One of Britain’s largest charities will sack its ‘white and privileged’ board in name of social justice
The Tudor Trust, a major charity in the United Kingdom, will stop giving grants for a while as it undergoes major internal changes and sets a new focus.
One of Britain’s largest charitable organizations is undergoing significant adjustments as part of an anti-racism diversification campaign after branding itself “white and privileged.”
According to the Daily Mail, the Tudor Trust plans to replace its entire board of trustees as it “re-thinks” its future and staff and learns about racial justice and white supremacist culture.
The organization’s website notes that Sir Godfrey Mitchell established a charity trust in 1955 founded on donated shares of his construction firm, George Wimpey Ltd. He decided its trustees should be authorized to utilize the assets for any philanthropic cause, and in 1979, it became the Tudor Trust.
The organization has 288 million pounds in assets (about $363 million) and donates roughly 20 million pounds to charitable causes annually, the Daily Mail reported.
Several of Mitchell’s family members, including his grandsons Matthew and Benjamin Dunwell, serve on the board of trustees; however, they risk dismissal, possibly terminating the family’s vital position in the trust and its quest for “social justice.”
“We recognize that we live in a society that is shaped by white privilege and racism,” the Tudor Trust said in a statement. “We also acknowledge that being a family Trust has given rise to a trustee board that is almost entirely white and privileged. While the profile of the staff of the trust is more diverse, we recognize that, throughout the organization, most of us do not have experience of what it means to be discriminated against because of our color.”
In the first wave of shake-ups, the trust seeks “three or four” new trustees, including a new chairman to replace Matt Dunwell. The trustees’ job ad notes that applicants must have a “strong personal commitment to justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion,” with at least one being an expert on the subjects.
The Daily Mail reported that the board’s available chair-designate job is a part-time post requiring five days per month, with a yearly salary of £18,000, which equates to nearly $22,683. The chair-elect must have a profound knowledge of social and racial justice and experience applying it to systemic change.
The interim director, Raji Hunjan, is in charge of the adjustments. The movement to “reimagine” the trust’s operations began three years ago, sparked by Black Lives Matter protests.
The makeover will include freezing all grants for 20 months. New grant applications have yet to be accepted following a temporary pause in April of last year.
Director Christopher Graves departed in February, and the trust declared in March that it would not renew grant applications because it had not done enough to become an “anti-racist organization.”
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