Annual Report 2023/2024

2024 has been a year of anniversaries for Ariadne: the network celebrated its 15th birthday, and we published the 10th edition of the annual Ariadne Forecast. Anniversaries inevitably bring on reflection, and in a year also dubbed the ‘year of elections’ this was especially true. In a time of seismic shifts for governments, social movements, and within philanthropy itself, it has been a moment for reflecting on the power and potential of our own network.

Ariadne was created in 2009 to help social change and human rights funders in Europe find their peers, gain a better understanding of the field, and, hopefully, spend their funds more strategically once armed with more knowledge about the funding landscape. Today, in the face of gains by far-right parties across Europe, growing restrictions on civil society, the climate crisis, and a shift in funding priorities away from Europe by several large foundations, the external environment feels more complex. Philanthropy has recognised that there is no easy fix for these challenges and that it will need to address the deeper root causes driving these developments. At Ariadne, we aspire to be a network that can help funders navigate this tricky terrain and realise their own potential in contributing to a more equitable society. With this aim in mind, we launched our new Strategic Plan for 2024-27 in early 2024. The plan reflects our belief that there is a power in peer-exchange and learning and that by coming together around common agendas we can make a stronger impact as a sector.

As ever, we remain grateful for the support and participation of our members. This community is here to serve you, and we want you to feel you have an active role in shaping it. We’re excited to share with you some of the highlights from the past year and look forward to continuing our journey together.

In April 2024, Ariadne had a total of 650 individual members from 135 member-organisations, representing a diverse range of social change and human rights funders. Although the number of member organisations is lower compared to April 2023 (148 member-organisations),  we have increased our geographic representation to 23 countries (compared to 20 in the previous year). We are proud that Ariadne’s existing members have recognised the value of the networking opportunities we offer and supported us with record levels of membership contributions.

Some highlights from 2023/24:

Ariadne’s ‘2024’ Annual Reconnect was held in Tbilisi, Georgia, from 22-24 April, where Ariadne also celebrated its 15-year anniversary with a Georgian Toastmasters celebration. The Reconnect’s dynamic programme gathered 90 attendees and included engaging plenaries, thought-provoking visits to local organisations working on human rights and social change, and facilitated open space sessions designed to foster meaningful discussions on the themes that truly matter to grantmakers. The agenda included sessions on closing space challenges in the CEE region and beyond, how funders are responding to threats to democracy, and the need to be bold and embrace risk at a time when the funder landscape in Europe is undergoing dramatic changes. Together with HRFN and in collaboration with Women’s Fund Georgia, we also held a joint day that brought together the members and supporters of our networks and grounded them in Georgia and the CEECCNA (Central and Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central and North Asia) Region.

Ariadne’s Tech and Society Funders reconvened for the first time in four years from 10-12 October in Brussels, hosted by Ariadne and Aspiration. Over 40 participants attended this invitation-only meeting, including both long-standing digital rights funders and others from within the Ariadne network who are starting to explore the tech and human rights space.

Forecast roundtables: Together with Ariadne’s members and supporters, we organised 4 Forecast roundtables in The Netherlands, France, Italy and the UK.

Additionally, we organised 14 webinars and 9 in-person events. The topics covered included: racial justice, digital rights, the closing of civic space, flexible funding, and the intersection of climate justice and digital rights.

Change Lab

The Susan Treadwell Change Lab was launched at the Ariadne Reconnect in Tbilisi in April. The Lab, in honour of the late Susan Treadwell, is a learning journey for philanthropy practitioners who live at intersecting sites of oppression, along the lines of race, gender, class, disability, religion, sexuality, and other forms of identity. Our first cohort is made up of organisations across Europe including: Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Trust for London, The Rowan Trust, Justice Together Initiative, Mama Cash, Safe Passage Fund, Weaving Liberation and Democracy & Media Foundation.

If you’d like to find out more or offer additional resources and support towards the Lab, click here to read more or please get in touch with Tatevik who leads this work.

