BD Giving Note #61 – Becoming a Data-Informed Funder
Barking and Dagenham Giving has always been committed to being as open and transparent about our work as possible. We think this is an important part of our work as a local funder, helping foster trust and allowing for meaningful decision-making to take place. In addition to benefiting our own learning, we want our community to better understand the impact we are having on the borough.
BD Giving Notes #53 – What Does Participation Look Like?
Participation is a word that we often hear in various contexts, such as education, work, politics, sports, and social activities. But what does it mean to participate? And who gets to decide how we participate? Our Head of Learning and Participation, Cameron Bray, looks to their past for an example of why we do not […]
BD Giving Notes #50 – Paying people for participation? Sounds like Greek to me.
Participation makes a big difference to those of us who have the privilege of supporting communities in their decision-making. Cameron Bray Rather than a contemporary contentious concern, the idea of paying people to participate in society is older than you might think, as Cameron Bray, Head of Learning and Participation explores. I’ve written previously about […]
BD Giving Notes #46 – ‘’Now THIS is podcasting‘’
Participation makes a big difference to those of us who have the privilege of supporting communities in their decision-making. Cameron Bray Have you been wondering about the history of the borough, why BD Giving talks so much about power, what makes the GROW Fund special, or maybe just what my dulcet tones sound like? Well, […]
BD Giving Notes #40 – “My weapon of choice‘’
A few weeks ago, our Head of Learning & Participation finally finished their Level 4 training in Lewis Deep Democracy (LDD), marking the culmination of a development process that started in September 2020. Here, Cameron, reflects on what they’ve learned and what this means for their work.
BD Giving Notes #35 – ‘’Putting Power Down‘’
It’s important that power is seen as something that ought to be stepped away from, in all walks of life. Getting there won’t be easy though as it’s both a cultural and a systemic shift that is needed. Cameron Bray In this Note, Cameron Bray offers up their thoughts on a very recent example of […]
BD Giving Notes #33 – ‘The trouble with funding (Part 3)’
The joy of making something collaborative and participatory is that you never have to be ‘done’ because you’re always open to the possibility of someone new making improvements and changes that are literally beyond the system’s current ability to make. Cameron Bray This is the third of a three-part series of blogs in reaction to […]
BD Giving Notes #28 – ‘A Pot of Stew’
We are all products of the many socio-political systems we find ourselves caught in and we will, often ignorantly, act in ways that those systems have taught us to act. Cameron Bray This Note is by our Learning and Participation Manager, Cameron Bray. In this Note, they talk about their personal learning about Power (sharing, […]
BD Giving Notes #25 – ‘Money, get away…’
It’s incredibly difficult to ask for what you need and get a no but it’s impossible to get what you need if we’ve made it impossible to ask. Cameron Bray In my last Note, I wrote about how I go about trying to keep people safe in participatory processes and how safety is something with […]
BD Giving Notes – #19 ‘A seatbelt approach to safety in Participation.’
I don’t think it’s an option for participatory decision-making to leave people outside the vehicle if they can’t or don’t want to wear a seatbelt – rather, we must do everything we can to convince them of that first so that we can get to a shared destination together. Cameron Bray When I’m facilitating a […]