AGM 2024: Carol Mack’s speech on ACF’s progress against strategy
8 July 2024
At our AGM on 4 July 2024, ACF chief executive Carol Mack OBE reflected on the past 12 months, highlighting progress against our 2023-2027 strategy. She also welcomed new and re-elected trustees – congratulations to Sufina Ahmad MBE, Rachel Campbell, Rosario Guimba-Stewart and John Hollingsworth. This is her speech.
This time last year I reported to you that we had launched our new strategy. And now we are well into delivery!
I’m incredibly proud of the strategy we crafted together with you – our members – and so far it has stood the test of time, despite the many difficulties and hardships associated with the cost of living crisis and rising inequalities, as well as other challenges here at home and abroad, as our chair has set out so well this evening.
The vision we share is for diverse, vibrant and effective foundations, working together for social good. And ACF’s role in achieving that vision – our mission – is to strengthen trusts and foundations – individually and collectively – to rise to the challenges of our times.
Our strategy emphasises that a critical success factor – and key to achieving our mission – is that ACF continues to ensure a compelling member offer, whatever your size, your focus and wherever you are based in the UK.
Over the past 12 months we have laid the groundwork to deliver this ambitious strategy.
It feels like we are in the middle of examining every aspect of our work to ensure we are making the most impactful contributions to our strategic objectives and to supporting you in your work.
You may already have noticed some changes –
We have stopped doing some things – and started doing others.
We’ve built on the Stronger Foundations body of work that outlines ambitious and effective foundation practice across six themes, from strategy and governance to impact and learning. Last year we published six case studies showcasing how you are putting Stronger Foundations principles into practice. This year we are publishing more case studies to provide food for thought across the six themes.
We’re delighted to be supporting a new and very active network for family foundations, our fifteenth member-led network.
And on 18 September - we are convening our first ever leaders forum. This brand new flagship conference takes an issue – climate change - that many foundations care about but find difficult to prioritise given your diverse missions and today’s pressing challenges.
We commissioned a researcher to work with a number of you to unpack what is holding foundations back from taking action. Your concerns, and your excitement about the possibilities for foundations to act, have shaped the agenda for the forum. The format for the conference is different, with spaces for collaboration and reflection, and I won't be giving a speech – now that has to be a plus!
Instead, I’ll be a participant in a panel discussion co-designed with members – exploring the imperative conversations for senior leaders to have at the forum – opening up the agenda to look beyond climate, to the key issues for foundations more broadly.
We have some amazing speakers lined up – and the programme is designed to be relevant to all foundation leaders, whether you are funding in a place, the arts, tackling poverty, education, working with children and young people, or something more specific as many of our members do. It’s great to see that so many of you here tonight have already booked your places – and if you haven’t yet - what are you waiting for? This day is for you! And it would be brilliant to see you there.
The past 12 months have not solely been about change.
We have continued to deliver the support that you value.
- In 2023, we registered an astonishing 2,276 people for our events
- 914 of these registrations were for one of our member-led network meetings, with 54% of our members attending at least one network meeting in 2023
- We promoted 160 different opportunities to collaborate on our Funders Collaborative Hub, relating to more than 40 different funding issues and including work in every UK nation and region, as well as UK wide and international opportunities. Together these were viewed 36,666 times, a 42% increase from the previous year
- We brought together 35 chairs of ACF members for our annual chairs event – focused on the importance of inclusive boards. Based on those discussions we developed and shared a briefing for members with practical steps to foster an inclusive board culture
- In addition, our foundation salaries and benefits research report was downloaded 564 times, we had 3,000 subscribers to our members monthly e-newsletter and 90,000 unique visits to our website.
So 2023 was a busy year!
But now it’s time to look ahead – what can you expect from ACF in the months to come?
Well, let’s start by looking ahead to tomorrow (Friday 5 July) - when we will get the much anticipated results from the general election!
The opinion polls all suggest that Labour will form the new government. And last time Labour came into power I think it’s fair to say that they did not fully understand and therefore value the work of foundations. One of ACF’s four strategic objectives is to sustain a landscape where foundations can thrive. And that’s difficult if the Westminster government does not ‘get’ what foundations do.
We’d already built a positive working relationship with the Conservative government, but knew that we needed to extend our remit, given a possible change in administration.
So – led by Catherine Seymour, our director of policy, practice and research – we have worked hard over the past months to ensure that the value of your work is understood by senior Labour figures. We attended the labour party conference for the first time and have had positive discussions with their policy team. As a result of work by us and others, the shadow charities minister has publicly described philanthropic foundations as one of the essential parts of the engine that can drive renewal and change. Very different to 1997.
We have also been supporting members to engage with the general election process, holding a series of ‘election ready’ events. These culminate next week in a debrief meeting with political advisory team Flint Global to discuss effective engagement strategies for foundations with the new government.
In short, over the past 12 months – we really have raised our policy game.
So what else can you expect from us in the months and years ahead?
Our priorities will continue to be determined by our four strategic objectives:
- Ensuring a positive operating environment, as I’ve just set out
- Supporting foundations to achieve excellent practice
- Strengthening connections across and beyond the sector
- Advancing diversity, equity and inclusion for our sector and within ACF – we’ve made some progress, but this is a journey not a destination – and we have a lot more to do.
And as I’m among friends I’ll share some of the other things that we still need to work on.
Top of the list – our website. You’ve told us that the resources are amazing, really high quality, but finding them is a bit of a nightmare. We are actively working on this. And more broadly, the technology that supports us to support you is not where we need it to be. So please bear with us as we address this – I fear it won’t be a quick fix, but we know things need to change and we are on the case.
Your views are incredibly important to us – they shape our benefits, services and programmes of work. So if you haven’t already completed our annual member survey, please do. It’s a good investment of 15 minutes of your time as I can promise you that me and the team and the board will all be poring over what you have to tell us.
I’d like to conclude by saying some 'thank yous'.
Firstly to each and every one of my brilliant staff team who truly live ACF’s values; they all care deeply about the support that they provide to you, and are creative and ambitious about what we can achieve.
On a personal note I’d like to thank my leadership team – Catherine I’ve mentioned, and also Gemma Instrall, director of membership, and Natasha Kousseff, our head of finance – responsible for our clean audit reports.
Thanks also to our four Official Partners for their support – CCLA, our hosts this evening alongside Cazenove, Mercer and Ruffer. Without their support and expertise we couldn’t offer such a comprehensive member service.
To my board, thank you for being supportive, challenging and insightful in equal measure, putting members at the heart of what we do.
And finally to all of you – our members – for being part of this wonderfully collaborative and vibrant community. The work that you do is both inspiring and essential – it is never more needed – and it is endlessly rewarding to support you in it.
Thank you!