Tech and Society

With our work in this area, we aim to increase the exchange between digital rights and human rights funders in Europe and better capacitate human rights and social change funders to address the challenges of digitisation as it relates to their work. In October 2023, we hosted a convening for European technology and society funders in Brussels. This was an opportunity for this group of funders to come together in person for the first time since 2019 to discuss changes in the field and opportunities for collaboration. As part of our efforts to bridge technology and human rights funders, we also invited funders new to the tech and human rights space to join the convening and become part of the conversation. 

Green Screen Coalition

The Green Screen Coalition, which comprises Ariadne, Ford Foundation, Internet Society Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Green Web Foundation, critical infrastructure lab, and Stiftung Mercator, aims to be a catalyst in making visible the climate implications of technology by supporting emerging on-the-ground work, building networks, and embedding the issue area within philanthropy. In October 2023, the Coalition launched the Green Screen Catalyst Fund that addresses a field-wide problem: the dearth of philanthropic support for the voices and strategies addressing the critical nexus of digital rights and climate justice. Following the launch, in May 2024, the 15 grant recipients were announced. The grants total nearly $400,000 and were awarded to groups advocating at the intersection of climate justice and digital rights. From supporting the development of research and tools to map the climate implications of technology and infrastructure projects to creative storytelling and regional coalition-building efforts, this initiative represents a significant step in integrating climate justice into digital rights philanthropic funding strategies.

2023/24 Income Breakdown

In the 2023/24 financial year, Ariadne’s total expenditure was £774,420 and its total income was £882,520 including project-specific grants for use in 2024/25. Ariadne draws on the following income streams: Grants (core and project-specific), Membership Contributions, Conference Contributions, and Event Sponsorship. Ariadne’s largest income comes from grants – 78% and voluntary membership contributions – 18%. A smaller percentage of our income came from conference contributions (4%). Expressed as a percentage of total unrestricted income – excluding project-specific grants – the proportion of income from core grants decreases to 59% and the proportion of income coming from membership contributions increases to 33%.

In 22/23, 71% of Ariadne’s income came from grants and 22% from voluntary membership contributions. A smaller percentage of our income came from conference contributions (7%) and event sponsorship (3%). Expressed as a percentage of total unrestricted income – excluding project-specific grants – the proportion of income from grants decreases to 39% and the proportion of income coming from membership contributions increases to 42%.

To ensure Ariadne’s financial sustainability in the long term, Ariadne’s Advisory Board encourages all member organisations to make a financial contribution to the cost of the network on an annual basis. Please click here for the 2024/25 Ariadne Membership Contribution Form.

Ariadne’s 2024 Anniversary Forecast:

In 2024, we celebrated 10 years of Ariadne’s flagship publication, the Ariadne Forecast, an annual snapshot of what the year ahead holds for European social change and human rights funders. The anniversary edition was a moment to look back over the past decade and see the challenges that remain, the discourses that have developed, a growing recognition of the interconnectedness of the issues, and the need for transformational change. Read more.

Funding for Real Change:

Together with EDGE Funders Alliance, we continued working on the Funding for Real Change project, which aims to give funders tools for restructuring project grants in a more equitable way while encouraging them to consider moving to multi-year, flexible funding. We published a website that serves as a central repository for FRC tools and resources. To give life to these resources, we published written and visual case studies that illustrate how funders have successfully increased their commitment to flexibility and the resulting impact on their work and partners. We also ran a year-long social media campaign, that, together with the website, has reached thousands, with some reaching out to ask for a deeper engagement. As part of our knowledge-sharing efforts, we organised three webinars and attended conferences with the content. On average, 200 people registered for our webinars. 

Ariadne’s 15th Anniversary Timeline:

2024 has been a big year for Ariadne, as we celebrate 15 years of our network. Our team dived into the archives to dig out some of the most important milestones from Ariadne’s history, we created a 15th-anniversary interactive Timeline.