Impact Report 2023-2025

Partnering to Build Better Pathways to Black and Global Majority-Led Change

Funders like City Bridge Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and Esmee Fairbairn Foundation partner with DiNN because reaching Black and Global Majority-led organisations well takes more than money, it takes lived experience, care, and evidence-based design.

Introduction

Across the UK, funders and institutions are increasingly aware that good intentions are not enough.

Many want their resources to reach Black and Global Majority-led organisations. Many want to support grassroots leaders, racial justice work, community-led innovation, and organisations with deep lived experience. But they do not always have the networks, infrastructure, cultural knowledge, or delivery models needed to do that well.

For Black-led and Global Majority-led organisations, the issue is not a lack of talent, ambition, or community trust. The issue is often access: access to flexible funding, capacity-building support, trusted relationships, and programmes that understand the structural barriers they face.

This is where Do it Now Now plays a vital role.

As a Black-led organisation with experience across grantmaking, frontline delivery, enterprise support, programme design, and capacity building, DiNN acts as a bridge between funders and the organisations they want to support. We help partners design and deliver programmes that are structured, culturally informed, evidence-based, and rooted in the realities of the communities they are trying to reach.

The testimonials from City Bridge Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and Esmee Fairbairn Foundation show why this matters. Each partner came to DiNN with a different challenge. Each needed a different kind of programme. But across all three partnerships, a clear pattern emerges: funders value DiNN because we combine care with rigour, lived experience with professional delivery, and community trust with measurable outcomes.

Reaching the “missing middle” with City Bridge Foundation

City Bridge Foundation partnered with DiNN because it recognised the historical and ongoing barriers faced by the Black voluntary sector in accessing funding and support. As London’s largest independent charity funder, it wanted to increase the reach and impact of its grant-making by working with a trusted partner that could help address systemic challenges across the capital.

Through Innovate Now, City Bridge Foundation supported 64 Black-led charities and social enterprises across 18 London boroughs between 2023 and 2025. The programme focused on organisations in the “missing middle”: too established for start-up support, but often still considered too small or too risky for mainstream social investment or large-scale contracts.

DiNN’s role was to design and deliver a programme that combined tailored support with cohort learning, while recognising the structural and intersectional challenges participants faced.

The results were significant. City Bridge Foundation reported that participating leaders increased their confidence in navigating complex processes, built deeper partnerships and collaborations, and improved HR, administrative, and financial management. The organisations supported became more resilient, more strategic, better connected, and able to deliver greater impact in their communities.

Crucially, the programme’s value went beyond organisational capacity. It also supported the personal wellbeing and long-term sustainability of leaders by building self-efficacy and expanding professional influence.

How City Bridge Foundation and DiNN Supported Black-Led Organisations Through the Missing Middle

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Designing thoughtful, multi-year support with Wellcome Trust

Wellcome Trust came to this work through listening.

In 2023, Wellcome hosted externally facilitated focus groups with leaders of volunteer-led, grassroots, Black-led organisations supporting the careers and wellbeing of Black researchers in UK higher education. The focus groups made something clear: financial and non-financial support were both important, but how that support was delivered mattered just as much.

Support needed to be multi-year, flexible, easy to access, culturally aware, and designed around the needs of individual initiatives as well as the wider collective ecosystem.

Wellcome selected DiNN after a competitive procurement process because it believed DiNN could deliver a programme that went beyond simply providing money. What stood out was the thoughtfulness of DiNN’s design: every element had a clear rationale, from Health Checks during the application process to a compensated capacity fund that gave funded organisations the resources to properly engage with the programme.

For Wellcome, this level of evidence-informed design created confidence that the partnership would deliver support they could be proud of.

The measurable outcome was clear: a successful Round 1 launch with 261 applications from Black-led organisations across the UK.

How Wellcome and DiNN Designed Support for Black-Led Research Organisations

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Holding complexity with care for Esmee Fairbairn Foundation

Esmee Fairbairn Foundation partnered with DiNN on New Connections because it needed a values-led organisation with directly comparable experience of working with Black-led organisations and others working for racial justice.

For Esmee, DiNN brought three things that mattered: a structured approach, a strong commitment to co-design, and an understanding of wellbeing.

This partnership was not just about delivery. It was about how the work was held. Esmee valued the care and expertise DiNN brought into the space, especially around managing difficult conversations responsibly and supporting grassroots organisations and founders with lived experience.

That is a key part of DiNN’s value. We do not treat programme design as a technical exercise alone. We understand that funding relationships can carry power, risk, expectation, and emotional labour. When funders want to work differently, especially with communities that have been historically underfunded or poorly served, they need partners who can hold that complexity with honesty and care.

How Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and DiNN Used Care, Co-Design, and Values-Led Support to Work Differently

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What these partnerships have in common

City Bridge Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and Esmee Fairbairn Foundation are different institutions with different priorities. But their testimonials point to a shared set of reasons why funders choose to work with DiNN.

They value DiNN’s community reach: our ability to connect with Black and Global Majority-led organisations that may not be visible through traditional funding channels.

They value our lived experience: our understanding of the structural barriers these organisations face, and the cultural context needed to design support that is relevant and respectful.

They value our programme design: structured, evidence-informed approaches that combine funding with capacity building, Health Checks, cohort learning, Critical Friend support, and ongoing learning.

They value our care and professionalism: the ability to manage complex relationships, hold difficult conversations, and deliver high-quality work in a way that feels thoughtful and accountable.

They value our impact: stronger organisations, more confident leaders, deeper partnerships, and better pathways for funding to reach the communities it is intended to support.

Beyond funding: building infrastructure for equity

The strongest partnerships do not simply move money from one place to another. They build infrastructure.

They help funders reach organisations they may not otherwise know. They help grassroots leaders access support that is flexible, culturally aware, and practical. They help bridge the gap between institutional resources and community-led change.

That is what DiNN’s partnership model is designed to do:

We help funders move from intention to implementation.
We help programmes move from transaction to transformation.
We help Black and Global Majority-led organisations access support that recognises both their potential and the barriers they face.

The testimonials from our partners show that this work is not just needed. It is trusted.

And as the sector looks ahead, the message is clear: if funders want to support Black and Global Majority-led change well, they need more than funding pots. They need partnerships grounded in lived experience, care, evidence, and long-term capacity building.

That is the role DiNN is here to play.