What would Joseph do? A reflection on JRF’s radical roots and their relevance now

Joseph Rowntree, the social pioneer and visionary after whom this organisation is named, died exactly 100 years ago today. His outlook was shaped during a period of profound economic and social change – through an industrial and technological revolution that we can now see as a point of deep transition. During his later life, aspects of what became the 20th century welfare state began gradually to take shape in response to unprecedented economic, technological and social disruption. Old certainties around public policy and the role of the state were eroded and new ideas took root.

A century later, there is a growing sense that we are, or need to be, entering another period of transition: even greater perhaps than that seen in Rowntree’s time. But the next paradigm is yet to emerge with clarity. Indeed, it is sometimes a struggle to see a positive future at all. Too often our politics seems beset by a crisis of imagination and lack of confidence in a better future, with a profound sense of fatalism and hopelessness prevailing instead. Increasingly, in despair, people turn to the false and easy answers of demagogues. Right now, there is a lot at stake.

Naming the forces shaping our world

I feel that much of current philanthropic effort is directed to remedying the more superficial manifestations of weakness or evil, while little thought or effort is directed to search out the underlying causes

Joseph Rowntree, 1904

Long before he died, Rowntree wrote about the work he wanted the various charitable organisations that would carry his name to do. Central to this was his belief in the need to focus on the root causes and systemic issues underlying social injustices. Of particular concern to him was the way in which wealth translated into power, including through the media. His interest in housing and communities, the inspiration for his pioneering work in the garden village of New Earswick, went well beyond the question of the provision of homes, and into questions of the ownership of land upon which homes were built. This, along with the taxation of land, he assigned ‘supreme importance’.

He would, I think, be disappointed to learn how far his preoccupations with issues of wealth and power remain salient today. In the UK we see extraordinary inequalities of wealth, the likes of which have not been seen since Rowntree’s own time, with assets and power concentrating into fewer hands, while capital markets move unimaginably large sums of money globally. Meanwhile, just as in Rowntree’s time, our public policy discourse is too often shaped by the defenders of such inequality and the beneficiaries of extractive and rentier forms of capitalism.

At the same time, ordinary families in the UK have seen growing risks pushed their way as the state has retreated and public policy found wanting, resulting in deepening economic insecurity and rising levels of poverty and hardship. Technological changes, most notably the advance of AI, offer the prospect of further profound disruption in the years ahead. Meanwhile, above it all looms the greatest threat we have ever faced – a global climate emergency.

It is hardly surprising that, faced with these challenges, we have seen elements of the consensus in the political economy of recent decades appear to be breaking down. More and more people, including those in mainstream political and media circles, share a stark analysis of the current moment we are in, facing a set of profound economic, social, political and environmental crises.

Finding a way through the fog

The work required is not to set out a single blueprint for the alternative paradigm that might replace this fracturing settlement. Instead, as in Rowntree’s time, the real work is to feel our way towards that settlement, building it piece by piece. That means challenging and destabilising failing aspects of the current political economy, while supporting and shielding the pioneers offering glimmers of hope that might pave the way to something new. At JRF we see it as our primary purpose to help shape and support that transition. 

We believe that, to achieve stability, any new settlement will need to deliver greater economic and environmental security through a new balance between market, state, communities and the individual. Harder to imagine is the theory of change that might get us there. Profound social and economic change is highly complex, messy, emergent. We need to have humility about what we can know and what we can control. The change we are seeking may happen through the accumulation of incremental steps rather than through big leaps forward, and through the radical adaptation of existing systems rather than their demise. 

This sort of change can take a long time, is more speculative, with progress harder to measure and impact often less visible in the shorter term. It is therefore not easy for an organisation to make such work its focus and to have the discipline to stick with it, especially when the ‘superficial manifestations’ of injustice, to use Rowntree’s words, are so stark and present. But we recognise that there is an imperative on JRF to lean into this more difficult task. Doing so not only aligns with the unique position of being a foundation – with the wealth and independence that brings – but is consistent with our history.

3 different routes to change

Importantly, this does not mean turning our back on the opportunities for more immediate change within the current political economy. Far from it. The fight for social justice is constant and urgent. But, as we do so, we will always look to stretch into deeper change. Any incremental change must be sought with a view towards a more radical transition over time. Therefore, building on our hard-earned reputation as an expert source of insight and policy, our in-house policy and advocacy teams are increasingly focussed on shining a light on fundamental aspects of how our economy works, including the issues of power and wealth that sit at the heart of economic insecurity and poverty in the UK today. But to avoid fuelling further fatalism, this needs to be accompanied by ideas that stoke demand for change and show how change is possible.

