Impact Report 2023-2025
How We Are Solving the Gaps That Stop Black and Global Majority-Led Organisations from Growing
Black and Global Majority-led organisations aren't short on talent or community trust. What's missing is infrastructure: the funding pathways, investment readiness, and civic support that turn good work into lasting impact. Here's where those gaps are, and how DiNN is built to close them.
Introduction
Across the UK, Black and Global Majority-led organisations are doing essential work in communities: supporting young people, improving health and wellbeing, creating routes into employment, advancing racial justice, building cultural infrastructure, and responding to needs that mainstream systems often miss.
But too much of this work is still happening in conditions of scarcity.
Many funders, investors, public bodies, and companies want to support Black and Global Majority-led change, but face a common set of challenges. They do not always have the networks to reach grassroots organisations. They may not know who is emerging, trusted, or ready for the next stage of support. They may want to move money differently, but lack the infrastructure to do it well. They may be tracking diversity across portfolios and beginning to see a pipeline problem, but not yet have the mechanism to build that pipeline.
At the same time, many Black and Global Majority-led organisations are mission-rich but infrastructure-constrained. They have deep community trust, strong ideas, and lived experience of the issues they are trying to solve, but need support with governance, finance, HR, systems, partnerships, investment readiness, and long-term sustainability.
That is the gap DiNN exists to close.
Between 2023 and 2025 , Do it Now Now has delivered 20 programmes, supported 413 organisations and individuals through structured multi-month initiatives, and distributed £2.65 million in grant funding to 213 initiatives. Our wider community includes 2,450 registered members, with real-time membership rising to over 3,100 in early 2026.
We are not simply a delivery partner. We are a gateway, a capacity builder, and an ecosystem builder for Black and Global Majority-led social change.
Problem 1: Funders want to reach the right organisations, but the sector is hard to navigate.
Many institutions want their resources to reach grassroots and community-rooted organisations, but traditional networks often do not go deep enough. The organisations doing powerful work locally may not have the language, profile, or relationships that make them visible to mainstream funding systems.
DiNN helps solve this by bringing reach, trust, and cultural knowledge.
Our network is rooted in Black and Global Majority communities, with members and grantees working across employment, education and training, mental health and wellbeing, racial justice and equity, arts and culture, physical health, disability, financial inclusion, housing, climate, and community development.
We help partners find the organisations that are already active, trusted, and doing meaningful work, including those that may not yet be visible through conventional routes.
Problem 2: Money alone does not build sustainability.
Funding matters. But funding without infrastructure can leave organisations trapped in short cycles of delivery, reporting, and survival.
Our evidence shows that organisations need more than grants. They need support that strengthens how they operate: governance, administration, HR, financial management, organisational planning, programme delivery, and impact measurement.
That is why our model combines funding with Health Checks, cohort learning, Critical Friend support, peer networks, and follow-up measurement. In Innovate Now, supported by City Bridge Foundation, 64 Black-led charities and social enterprises completed baseline and follow-up Health Checks. Average organisational Health Check scores rose from 3.3 to 3.9 out of 4, with every one of the seven thematic areas improving.
That is what capacity-building looks like in practice: not just stronger feelings, but stronger systems.
Problem 3: There is a pipeline gap for social investment and larger-scale funding.
The social investment sector increasingly wants to invest in Black and Global Majority-led organisations, but the pipeline is not yet strong enough, visible enough, or ready enough to meet that ambition.
This is not because the organisations lack potential. It is because the market needs development.
Many early-stage and growth-stage organisations need support before they are ready to take on debt, blended finance, or major contracts. Some need stronger financial systems. Some need help telling their story to investors. Some need to understand the risks and opportunities of repayable finance. Others need time to build trust, confidence, and readiness.
DiNN supports organisations across the full development journey, from £0 to £1 million in revenue. We may not always use the language of “incubators” and “accelerators” because it does not always resonate with our communities, but we do the work: enterprise development, investment readiness, financial planning, confidence-building, and tailored support.
The results show what is possible. Within six months of completing programmes, 63% of participants had formed new partnerships with established institutions, 39% had secured new grant funding, and 21% had secured social investment.
Problem 4: Institutions want impact, but need trusted delivery infrastructure.
Large-scale programmes require more than good intentions. They require design, delivery, safeguarding, data, community trust, quality assurance, and the ability to hold complexity with care.
That is where DiNN adds value.
City Bridge Foundation described DiNN as a well-networked, Black-led organisation with experience spanning grantmaking and frontline delivery, able to meet unaddressed needs in culturally informed and appropriate ways. Through Innovate Now, City Bridge Foundation supported 64 Black-led charities and social enterprises across 18 London boroughs, helping organisations become more resilient, strategic, connected, and impactful.
Wellcome highlighted DiNN’s thoughtful programme design, including Health Checks during the application process and a compensated capacity fund that enabled funded organisations to fully engage with support. That partnership achieved a successful Round 1 launch with 261 applications from Black-led organisations across the UK.
Esmee Fairbairn Foundation valued DiNN’s structured approach, commitment to co-design, understanding of wellbeing, and ability to hold difficult conversations with care.
For partners, this means reduced risk, deeper reach, and better-quality support for the organisations they want to serve.
Problem 5: Local and regional systems need stronger civic infrastructure.
