Lianna Etkind celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the Living Wage Funders scheme and urges other funders to join
“We as Funders are more than administrators of money. We are gatekeepers to change.”
These are the words of Sam Williams, Insights Officer at the funder Youth Music, speaking at the ten-year anniversary event for the Living Wage Funders scheme. Youth Music has been a Living Wage Funder since 2018, committed to tackling in-work poverty in the music sector.
Youth Music is one of over 80 Living Wage Funders across the UK. They help disadvantaged young people to make and monetise music, including those without savings, or those who can’t necessarily lean on financial support from family. Supporting grantees to ensure that jobs are paid at, or above, the real Living Wage is a crucial part of Youth Music's inclusion work. It paves the way for a more diverse music industry, where people who come from working-class backgrounds can thrive alongside middle-class peers. And, more straightforwardly, it enables more workers to cover the real costs of living: to pay for rent and bills and food, and still have a little left over for a rainy day.
Three steps to becoming a Living Wage funder
Living Wage Funders commit to three actions. Firstly, they are Living Wage employers, ensuring that their own staff and third-party workers are paid the real Living Wage. The real Living Wage is a voluntary rate, paid by over 16,000 employers. It’s higher than the government’s 'National living wage’, and is independently calculated based on what people need to have a decent standard of living.
Secondly, Living Wage Funders commit to supporting any grant-funded roles to be paid at the real Living Wage, including, where relevant, year-on-year uplifts in line with increases to the real Living Wage.
And finally, Living Wage funders commit to encouraging grantees to pay the real Living Wage themselves – for example, by including a link to the Living Wage Foundation on their website, or by marking Living Wage Week in their email newsletter.
When the person holding the pen on a funding application sees the Living Wage Funder logo, and understands that a funder is committed to ensuring that their grantee can pay the real Living Wage, it can be a relief.
A public commitment to tackling in-work poverty in the voluntary sector
More than one in ten third-sector workers earns less than the real Living Wage. Some of those workers work in charity shops; some are care-workers; some clean charity offices. Many are young people taking their first steps into the sector: a quarter of entry-level charity workers are paid less than the real Living Wage.
In a sector that’s ostensibly dedicated to tackling poverty, inequality and disadvantage, that’s a lot of charities who aren’t paying their own workers enough to live a decent life.
Obviously, charity leaders are not underpaying their workers out of malice. Finances are tight; demand is high; and the funding environment is ever-more competitive. The sector is full of values-led people who want to do the right thing, but in a context of squeezed budgets, it can be daunting to commit to the Living Wage Employer scheme.
This is where the support of Living Wage Funders makes such a difference.
When the person holding the pen on a funding application sees the Living Wage Funder logo, and understands that a funder is committed to ensuring that their grantee can pay the real Living Wage, it can be a relief. A relief that they can budget for salaries at a rate that allows their people to cover the costs of living. A relief that they don’t have to ‘lowball’ application salary costs in a race to the bottom. And that means happier staff, easier recruitment and workers who are less likely to leave the organisation.
A flexible scheme
Funders are diverse, and as a result, Living Wage Funders operationalise the scheme commitments in diverse ways: it’s a deliberately flexible scheme. For example, several capital funders are members of the scheme. They don’t fund roles at the real Living Wage, they don’t fund any roles! But they ensure that they mention the real Living Wage in their communications, shifting the funding ecosystem towards one where fair pay is normalised.
Living Wage Funders recognise the financial challenges that charities and the wider third-sector can face in implementing the real Living Wage. Rather than just talking about tackling disadvantage, they offer very practical support for their grantees to pay workers properly. And they publicly signal to applicants that they welcome funding applications where paying charity workers enough to live on is budgeted in from the start.
Or as Sam put it at the Living Wage Funders event this summer, “fair pay is not optional, but foundational.”
The Funders Collaborative Hub publishes a range of perspectives. The views expressed here are those of the authors, not necessarily those of ACF.