A recommitment to our work in the UK

Do it Now Now (DINN) is an open innovation organisation driven by the desire to bring social empowerment to Black communities across the globe. We bring charities, social entrepreneurs, startup teams, social innovators, investors, and philanthropists together to address social challenges, solve problems and support the development of Black communities specifically. We do this through entrepreneurship training and support in 6 African countries and in the UK. 

When we launched DINN 4 years ago, we were piecing together an ecosystem to support Black people who are systematically removed from the existing entrepreneurship ecosystem of support globally. We sought to design the experience of entrepreneurship anew for Black and mixed with Black people around the world. To do that, we have had to work closely with our community to understand their needs. By identifying and engaging with key stakeholders across the entire business support landscape we can design programs that truly meet the needs of our beneficiaries.
 
We have an established track record, financed largely by consultancy work we have done with organisations like Google, Goldsmiths University, the British Council and others. This gives us the opportunity to continue supporting Black entrepreneurs who are unable to access paid services elsewhere. We have run 54 entrepreneurship training programs supporting over 8000 Black entrepreneurs in the UK and in Africa; 80% of our work has been with Black entrepreneurs in the UK. After a qualitative research study, we discovered that 78% of our beneficiaries identify as social enterprises and are primarily working on solutions to support Black people in the following areas:

• Arts and Culture
• Employment, Education and Training
• Mental Health and Wellbeing, or
• Citizenship and Community

Like us, they typically describe their beneficiaries as “young people”, “living in poverty” and “people of ethnic minority background”. Like us, they are typically trying to create a better world for Black people. In aggregate, our beneficiaries support approximately 1.6 million people a year.

As an organisation, Do it Now Now is poised to redress the deprivation of resources, skills and tools that inequality of resource allocation metes upon the Black community in the UK. Through the provision of training in leadership, activism and entrepreneurship, we empower Black people to engage actively and beneficially in the communities in which we live. 

The Black community has been very hard hit financially by COVID and that has had a very strong knock-on effect on the social enterprises and charities that are run by Black people in the UK. With the majority of the organisations, we support relying on grant funding, personal savings and in some cases pay-day loans to help them bridge the financial gap to deliver on their charitable objectives and social aims, the difficulty to access funding and the significant reduction in wages all of the population faces means that the Black community could potentially be irrevocably harmed by the current circumstances. 

The financial instability has left a significant support gap for the beneficiaries of our beneficiaries. We support enterprises that bridge the deeply felt gap of provision Black people experience across the UK. According to the Office of National Statistics, 19.6% of the Black population lives in the most deprived parts of the country, the highest of any racial group to be concentrated in deprived areas. There is an urgent need. If we don’t step in and intentionally support Black-led social enterprises and charities now, within the next 18 months, we will see a significant decrease in the community initiatives and projects run by Black-led social enterprises and charities that work to bridge the resource and support gap that Black people and other people of colour living in deprived areas in the UK experience.  

If you, like us, are concerned for the future of Black-led enterprises creating beneficial impact in local communities across the UK, please head to our donation page where you or your company can contribute to their support. 

Bayo Adelaja | Chief Do-er at Do it Now Now | This is how I got here