Bonnie Chiu, Managing Director, TSIC
Welcome to 2025! As we look back on the lessons learnt in 2024 and set our sights on 2025, I’d love to share some reflections from TSIC on the key social impact and equity trends that will continue to shape our work. Here’s where we believe things are headed, and why these issues matter more than ever in 2025.
Deep Democracy and Community Engagement
This past year, we experienced first-hand how genuine democracy can feel when communities lead the decision-making process. Our TSIC London team began 2024 with an immersive session from Barking and Dagenham Giving, who demonstrated their ‘deep democracy’ facilitation techniques to get a diverse range of community members make funding decisions to address issues proximate in their community.
We’ve realised that to stay true to our commitment to achieve an equitable and inclusive society, we can’t just do it from an office – we have to be firmly rooted within communities. To realise this goal, we were really excited to forge a partnership with The Social Innovation Partnership (TSIP), which created the participatory grantmaking fund The Giving Lab in 2024. Another highlight was helping to convene stakeholders working across Africa on women’s economic empowerment in a community retreat. It reinforced to us the importance of like-minded stakeholders coming together in person to foster exchange of ideas and build solidarity. Against a backdrop of rising political polarisation, here in the UK and globally, we see community-led engagement an even stronger priority in 2025.
Navigating the ‘Woke’ Debate
Throughout 2024, it became increasingly clear that efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are facing backlash from those who see them as “woke overreach”. In fact, starting the year 2025, we saw some major announcements from corporates on cancelling their DEI programmes. Our team has leaned into understanding this debate, and led us to question whether focusing on visible identities alone might still perpetuate certain inequalities. We’re particularly interested in socioeconomic inequalities, and we want to ensure that we’re doing enough to challenge the entrenched systems that keep people locked in cycles of poverty and disadvantage.
Our previous work with the Equality Impact Investing Project nudged us further towards tackling structural inequalities head-on, including wealth inequality. We continue to reflect on how to integrate socioeconomic and class diversity more fully into our strategy in 2025, without entering into the ‘what aboutery’ slippery slope – whereby a discussion on class displaces other forms of structural inequalities.
Transforming Capitalism and Finance
Capitalism in its current form faces growing scrutiny, especially as people become ever more conscious of systemic inequalities. In 2024, we worked with organisations including TransCap Initiative, Trust for London and the Predistribution Initiative to explore how finance and the economy can be redesigned to prioritise justice, equity and inclusion. We are also supporting Bosch Foundation to launch their funding call for economic justice.
These experiences reaffirmed our belief that transforming our financial systems is both urgent and achievable – social change cannot be achieved by philanthropy alone. Whether through impact investing, blended finance or entirely new systemic models, we expect 2025 to be a year where these conversations crystallise into stronger policy, advocacy and on-the-ground action. Recent headlines show growing frustration with corporate greed, reinforcing the need for a genuine and radical rethink of how we do business and structure finance.
Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and the Private Sector
In 2024, we built on TSIC’s long track record in innovation and entrepreneurship. We continue to incubate Pathway Fund, which has developed into an independent organisation in 2024 to further their mission of achieving racial equity in the UK through impact investment. We see more clients and partners, such as AFFORD and i-Gravity, focused on leveraging private-sector approaches for social impact.
The private sector can be a powerful force for good when it meaningfully commits to positive social and environmental outcomes. As we move into 2025, we’re keen to expand this further and remain at the forefront of shaping innovative solutions that blend profitability with genuine impact.
Change Management and Leadership
Internally, 2024 brought significant changes for us at TSIC as we navigated new partnerships and undertook a review of our global structure. Balancing strategic evolution with day-to-day delivery was often challenging, particularly in a complex economic climate. But what’s stood out is the resilience, openness and creativity of our team as we adapted to shifting circumstances.
We’re heading into 2025 determined to hone our leadership culture further, supporting each other through any transitions that lie ahead and ensuring our strategic direction remains clear, inclusive and responsive to the needs of our clients and communities.
If 2024 taught us anything, it’s that change, whether in democracy, finance, entrepreneurship or organisational leadership, is most meaningful when it’s driven by people deeply embedded in the issues and contexts. The year ahead will see us doubling down on this community-centred approach, embracing new forms of collaboration, and continuing to challenge ourselves and the wider sector.
If you have ideas for us for 2025, please reach out at [email protected]!