By Lord Toby Harris, Chair of the Fundraising Regulator
January is always an appropriate time to reflect on what has been achieved in the past and look forward with ambition to the future. Throughout the 2021/22 financial year, the Fundraising Regulator made considerable progress in implementing the first internal phase of its equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy. I’m pleased to share more information about what this entailed, and the outcome of a recent independent review which provided assurance that we are on the right path.
The starting point on our journey
We expect the organisations that we regulate to operate in a way which is legal, open, honest and respectful, and have the same expectations for ourselves. We have always striven to be a diverse and inclusive employer and regulator. In summer 2020, the Board and senior management team (SMT) started discussions about formalising our approach, in light of important conversations happening in the charitable fundraising sector and society at large about all the ways organisations should reflect EDI in the way they operate and deliver their services.
We began with an equality and diversity assessment and agreed an action plan. Together with support from an external specialist organisation, the SMT and board developed a draft EDI strategy. Our staff engaged with this at an away day in summer 2021, before its internal launch at the start of September.
Our EDI strategy reaffirms our commitment to being accessible to all and work to eliminate all forms of discrimination. As a small organisation, any changes identified through the strategy will be proportionate to our size. However, we recognise that, as a regulator, we also have the potential to make changes that impact on the charitable fundraising sector.
Focusing on our people, our services and our impact
As such, the strategy addresses three areas in a phased approach: our people, our services and our impact. The initial focus is on our internal policies and procedures to help make sure that our own house is in order, before turning to our services and considering any wider impact on the public or charitable fundraising sector.
Some of the key focus areas in the first phase of our strategy included:
- collecting voluntary baseline monitoring data from staff, our board and committees for the first time
- delivering training for the whole team to make sure that everyone had a shared understanding of key principles and terms
- reviewing our internal style guide and brand guidelines to include language and guidance that helps to promote diversity and inclusivity
- improving the accessibility of our website
- reviewing all our HR policies; and
- refining our recruitment processes.
We established a cross-organisational employee EDI group to support the implementation of the strategy and identify areas for consideration or further improvement. Regular updates were provided to the board about progress.
Independent assurance and next steps
From the outset, the board was keen to have an external body scrutinise this work. We commissioned an external specialist consultancy to independently assess a sample of our HR policies, our brand and communications, and our revised recruitment process. Their findings were broadly positive, providing reassurance about work already done and giving confidence for the future. Our staff have incorporated the comments and suggestions received on learning points, such as the language and presentation of some information, into our policies and procedures.
We are now considering the actions and timescales for the next phase including additional training for our staff and board, and further developing staff feedback mechanisms. We will also start to review how we manage complaints and requests for reasonable adjustments. Much of this work is operational, and therefore will be taking place internally. However, at the point at which any proposed changes to our services may impact either the public or sector more widely, we will share more information and gather feedback as appropriate.