#PolicySoWhite

This is a guest blog by Kristiana Wrixon - @KristianaWrixon

I am not aware of any statistics to confirm this, but in my experience policy departments in ‘mainstream’ charities are one of the whitest, middle-class, non-disabled, heteronormative parts of the voluntary sector workforce. I think this is in large part because in recruitment and promotion a high value is placed on candidates who have inside knowledge and/or contacts with national or local government.

This means that the charity sector is hiring a significant number of people to policy and lobbying job roles using the same experience, educational attainment, and knowledge criteria that are used in the systems of power that many are trying to change.

Huge emphasis is also placed on building relationships with policymakers that do not make those people feel too uncomfortable. To do this we replicate the language and the value base of those already holding positions of power. All of this creates a mirroring of the behaviour that we are trying to change and, to quote Audre Lorde, ‘The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.’

What is policy?

This is a common question, and an important one. None of my family or friends knew what I did when I got my first job role with the word ‘policy’ in it. Similarly, when I first worked in a charity, I worked in service delivery and had no idea what policy was. The policy function isn’t always the same in every organisation, but quite simply at its core, policy is about finding solutions to problems. This includes big social justice challenges like ending health inequality or finding ways to improve regional infrastructure.

There are a small group of people who know that policy work in charities is a career option before they’ve worked or volunteered inside a charity, and these people largely fall into three categories 1) people who studied politics at university 2) people who have worked in local or national government 3) people with experience in party politics. This is a relatively small group of people, who, because of the racism and inequality endemic in all our institutions, including education and politics, are significantly more likely to be white.

So don’t we just need to raise more awareness of charity policy as a job?

That only a small group of people know about policy as a job is a challenge, but it is not the root cause of the problem.

Recruiting managers look for skills and experience particular to the three groups previously mentioned. Junior policy positions are often occupied by people that have studied politics at a Russell Group university (24 academic, research focused universities considered by some to be the best in the county). Middle management and senior policy positions are frequently held by people who have a politics degree and experience working in MPs offices, the civil service, government, or politically well-connected think tanks.

These people are selected, at least in part, because they have access to existing power structures and an understanding of how things are done. The assumption being that a charity will be able to use this person’s knowledge, networks and access to power to benefit the people or cause it serves.

Many policy roles now include a line in their recruitment criteria encouraging candidates to apply that have ‘lived experience’ of the issue that the charity addresses. However, it is usually listed as a ‘desirable’ criterion that recruiters want alongside all the other usual requirements. It is not a request for someone who will do things differently, question, challenge or provoke. It is insincerity hidden behind a message of authenticity.

But aren’t charities just hiring the best people for the job?

This statement relies on two big assumptions:

Assumption one: those who know how the system is played, can make it work for them.

Just because you understand the rules doesn’t mean you know how to change them. And when it comes to systems of deep, systemic injustice, charities don’t just need people who know how people in positions of power like to be interacted with, it also needs people that know how to disrupt.

Assumption two: the best people to design solutions to society’s challenges are white, non-disabled, heterosexual, cis, middle and upper class, university educated men - people who have benefitted most from the world as it is. And also, when it comes to the charity sector, white women who benefit from other forms of social privilege and don’t challenge systems of oppression that don’t personally impact them.

A large part of policy is designing, advocating, and arguing for solutions to problems experienced by the community you serve. It should be unnecessary to say this, but those with experience of the problem should have a (paid) seat at the table. If the charity sector is disproportionately employing a specific group of people then it is not hiring the best people. It cannot possibly be getting the broadest range of experience, skills, and expertise that will lead it to the best solutions.

So, how did we get to where we are?

Power. And here is where we arrive at the crux of the whiteness of policy positions in the charity sector. It feels good, I feel good, when I am in ‘the room where it happens’ (to quote Hamilton). To maintain access to that room we want to be ‘taken seriously’, to persuade others with more power than us that we can be useful to each other, that we can work together to further the aims of the person in the room who has more hierarchical power. These things reward the status quo, particularly the status quo of whiteness.

But there are other forms of power, for example collective power, that the charity sector could refocus its energy on channelling. Our collective ambition should unashamedly be to change the world. But how many times have you heard someone in a policy role encourage you to be more ‘realistic’ and less ‘naïve’? Words that only ever seem to be used to quell ambition.

It is both realistic and possible to create completely different, equitable, fair global societies. The inequitable, unfair, isolationist systems didn’t just happen, they were built. Nothing about the status quo is inevitable. All of our systems, institutions and laws were purposefully built and things that are built can be dismantled and rebuilt. This is not naïve, this is history.

Surely the best people for policy jobs are the people that genuinely and unashamedly believe that radical change is possible and want to persuade others of that too. We need people in policy positions that will not be hypnotised by the complexity and scale of the challenge ahead. If charities continue to place the highest value on people who know how to play the system, they will never change the game.