Dear all, 

As a community and a network, we stand in solidarity with all our members, partners, thinkers, artists, and their communities. We stand against racism, racial violence and any form of discrimination. We defend equal rights and opportunities for all. 

Fundraisers are agents of change for a more equal and sustainable world, and we believe that the arts are a powerful catalyst for change. At our intersection of fundraising and the arts we are well placed to instigate multilateral change. We acknowledge that we have to do much more from within, out there, and with you. 

Our mission to make the sector sustainable long-term depends on a more diverse workforce. Fundraising is not diverse enough, the arts are not diverse enough and we must do better. Arts organisations have much work to do when it comes to being fully representative of the communities we work in and addressing the systemic and structural racism that is so evident in cultural institutions and beyond. Our organisation is no different, and it is our responsibility, as it is everyone’s, to initiate change where we are able. It is YAF’s responsibility to utilise our platform to continue to raise awareness and advocate for equality. 

Internally, we have reviewed our work and discussed how we can do better. We are committed to regularly reviewing our work and conversing as a Board on how we can learn and improve. Last year, our members took part in a survey sharing their thoughts on YAF and how we could improve our events, network and conversations. This feedback has led to us reviewing how we curate and host events, ensuring we have representation on our speaker panels and making our events accessible through tools like closed captioning. We also reviewed our recruitment processes enabling applicants to apply more easily and making the interview process more transparent. However, we acknowledge we could be doing more and as a Board we pledge to continue our learning. 

As our community, we want you to be part of this conversation and incremental change. We encourage feedback and suggestions from you on how we can do better and have better impact in the wider sector. We want to hear from you if you would like to share your own ideas, experiences or concerns. Reach us on LinkedIn, Twitter and info@youngartsfundraisers.org. We are listening and we will keep you updated on how we will live up to our values via our website. 

Thank you for your support 

The YAF Team