Uncharitable Events
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Share this event We need to get better at conflict
Martha Awojobi, Natalie Armitage and Kennedy Walker explore why conflict is so hard and how to develop a healthier relationship to conflict.
No matter our approach to change, anyone seeking to build a life-affirming future that centres equity, justice and liberation recognises that we need each other. We need to build people power to the scale of the challenges we face, and that means being in real relationship with one another in all its complexity.
Our movements are full of genius, creativity, and hope. There are also emotional wounds and trauma caused by systems of oppression that encourage us to recreate harmful dynamics between us ultimately weakening our fight for justice. Conflict has fractured relationships between movement actors, weakened our movements and leaves us more vulnerable to attack at precisely the moment we need to be connected and strong.
In relationships, conflict is inevitable. So how do we do it lovingly?
Punishment, avoidance, shame, violence and exclusion are normalised within capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy, and are the reason we can act out in violent, manipulative or coercive ways to one another during a conflict; we mirror the dominant culture.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can transform our understanding of conflict as a site of intimacy, vulnerability, growth and connection. We can develop conflict frameworks that centre dignity, connection, belonging and safety. We can use conflict as a way to learn more about ourselves, others and transform the conditions that create harm.
Martha Awojobi, Natalie Armitage and Kennedy Walker are joining forces to transform our understanding of conflict and accountability. JMB has spent three years working through conflict openly and creatively, whilst also developing organisational structures that embrace healthy conflict as an opportunity to create more joy and more life!
At our next Uncharitable event, they will be sharing some of the learning from three years of working on conflict and accountability together, and giving a sneak peak at the decolonial approaches to conflict frameworks that they are developing. We will be discussing:
Why conflict is so hard
Understanding the difference between conflict, disagreement, hurt, harm and abuse
Complicating our understanding of power, and how to honestly analyse power dynamics within conflicts
What we think the root causes of conflict are in our movements
What a genuine apology looks like and feels like
How to embed a health approach to conflict into your organisational culture, operations and governance
We will be running the event on Zoom and will share the recording with all ticket holders for three months post event. We have tickets to buy, free tickets, and the opportunity for you to pay for the price of someone else.
If you want to see more from Uncharitable you can check out our full event collection on Uncharitable TV
Lessons in Leadership and Governance: Risk, Relationships and Realism
Seyi and Martha are back to talk about risk, relationships and realism in leadership and governance.
Leadership is relational before it’s structural.
Martha Awojobi and Seyi Akiwowo return for another instalment of Taking the L: Lessons in Leadership and Governance, and this time they’re talking risk, relationships and realism.
Drawing on their combined experience in the third sector, politics, organising, tech and philanthropy they get candid about how to balance a relational approach to governance with one that takes risk seriously. At our last event, Seyi and Martha barely made a dent in all of the brilliant questions from people who attended, so they structured the discussion to respond to past questions and will be discussing:
What good governance looks like in practice
How to transform a board that just isn’t working
How to build governance structures that center relationships
Reimagining risk registers as living tools
Getting real about identity politics, diversity initiatives and how to ensure that optics doesn’t replace skill
Building on transformative governance structures that movements have already created
If you want to get real about building governance structures fit for purpose, that centre relationships whilst taking risk seriously, and are anti-oppressive by design, this one is for you.
Event details
We go live at 12.30pm-2pm on 16th November
Lessons in Leadership and Governance will take place on Zoom! We share the recording with all ticket holders for three months after the event
You can submit questions for us to answer ahead of time using this form
There will be captions available
The Fundraising Antidote: Who really holds power?
Cam St-Omer Donaldson and Martha Awojobi chat with the incredible Jessica Oddy Atuona about how power operates in fundraising.
The Fundraising Antidote: Who really holds power?
The fundraising antidote is back! It has been almost a year since Cam and Martha came together to discuss white supremacy culture in fundraising and how we can build some antidotes into our practice rooted in justice, liberation and love.
For the second instalment of the series we will be joined by special guest, Jessica Oddy-Atuona, consultant and founder of Design for Social Impact who is doing brilliant work helping organisation to design otherwise. At Uncharitable, we learn a lot from Jessica's work and are very much looking forward to hearing her pearls of wisdom in real life.
