Staying Brave: Towards a total asset approach

As the year draws to a close, we are sharing our Staying Brave report, authored by Stephen Bediako, Louise Mousseau and Fancy Sinantha.

Staying Brave is a reimagination of what a total asset approach could be for Tudor in the context of a transformation. At its core, a total asset approach is about using all of a foundation’s resources to drive mission aligned impact. This includes moving from commercial to social impact investments, as well as prioritising impact aligned organisations in all supply chains. At Tudor, we want to go further and rethink our people, practices and our relationship with our grantees so that we can leverage shared knowledge and experience for maximum impact.

Lessons from across the pond

Staying Brave draws inspiration from family foundations in the US, and speaks to how they have redefined decision-making practices, embraced intersectional racial justice, and redistributed wealth for the benefit of communities historically excluded from significant philanthropy. These case studies aren’t new or prescriptive, they’re an invitation to stimulate our thinking, question existing norms, and chart our own path forward.

Building the foundation for transformation

When we first engaged Stephen, Louise, and Fancy, our goal was to support internal learning - an opportunity to facilitate conversations between exiting and incoming trustees, broaden the perspectives of Tudor’s staff and trustees and infuse systemic change into our strategic thinking. The brief was to explore how foundations embed deep systemic change strategies across their practices from their investments, governance, grant-making, and people and culture.

A key part of their work involved interviews with Tudor’s outgoing and incoming trustees to craft a shared vision for our future. While these interviews themselves aren’t included in the report, they sparked a recurring theme: the critical need for bravery in the philanthropy space. Challenging the traditional power dynamics between funders and grantees - where power is usually in the hands of the funder - demands courage, humility, and a willingness to disrupt entrenched norms. That’s why the report is aptly titled Staying Brave.

Why we’re sharing this

There are two reasons we’re releasing this report. First, we hope it sparks different conversations within the philanthropic community. Second, we want to be more transparent about the influences shaping our journey. Transformation is rarely linear or fast, it’s a process. We are conscious that the implementation of our transformation has taken time - longer than we had anticipated - but we hope the report gives a deeper insight into what has inspired us to use 2024 to focus on our internal culture and practices.

While the building of our grant-making efforts continue, and we are in the process of identifying our first grantee partners, this report highlights the foundational work that underpins our strategy.

A heartfelt thank you

As we come to the end of 2024, I am personally wanting to take a moment to thank Stephen, Fancy and Louise for their commitment and their support for Tudor. In the process of producing this report they were also thought partners to me as I worked through the nuances of the challenges over the course of the year. They are the Dream Team.

Here’s to a brave and transformative 2025.

Raji