Simultaneously, we are looking beyond the traditional power centres and towards the the work of pioneers who are demonstrating now, in a variety of niches and often quietly and thanklessly, what a more regenerative economy of the future might look like. Our Emerging Futures team was established 3 years ago to help build connections between those building the new, and create less hostile environmental conditions for their work; strengthening capacity and capabilities, tackling barriers, and crowding funding, including our own, into the field.

To support both these types of work we are also focussed on the underpinning conditions for success – the infrastructure needed to support and grow a movement for change. Through investing in grassroots movement building, we aim to support those who are living with injustice in their own lives to shape change. If history is any kind of reliable guide, they are often best placed to shift mindsets and create more longing for transformative ideas.

"It is to be remembered that there may be no better way of advancing the objects one has at heart than to strengthen the hands of those who are effectively doing the work that needs to be done. Not unfrequently one hears of persons doing excellent work whose service is cramped, or who are in danger of breaking down through anxiety about the means of living"

Joseph Rowntree, 1904

Deploying all of our wealth

JRF has many assets to support its mission, including the deep expertise of our own people, the strengths and diversity of our partnerships, and the reputation we hold with many different stakeholders. But, like other foundations, a core asset – our foundational asset – is our financial endowment.

For many years, JRF has invested its endowment to grow over time so that we can both fund our annual work and maintain the real financial value of the endowment over the long term. This means that the lion’s share of the wealth we steward has not historically been focused directly on furthering our mission.

In the years ahead we will change this, moving towards a position where all our wealth is in service to our mission. We will achieve this by:

• Spending more on our mission. We have previously committed to spending significantly more on mission-aligned activity and system-changing work, over and above historic levels of spending. In the coming weeks we will set out more details on how we intend to make that commitment a reality.
• Investing in our mission. We will move the wealth we steward into a new mix of social, impact and transformational investment, better aligned with our mission.  These investments will strike a new balance between financial return and contribution to mission – giving greater prioritisation to the latter.

This is not a ‘spend down’ approach. As a foundation we have a range of medium and long-term obligations. Most importantly, we are the proud parent organisation of the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (JRHT), continuing our founder’s legacy in York and the north east, committed to meeting our long-term obligations to the Trust and to its tenants in creating permanent, thriving communities.

But our new endowment strategy will nevertheless see us focusing more in the coming years on the mission-aligned stewarding of our wealth, and giving that much greater priority.

Assessing our contribution

There is no set of Key Performance Indicators for the work we are embarking upon. Measuring the contribution we make to system change is complex. But that is not an excuse for lack of rigour or discipline.

In the area of public policy we will usually ask whether our ideas and propositions are influencing people in positions of power and influential message carriers. In many respects this is the most familiar pathway to people working in research and policy circles and in campaigning and advocacy groups. But our focus on system change and more radical shifts means that any impact we have, even if incremental, must be judged in the context of whether it is helping to bridge towards fundamental and radical change.

In other aspects of our work, such as that focussed on supporting innovation which is happening away from the public gaze, we are often leading with questions rather than proposing specific answers. The contribution to our mission in this area is found more in the concept of learning. Working with others who are building alternative futures or counteracting sources of power, are we deepening understanding about what is needed to shape the conditions for more radical change?

Finally, as a well-resourced independent foundation, we believe JRF has an important role to play as a developer of infrastructure for change, investing in and nurturing the conditions and capabilities for others to shape change, with our support. This involves JRF acting as a generous field-builder and convener. Our contribution here might be measured in the health or resilience of the ecosystem of pioneers we are supporting, and whether our support is acting to bring in new sources of support for the future. Similarly it might be measured in the resilience of grassroots movement building supported by JRF. And where we are building infrastructure and tools for others to use, the contribution we make can best be seen through how others use those resources to create change: where we would ask, are we delivering ‘value for many’?

As we lean more into system-changing work, with all the complexities and risks around measuring our contribution, it is all the more important that we are guided by a set of principles against which we can be held to account. So we push ourselves towards more system changing work, we will continue to ask ourselves how far we are living into a set of 6 guiding principles we have identified to help hold ourselves accountable.

Conclusion

We have put the concept of transition at the heart of our mission: to support and speed up the transition to a more equitable and just future, free from poverty, where people and planet can flourish. This is an ambitious mission, focused on deep and more radical change.

Over the last few years we have undertaken work to refine our approach to more radical system-changing work - and we are committed to it.

This year, as we remember the life of our founder and his pioneering work, we feel keenly the obligation to meet our own moment with the same spirit of radical intent and determination. The economic and social crises we face, and the privilege of our position as an independent foundation, demands nothing less of us.