Local authorities and regional government are facing rising demand, reduced resources, and uneven infrastructure for supporting community-led enterprise.
When local support is fragmented, organisations can be missed. Good work can go unsupported. Residents can be underserved. Funders and commissioners may struggle to know which groups are active, trusted, and ready to grow.
DiNN can help build stronger civic infrastructure.
We can identify Black and Global Majority-led organisations active in a place, provide year-round support, quality-control services, and create pathways from early-stage enterprise to more mature organisational growth. For regional government, this supports inclusive economic growth. For local authorities, it strengthens the community ecosystem around charities, social enterprises, and grassroots leaders.
Problem 6: Companies want meaningful community engagement, but need the right structure.
Many employees want to use their skills for good, but companies often struggle to create volunteering or mentoring opportunities that are useful, well-managed, and genuinely valuable to communities.
DiNN can design structured ways for corporate partners to contribute.
Our network includes talented early-stage founders and community leaders who need access to skills, mentoring, confidence, and networks. Companies can support through mentoring programmes, Dragon’s Den-style events, skills-sharing, specialist workshops, and structured volunteering.
Done well, this creates value on both sides: founders gain practical expertise, and employees take part in community engagement that is meaningful rather than performative.
The invitation: build the infrastructure with us
The challenge we face is not a lack of vision, talent, or dedication within Black and Global Majority-led organisations; these qualities exist in abundance.
The real question is whether the broader ecosystem is prepared to invest in the essential infrastructure required to move these organisations from short-term survival to long-term sustainability.
DiNN exists to help our partners bridge that gap:
We facilitate the flow of resources to the right initiatives
We provide the structured support that allows promising organisations to build resilience
We help funders and investors develop a robust, visible pipeline for the future
We assist public bodies in strengthening the civic infrastructure within their regions
We enable companies to share their expertise through engagement that is truly valuable
We ensure that leaders with lived experience have the systems they need to succeed
Our model is designed with intentionality and care, creating a cycle of reinvestment where supported members cascade their skills, confidence, and networks back into the wider community:
This is capacity-building as a vehicle for equity
This is community wealth building in action
This is how we transition from a culture of scarcity to one of shared, sustainable infrastructure
If your ambition is to support Black and Global Majority-led changemakers through a model that is thoughtful, practical, and rooted in evidence, we invite you to partner with DiNN.
Together, we can establish the conditions for stronger founders, more resilient organisations, and more impactful communities.
Read More of the Impact Report 2023-2025
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Community at a Glance
In 2025, our community grew to 2,450 members across the UK, with Black and Global Majority-led organisations at the heart of everything we do. From £2.65 million in grants disbursed to leadership confidence nearly doubling, see the data behind our growing impact.
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Theory of Change
Our Theory of Change starts with a simple belief: when Black and Global Majority changemakers get the right support at the right stage, they build organisations that transform communities. Discover the five-level system behind DiNN's programmes, and the data proving it works.
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How Do it Now Now Keeps Lived Experience at the Centre
Our legitimacy doesn't come from good intentions alone. Meet the Community Advisory Board members, entrepreneurs, therapists, strategists, and alumni, who shape how Do it Now Now governs, decides, and stays accountable to the communities we serve.
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How We Design Learning That Moves Founders From Intention To Action
Discover ASAP: our four-stage framework moving Black and Global Majority founders from Awareness through to Personalisation, helping intention become action.
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Online Community and Alumni Support: Beyond the Programme
The end of a programme doesn't have to be a cliff edge. From lifetime access to training libraries to alumni dinners and peer-led workshops, discover how Do it Now Now keeps its community connected, learning, and growing long after the final session.
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From Seed to Scale: What Five Founder Journeys Teach Us About Building Sustainable Social Enterprises
From a solo sip-and-paint business to a parkour gym facing an existential lease crisis, see how DiNN's Level-Based Programmes meet social entrepreneurs where they are, and help them build what lasts.
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From Fragility to Resilience: What Our Health Checks Reveal
Every organisation we work with completes a developmental Health Check, first at baseline, then months later. Across 64 organisations in our Innovate Now programme, scores rose with significant gains in governance, finance, and community impact.
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The Evidence for Impact: How DiNN Programmes Turn Learning into Outcomes
A strong programme leaves people encouraged and equipped to act. See the data behind DiNN's outcomes, tracking how confidence, partnerships, and funding shift for participants in the months after they complete a programme.
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Why The Journey Does Not End When a Programme Finishes
Support rarely arrives as one clean intervention. It's a Health Check here, a grant there, a mentoring session somewhere else. Meet Carib Eats, MEM Academy, and Youth League UK, three founders whose journeys show what happens when support becomes a connected pathway instead.
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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.
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How We Are Solving the Gaps That Stop Black and Global Majority-Led Organisations from Growing
Black and Global Majority-led organisations aren't short on talent or community trust. What's missing is infrastructure: the funding pathways, investment readiness, and civic support that turn good work into lasting impact. Here's where those gaps are, and how DiNN is built to close them.
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List of Grantees
From grassroots youth groups to climate initiatives, arts collectives to health-focused CICs, see the full list of Black and Global Majority-led organisations we've supported since 2023, a snapshot of the ecosystem we're helping to build.
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