The conversation will explore what it might mean to redistribute the pen: who gets to define the problem, name the outcomes, and hold the budget? And what does that mean for how services are designed and delivered?
We will be honing in on how fundraisers are able to quietly dictate organisational strategy, often bending it to the will of funders. Jessica, Cam and Martha will also be sharing our own experiences as in house fundraisers and as consultants and offering us creative solutions to help us identify the power imbalances within organisations as well as approaches that put power back into the hands of communities.
If you are interested in the movement of money in the third sector and how we can start to think seriously about dismantling oppression within fundraising, this one is for you.
As always, you can join us on Zoom, we will share the recording with all ticket holders for 3 months post event.
To watch more from Uncharitable, you can check out our TV Channel here.
How do we Resist? Towards Meaningful Action
Martha Awojobi and Natasha Adams are back with another exploration of the role of charities during the rise of far right authoritarianism.
How do we resist? Towards meaningful action.
The last few weeks have been horrible. Migrants homes set ablaze by rioters in Belfast, following racist riots in Southampton in response to the murder of Henry Novak, activists jailed for terrorism for attempting to stop weapons being produced for the mass slaughter of Palestinian children, the continued erosion of trans people’s ability to exist in public.
And the question so many people we speak to in the NGO sector have is: How do we Resist?
If you are looking for a space to reflect on your organisations role in this deeply uncertain and unsettling political time, this is the event for you. Join other people in the sector who are committed to anti-oppression, justice and a future where we can all be free; none of us can do this alone.
If you are feeling worried, anxious or scared, know that we are in this together. And remember that we can only truly be brave when we are afraid.
Natasha and Martha will be hosting this conversation at 1pm on 14th July.
Ticket holders will have access to the recording for three months following the event. So even if you can't make it, do grab a ticket and catch up afterwards!
Lessons in Governance: Embedding Anti-oppression, Creativity and Care
Taking the L: Lessons in Governance
Embedding Anti-oppression, Creativity and Care
Good governance is care made structural. It's how we build systems that protect people before harm happens, not policies that respond after the damage is done.
It’s time to get creative! The word governance does not need to send shivers down our spine. If we dare to, we can build governance structures that centre anti-oppression, justice, indigenous wisdom, care, creativity and joy. It’s already happening within organisations all over the world. You just have to look.
If you're tired of watching institutions scramble to meet the moment, or repair what they could have prevented, or you’re wondering how to support leadership from burnout this one's for you.
For more info + to grab your tickets head here
The Anti-racism Masterclass with the Uncharitable Team
The Anti-racism Masterclass
Join the Uncharitable team for a masterclass in race, racism, racialisation, white supremacy and intersectionality that will deepen your understanding of systems of oppression and what anti-racism looks like in practice.
We won't just be deconstructing what race is; we will also be exploring why race is.
If you're looking for a space to think deeply about systems of oppression, and your role in dismantling them, join Martha Awojobi, Safia Cragg and Natalie Armitage
For more info + to grab your tickets, head here
How do we resist? Strategies for NGOs to meet the moment
Martha Awojobi and Natasha Adams discuss how NGOs can build strategies and coalitions to resist the rise of authoritarianism.
Hannah Spencer's victory in Gorton and Denton is a much needed reminder of how powerful people are when they come together and say no to politics of greed, individualism and extractivism.
We are witnessing the collapse of empire, the shrinking of our civic spaces, a rejection of truth in favour of neoliberal smokes and mirrors, a mass gaslighting operation by our political and media class. We are seeing the rise of authoritarianism worldwide, the erosion of our hard won rights, and the devastating impacts for marginalised people and on our planet.
Business as usual just ain't going to cut it, and it wasn't really an effective strategy in the first place. We need to completely reimagine the role of charities and funders in the political moment.
Joining Martha Awojobi (CEO of JMB Consulting and creator of Uncharitable) is Natasha Adams, movement strategist and researcher, and co-author of Meeting the moment: How the UK social change sector can respond to the rise of authoritarianism and the far right.
Their analysis is clear:
'The social change sector isn’t responding at the speed, scale, or ambition needed. We’re stuck in ways of operating that are no longer fit for purpose, predicated as they are on the assumption of a simpler media landscape and a liberal democracy, which is rapidly being eroded. The picture is bleak. And turning things around won’t be easy. But we can learn from other countries how to effectively push back'.
