Month: December 2023

Discover how our Futures For Youth programme is getting support where it’s needed faster

The phrase, ‘flexible funding’ certainly makes sirens sound in the charity sector. Essentially meaning a donation is made without a requirement to spend it on a specific project area, it can seem that these funds are a get out of jail free card for charities who want or need to spend money on areas that don’t directly impact activities and change lives. Although there isn’t quite enough space to write a book about it here, there are many reasons why flexible funding shouldn’t be judged by its cover.

Charities, and the sectors surrounding them, have histories with colonialist ways of fundraising. Deciding what programme participants need based on what our societies have told us to believe instead of asking them, or letting those we work with be seen as dependent or without freedom are both habits fixed funds can encourage – removing opportunities for future-focussed change. Choice ensures these opportunities stay open. With more flexibility than ever before, Futures for Youth leaves space for choice and allows us to support work how and where it should be, as quickly as possible.

Flexible fundraising allows us to

• immediately, and authentically, integrate into the communities we work in.
• involve the next generation – the right way.
• making sure we know how, when and where to spend money on overheads.

So, we know that flexible funding means donations can be spent where they can have the greatest impact, but what does this mean in practice?

1. 1. Flexible fundraising lows us to immediately, and authentically, integrate into the communities we work in.

Our main priority will always be providing the best programming possible, but through a modern and decolonising lens, this looks different. It looks like investing money into safeguarding, consulting local experts, and creating safe spaces alongside community members with their input. In the coinciding ages of the pandemic and climate crisis, bespoke programming is key. We need funding that can be moved easily enough to create such environments, not funding constrained by conditions created in an entirely different, often biased context, which doesn’t meet the needs of local people.

1. 1. It means we can involve the next generation – the right way.

Each new generation has a new set of social issues to contend with, so we shouldn’t be using techniques from the last one to deal with them. Whether this be equipping youth with toolkits to combat evolving problems like online misogyny or using our platform to get their ideas to legislators, for equality to be achieved, we need to not only work with younger generations, but also work with them on their terms. Restricted funding cannot give this group a space where these conditions are listened to and acted on.

1. 1. Making sure we know how, when and where to spend money on overheads.

When done correctly, overheads can be the key to a door otherwise locked – take fundraising and marketing for instance. Often thought of as expenses which sacrifice revenue in favour of vanity, taking the time to better understand and cater to audiences means we can evolve and expand. The intersectional and anti-racist values we promote are unfortunately still outside of societal norms, but with smart investment in fundraising and marketing, little by little, this will change.

This is neither a book nor a cover, but we thought a summary would still be appropriate.… Flexible funding is our future, and our friend.

The stories we tell define how other people see us and give them an insight into how we perceive the world. What if this power was taken from us precisely because these perceptions do not reflect what others are used to?

The global charity sector has a history of doing exactly this, us included. By filtering what programme participants have said and choosing to share only what we thought audiences would want to hear, we undermined their autonomy and contributed to colonialist and otherwise unhelpful ways of thinking. Now, to encourage a move away from these practices, Futures for Youth is making a commitment to participative, first-person storytelling, straight from the mouths of the young people participating in our projects.

As a method of communicating which prioritises the exchanging of rich human knowledge and experience over bland and generic information, participative storytelling communicates what personally matters to project participants – in their own unique way.

For our programme participants who are confident and wish to convey their truth independently, there will be minimal restrictions regarding setting, style, or method, with advice or support available if they need it. That said, the purpose of participative storytelling is to welcome and facilitate everybody who wants to join, so our teams will also support anybody who wants more support throughout the process. From discussing what their participation will mean in context to what it will look like in practice, it will be unique from the get-go. After all, who can tell your story better than you?

If you are a long-time friend of Plan’s, you may be wondering where this commitment is coming from, and what it means for you. The launch of Futures for Youth aside, we’ve noticed the media disempowers young people more and more with each passing day. From labelling them as work-shy and over-sensitive, to expecting they single-handedly solve the world’s problems by virtue of their age, everything is contradictory, and few things are fair. Try as we might to create campaigns which counter this messaging, none of them could ever have as much authenticity as those created through participative storytelling.

Participative storytelling quite literally allows young people to take back the narrative. By trusting programme participants to live, learn, and to discuss their realities in a way which feels natural to them, they won’t be scared anymore. When their friend, who may not have heard of Plan International before, sees this courage, they’ll feel it too. When a group forms, this feeling will be too large to ignore – and those who didn’t believe in them at first will have to learn too.

This is the power of participative storytelling, and this is the power you’re helping to drive forward by supporting Futures for Youth. After all, nobody can resist a good story and we think it’s time that all stories had their time to shine, no matter who is telling them or where they are being told from.

It’s been over half a decade since the #MeToo movement began making waves and three years since flexible working simplified keeping a career postpartum. So why are we still campaigning for gender equality?

Simply put, in spite of appearances, there has been little change.

Online movements denouncing the, often sexual, abuse of women and girls have become driving forces in the fight to be heard but, as our own #CrimeNotAComplement initiative demonstrates, being heard does not necessarily equate to being listened to.

Being unable to act without suffering is something women around the world are all too familiar with, no matter how they conform to patriarchy.

Statistics released by Charlie Health show the opposite, with the majority of victims having previously met their aggressor, and these aggressors being substantially unlikely to face any legal repercussions. For the less than ten percent of aggressors which do face legal repercussions, the survivors they leave in their wakes report dismissal, purposely avoiding public spaces, and self-blame. As documented as this reality is, glancing at certain headlines would have you easily convinced of the opposite-an alleged ‘woke world gone mad’ where men are terrified to do so much as move.

Take the workplace for example: recent investigations published in the Harvard Business Review detail presumptions of “too much family responsibility and impending menopause” towards any woman of middle-age, whilst Laura Bates ‘Everyday Sexism’ recounts instances of career debutantes being denied career progression by reason of an ability to bare children in years to come. Judged on everything but personal merit, such discrimination seems insurmountable. Without a commitment to community-based change, it may well be.

Community-based change is indispensable in the fight against gender-based discrimination because everybody experiences sexism differently. For a programme participant in the USA, community-based change could resemble initiatives to combat the uptake in online misogyny; for a programme participant located in Guinea, that same change could take the form of supporting continued education.

Although differing in many respects, all local issues present potentially life-altering consequences for those who experience them – reminding us that sexism is not a simple abstract descriptor, but collections of behaviour that undermine the safety and integrity of those they impact.

We’re talking about sexism precisely because many others aren’t – and we want to invite you to join the conversation.