Text written by Ugo Ikokwu, Grants Manager at Trust for London and participant in the first Susan Treadwell Change Lab cohort.
Last year I found myself in two very different places because of the Ariadne Susan Treadwell Change Lab. One was Tbilisi, at a busy European philanthropy conference. The other was Portugal, at a quiet working retreat in the countryside. On paper, they were just trips. In reality, they became something much deeper: moments that reshaped how I think about philanthropy, power, and my own place in the work of racial and economic justice.
I work at Trust for London, supporting organisations that are trying to shift systems around housing, work, money and power. Much of that work is about closing gaps between wealth and poverty, between who decides and who is affected, between institutions and communities. But inside philanthropy, those same gaps often exist. Too often, people from marginalised backgrounds find themselves navigating spaces that were not built with them in mind. The Change Lab felt different. It was one of the few places in philanthropy where I didn’t have to translate myself, soften my politics, or explain why justice has to be structural.
The Lab brought together funders from across the UK and Europe from large foundations to movement-led funds who shared a commitment to justice and a willingness to interrogate how philanthropy actually works. From the very start in Tbilisi, there was a sense that something unusual was happening. People were honest. Vulnerable. Political. We weren’t just talking about programmes or portfolios; we were talking about where money comes from, who gets trusted, who carries risk, and what real accountability might look like. As my colleague Salmana Ahmed from Weaving Liberation put it, the space “broke silos and uplifted people with similar values and alignment,” and there was “a deep and collective respect for the lived experiences and expertise people brought into the conversations.” That was exactly how it felt.
Portugal was where all of that took root. Away from emails, hierarchy and performance, we spent time thinking, learning, and just being together. We rode bikes through the hills, sat in long conversations, and stayed up late talking about the future of philanthropy. There were small human moments too. Michelle Palmer from PHF beating me in a stubborn chess match, Michelle also getting stung by a bee, people laughing, resting, and showing up as themselves. Those things mattered. They made the trust real.
What struck me most was how the Lab quietly dissolved the usual power dynamics of the sector. My colleague and someone I work really closely with at Trust for London Jané Mackenzie captured it perfectly when she said, “The Lab got rid of hierarchies; I was sharing learning with people in senior positions that I maybe would have never met or at least not worked with getting organised and sharing.” That flattening of power created something rare: a space where we could think together, challenge each other, and imagine different ways of working without fear.
For me, this connected deeply to my work on racial and economic justice. At Trust for London, we try to fund change at a systems level not just projects, but the structures that shape people’s lives. The Lab reminded me that philanthropy itself is one of those systems. If we want fairer housing, fairer work and fairer financial systems, then the way money moves inside philanthropy has to change too. The Lab gave me new language, new relationships, and new confidence to push for that from inside my institution.
The Lab wasn’t perfect. The early months were messy and unclear, and at times participants had to step in and hold the space themselves. That labour was real, and not always fairly shared. But what made it powerful was that people cared enough to stay, to repair, and to keep building. By the time we reached Portugal, we were not just attending a programme, we were becoming a collective. As Annie Rockson from Justice Together Initiative said, “Spaces for marginalised identities are so few that having one, that also was with people who work in the same field, was so precious that we wanted to invest the time to be together.” That sense of collective investment is what carried us through.
I came back from the Lab changed. Not because I learned one big new framework, but because I found a community of people who are trying to practice a different kind of philanthropy one rooted in accountability, justice and solidarity. I returned to Trust for London clearer about my role, braver in the questions I ask, and more grounded in the belief that philanthropy can be part of real transformation if we are willing to rethink how power and money work.
What makes this moment even more exciting is that the Change Lab is now preparing to welcome a second cohort. I was part of the first, and I can honestly say it was one of the most meaningful professional experiences I have had. I would strongly encourage funders to not only support the Lab financially, but to give their staff the chance to take part in it. This kind of deep, relational, justice-rooted learning doesn’t just benefit individuals, it changes organisations. It builds better funders.
The Ariadne Susan Treadwell Change Lab didn’t offer easy answers. It offered something better: a place to ask the hardest questions together. And right now, that feels like exactly what this moment and this sector needs.