How to embed anti-racism in your charity

Centre diversity in your content

Implement anti-racism in the content that you consume and the content you produce. With external webinars, podcasts, conferences, and other events, you should aim to watch and listen to panels with diverse representation.

If you are contacting speakers to take part in events, you should do so with inclusion at the forefront of your decision-making. By consistently having white male panels, for example, we close a space that should feel open and welcoming to all.

Organisations should be mindful not to fall into the trap of tokenism. Tokenism is the practice of making only a symbolic effort to prevent criticism.

In this context, tokenism could occur should you call upon someone to take part in your event or marketing solely because they belong to an ethnic minority group. This can feel insulting and uncomfortable, so charities should ensure that all panellists – regardless of their ethnic background – are experienced within the field they are being called upon to speak about.

Avoid white saviourism

In the past few years, ‘voluntourism’ has been criticised as leaning into the ‘white saviour’ complex. Voluntourism can be described as the trips that volunteers from the Global North take to countries in the Global South. Such trips are often criticised because they centre the volunteer’s sense of satisfaction rather than implementing sustainable solutions for local communities.

As a result, imagery used for such trips often depicts a white person in centre frame, embracing a large group of non-white children. Some advertising continues to display stereotypes of Africans as “poor and needy victims devoid of agency”.

These images solidify the white saviour complex, a phrase coined to describe white people acting in a self-serving manner to ‘help’ non-white people.

Comic Relief’s international appeal films have been criticised in the past for falling into this narrative. In 2020, however, the charity stated that all African appeal films will now be led by local filmmakers. This progressive move empowers local leaders to share their stories and provides them with agency in terms of how stories of poverty within their communities are communicated to a wider audience.

Other charities have used social media to enable communities to regain autonomy and power in how their stories are told. In November 2017, for example, CARE France handed over their Instagram platform for seven days to seven women living in poverty in different countries for the campaign, ‘Stories from the other side of the world’.

These women were in control of what parts of their lives were documented and shared for the benefit of fundraising, regaining an identity in the relationship between donators and beneficiaries.

Addressing racism within the workplace can feel uncomfortable and at times overwhelming. But if we are to rectify the inequality in the UK charity sector, we must take clear and effective actions that commit to anti-racism.