Introduction
In August 2020 the human rights charity Each Other - formerly known as RightsInfo - held a Black Lives Matter themed “takeover”. Amongst those involved was academic Kehinde Andrews, who claimed “our rights are built on the idea black life does not matter”.
One of the articles published called for decolonising the curriculum. Another blamed “predominantly white newsrooms” for not reporting on the Grenfell cladding scandal before it occurred. A new diversity regulator to cover the media was demanded, after an Ofcom report showed people from minority ethnic groups were under-represented in key media roles (the same report also showed they were over-represented generally and that at some broadcasters, like Channel 4, they were also over-represented in the key roles). The founder of Black Protest Legal Support encouraged others to copy the example of Evelyn A. Williams, the lawyer who defended the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army (the violence committed by both groups is ignored). Finally, a senior staff member from the taxpayer funded The 4Front Project claimed the police are “inherently racist” and must therefore be defunded.
These aren’t isolated examples. Each Other has also featured a co-leader of the Green Party defending the Stanstead 15 (who stopped a deportation flight including criminals guilty of murder and child abuse); a call for reparations for slavery; opposition to the deportation of foreign born criminals; the complaints of a woman who can’t see her husband because he’s been locked up in Guernsey during coronavirus for importing Class A drugs; and a plea not to prosecute children with a history of criminality as it might be “alienating” and lead to them being “groomed” into a gang.
Although Each Other say that the articles they post represent the views of the authors only, they’ve expressed support in other ways. Several of the articles cited were written by members of Black Protest Legal Support, which the EachOther website encourages readers to donate to:
Who are Each Other?
The stereotypical image of charities is of volunteer-run organisations, funded through donations from ordinary people, committed to doing good works to help the needy. In reality though, it’s a highly professional sector. Each Other is a good example of that kind of charity; their annual accounts on the Charity Commission reveal that almost all of their funding come from wealthy trusts and foundations. Under 2.5% of their 2019 income (£7,287 out of £295,287) came from individual donations:
Rather than being a grassroots organisation, Each Other is supported by a small circle of trusts and foundations; like the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and the Aziz Foundation. Additional funding comes from legal firms like Doughty Street Chambers or Leigh Day. Nor does Each Other redistribute those funds to the needy; instead they spend almost all of it on wages for their full-time staff and office costs:
Of course, Each Other is an educational charity, so there’s nothing illegal about doing this; though it may surprise those who naively thought charities are built on grassroots support or dedicated to volunteer work. Instead, Each Other aims to use “independent journalism, storytelling and filmmaking to promote human rights in Britain”. In order to judge their impact, it’s worth examining their report for 2019, which cites statistics based on a supporter survey to set out their achievements:
Those are fantastic numbers - but are they believable? The UK’s population is about 66 million, so if 660,000 people were inspired to campaign then 1 in 100 of us would be a very motivated reader of Each Other. Unfortunately there are no details on how many people were included in the supporter survey so the accuracy of their extrapolations remains unknowable. Nonetheless, it seems unlikely that they have such a large and dedicated audience judging by their YouTube channel, which regularly show videos struggling to reach 1000 or even 100 views:
Perhaps it isn’t a surprise they’re struggling when their website claims they need £150 donated for every ten minutes of podcast they produce, working out at an eye-watering £15 per minute:
If Each Other are interested, they can create a podcast for free with Anchor.
Comment
Each Other demonstrates an awkward truth about the charity sector: many seem to have very little grassroots financial support, instead relying on grants from trusts or foundations. There is no suggestion that this influences their views - rather, it seems to be the other way around; trusts and foundations look for charities who share their values, even if those values seemingly aren’t popular enough with society to let them operate on individual donations.
Much of the diversity of charities therefore boils down to the same handful of trusts and foundations, whose influence is obscured by their generosity. Charity reform to differentiate between genuine grassroots groups and those which are professionally funded to spend their time on political and social lobbying will be necessary to return clarity to the sector.