New Trustees and Advisors bring experience and diversity to BD Giving’s board

Barking & Dagenham Giving is pleased to announce the appointment of six new trustees to its board.

The expansion of BD Giving’s board from six to 12 members reflects the significant development of the charity in the last year and its ambitious pathway for 2021.

BD Giving became an independent funding in 2020 by merging with BD Renew. In its first year, despite repeated lockdowns, the participatory funder involved over 50 local people in making decisions, shared 17 local people’s stories, and distributed over £185,000 to local causes. 

In what is set to be another year of fast-paced development, the board felt the time was right to bring new talent and perspectives onto the board. BD Giving sought trustees with the skills and experience to oversee the deployment of the landmark Community Endowment Fund, and the delivery of other new funding opportunities with and for the community.

BD Giving’s mission is to enable everyone in the borough to share their ideas, energy and resources for strengthening the borough. Alongside, professional skills the adverts and process for trustee recruitment explicitly targeted local people and made clear previous board or trustee experience was not necessary.

“Inclusivity is critical to our mission, so it was vital that that our growing board reflected the diversity of the community we work in. I am delighted to welcome all of our new trustees. I believe their professional and personal expertise, is going to add huge value to our work and I look forward to working with them.”

— Geraud de Ville de Goyet, CEO

The new trustees and advisors are:

Rahela Begum

Trustee

Health and Outreach Worker at the Thames Ward Community Project, prior to this, Rahela worked at Participatory City.

Steven Green

Trustee

Head of Department for central data services in the Financial Conduct Authority, acting as the Chief Data Officer.

Alex Jeremy

Trustee

Head of Partnerships at Poplar HARCA and a resident of Barking and Dagenham for a decade.

Andrew Kerr

Trustee

LGBTQ+ Fund Manager at METRO Charity, and PhD Student at King’s College, London. Andrew has lived, worked and studied in the borough for almost three decades.

Moiz Khan

Trustee

Head of Insurance Solutions at Aviva Investors, Moiz is an investment strategist and structuring expert for insurance and pension funds.

Iqbal Raakin

Trustee

Strategy and Policy Officer at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and a Barking resident since 2018.

Rachel Laurence

Advisor

Community Economic Practitioner who combines a background in community development and youth work, and local economic development policy and practice expertise.

Jim Juffs

Advisor

Executive Agent of HM Treasury at UK Debt Management Office, with long standing links with Barking & Dagenham

“BD Giving exists to help the grassroots organisations and communities of Barking and Dagenham. It is important that the trustees have a connection with the borough, are representative of the people who live there, and have a good mix of skills and experience. With this group of new trustee and supporters, we have gained all of that, and they will help steer BD Giving into the next phase of development.”

— Ian Parkes, CEO of ELBA

BD Giving also welcomes two new Advisors, a scheme for supporters of BD Giving’s work and a way to offer ad hoc support and stay in the loop with Giving’s activities. Read more about Trustees and Advisors of BD Giving  on our Who We Are page.