to lead, backing them with the right resources and staying in the work for the long haul. We're funding organising, campaigning and advocacy, to build power and push for the changes that will reduce the need for emergency services in the long term.

We launched the fund with two clear goals:

1. To increase household income in Black and minoritised communities in London.
2. To increase household and community wealth in those same communities.

We know these are ambitious goals, and we’re under no illusions that they can be achieved overnight.

The journey so far

While we've had clear goals since the start, we didn’t set out with rigid themes – we wanted to let the ideas shape the fund, not the other way around. The fund is a providing a chance to test ideas, to trust community organisations and to challenge ourselves as a sector.

We’ve funded 13 organisations so far, and we’ve resisted the urge to fund the “usual suspects”, or those with the most polished proposals. Instead, we’ve looked for outliers and to support and platform organisations doing powerful work beneath the radar.

Broadly, the projects funded sit across three interconnected themes:

• Housing, regeneration and community assets. Black and minoritised communities are often locked out of opportunities to build wealth – and significantly less likely to own their own home.
• Pay and conditions. Black and minoritised Londoners are twice as likely to be low-paid than White Londoners.
• Entrepreneurship and access to finance.

A movement, not just a group of grants

This work is fundamentally about the power of the collective. Partners working on community wealth building are sharing insights, learning from each others approaches, and beginning to shape new models. Like the emerging Spatial Justice Hub, which will provide tools and templates for other communities to use.

Solutions to long standing and emerging challenges are being developed as the work progresses. Early on we knew that tackling inequality meant more than just helping people earn more. It also meant addressing who has control over land, housing and resources - what is increasingly known as ‘community wealth building’.

Some of the funded partners have shared how difficult it is to access the right legal or financial advice to take on ownership of land or buildings. It often requires navigating complex regulations and high service charges.

In response, Stour Trust is working to develop legal models that make it easier for Black-led groups to take on long-term leases. And because accessible, culturally relevant support simply isn’t available, Latin Elephant and Tree Shepherd are building their own tools and workshops, like Know Your Rights and Planning 101.

Scaling impact

We’re excited to be growing the pot of funding available by securing new partnerships. This is a big moment. It means more money of course, but it also signals a change that is happening in philanthropy. Funders can, and should, work together. The old siloed model doesn’t serve communities. Shared learning, risk and ambition is how we create change.

Looking ahead, we want to deepen and extend the work. This means supporting long-term partners to scale, while also welcoming new voices that are pushing the conversation forward on issues around cooperative ownership, financial empowerment and economic justice.

We also want to push ourselves:

• To support partners to turn research into action
• To create more on-ramps for community organising and advocacy
• To back bold, long-term strategies

Learning through challenge and pressing ahead

Anyone that’s worked in any kind of participatory way ever knows that collaboration doesn’t mean agreement on everything. It hasn’t always been a smooth road, and building these relationships take work.

We’ve seen tensions, especially when issues of power, voice and representation come up. For example, who's best placed to lead a campaign?

I personally have also faced challenges along the way, including from within my own community. Some funding decisions we've made have been questioned, not always because of the merits of the work, but because of competing priorities, personal relationships or differing views on what racial justice should look like in practice. It’s been a powerful reminder that “community” is not a monolith, and that there will always be a range of perspectives on the best path forward.

I’ve also seen conventional hierarchy systems play out, rather than space being created for younger, newer or grassroots voices. It’s taught me how critical it is to actively nurture inclusive spaces where everyone, regardless of their position or title, can speak up and shape the work.

At the same time, I’ve continued to witness what’s possible when we stay committed. Five years ago, racial justice wasn’t something many funders talked about. It honestly felt like a distant dream.

Now, I hear people in Parliament talking about community wealth building, co-operatives and mutuals. I see how racial equity is shaping council strategies across different areas like housing, community assets and business ownership. I see us moving from the margins to the centre.

But the work is far from done. Racial justice work is facing an intense global backlash, with DEI efforts being defunded, discredited and even banned outright in some countries. In this increasingly hostile climate, supporting racial equity is more important than ever.

The real test won’t be what happens over the next two years. It will be what’s changed in ten years from now.

It will take time. And it will take all of us.

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