A lot of organisations simply don't know where to begin when it comes to navigating the political climate, let alone resisting. Luckily for us, Natasha has done all of the research so you don't have to. The report proposes five key strategies to meet the moment:
Investing in movement and solidarity work
Addressing narrative dysfunction
Influencing politics
Addressing threats
Re-orienting strategy and resources
We will be delving into these five strategies at our next Uncharitable event on 8th April at 10am. For those who are looking at practical ways that their organisation can be part of the movement to resist the rise in fascism and authoritarianism, this one is for you.
Power, Justice & Accountability: Antiracist Leadership Part 2
Pari Dhillon and Martha Awojobi discuss what is needed from anti-racist leadership in this current political moment.
Anti-racist leadership is needed now more than ever
Our last Power, Justice and Accountability event was extremely popular and we didn't have anywhere near enough time to get through all of the questions from our audience so we are hosting a part two where we delve in to your questions and more!
Our civic spaces are shrinking, protest is being criminalised, our government is implicated in a genocide. Things are serious. They always have been.
For so long our systems have rewarded denial over truth. But the truth is now impossible to ignore. The charity model does not deliver justice, in fact its very foundations are rooted in imperialism. So what do we do now?
We have an opportunity! The old systems are failing, and new ones are trying to be born. It’s time to shake things up; we cannot let our future be dictated by people who think empathy is a personality flaw. What is the social sector's role in facilitating the birth of transformative systems? And what is needed from our leaders?
Sometimes it is stepping up, sometimes it is stepping out of the way. But it is never doing nothing.
We need leaders who are equipped to face down systems of oppression with courage, strength and integrity. We should be mobilising, building power and alliances, taking risks and transforming our systems. Instead, leaders are holding on to 'the way things have always been done' for dear life.
Join Pari Dhillon, Director of Social Justice Collective and Martha Awojobi, CEO of JMB Consulting and creator of Uncharitable as they reflect on the state of leadership in the social sector, and what is needed to face rising authoritarianism and the shrinking of our civic space. They will be offering a sneak peak at their leadership programme, Power, Justice and Accountability, and speaking with past cohort member Caron Bradshaw about what they learned from the course and how they have translated their learning into practice.
The Power of Remembering
The End of Times is a series of Uncharitable Events exploring Earth Justice with Natalie Armitage, Earth Justice Consultant at JMB Consulting. Expect to rethink everything you thought you knew about climate justice, anti-racism, sustainability and regeneration!
Welcome to the first Earth Justice Event!
One of the most sinister ways that colonisation and white supremacy have scammed us all is by disconnecting us from ourselves, each other and the land. The Power of Remembering is, quite literally, crucial to dismantling the coloniser within by remembering how we can eat, build, live, grow and heal together.
From Jamaica to North London, community buildings, assets, sanctuaries, movement hubs, solidarity economies are reemerging in resistance to capitalist imperialism. This is the Power of Remembering who we are, harnessing the wisdom that is, and has always been within us. Remembering brings past skills - denigrated by imperialists, forgotten through forced assimilation - into today's world. We are talking about building with materials from the natural environment, food sovereignty, healing justice for the land, Black farming, regenerative systems design. And we are not stopping there.
Somatic memory is not all about trauma. It is also knowledge about plants, fruits, herbs, medicines and more. There are practical skills that are within most of us; our bodies are yearning to reconnect with them. We can remember how we used to build, heal, grow and live on, and with, the land. Earth is our biggest teacher, when we touch soil and grass our memories are activated - taking us back, beyond even our own consciousness. The land is also our most reliable provider, it is where we can learn how abundance really works. There is so much history between ourselves and land that has been stolen from us. Disaster is a constant call to return.
If you thought we could confront The End of Times with ‘innovations’ in green tech and ‘sustainability’, think again. We need is something older, an ancient wisdom within us all that is yearning to be remembered.
On July 15th at 5pm, Natalie Armitage will be joined by:
Beckah Williams - Earth Child Remedies
Afia Walking Tree - Solidarity Yaad International
George Massoud - Material Cultures
Paulette Henry - Black Rootz
This event will be on Zoom, with captions. All ticket holders will have access to the recording for three months following the event. See you there!