POV: Where has the money gone?

In January of this year, Donald Trump returned to office as US president for a second term, and, within days, began reversing progress – and potential progress – towards Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in the federal government. He issued two executive orders that U-turned on DEI policies across federal agencies, including one dating back to the civil rights era. What followed was a rapid and worrying domino effect. Before many had a chance to digest what these rollbacks meant or what the impact could be, a flurry of companies began quietly rolling back DEI-related policies and initiatives – LinkedIn was awash with projects cancelled, and jobs lost. It wasn’t long before creative communities began to suffer the impact too.

One such community is Where are the Black Designers? (WATBD) – a volunteer-run, non-profit design advocacy organisation that operates in the US and UK. “This year, fundraising has been significantly harder than for our previous events,” the organisation shared in a recent statement online. “The shift in the political and economic climate over the past year, particularly in the DEI space, has impacted us more than we anticipated.”

In August, WATBD had a weekend-long festival planned to celebrate Black creativity with panel talks, workshops, a market, spotlights, a club night and a jazz night – there was one main incentive: “We wanted people to understand what true community is,” says Mitzi Okou, co-founder of WATBD. After receiving a hugely positive response to its 60+ online events, the organisation wanted to bring something into the real world. “We saw the need and opportunity to host something that was rooted in London,” says fellow co-founder Roshannah Bagley, “celebrating the richness of the Black British creative experience”.

Two weeks before the festival was set to take place, WATBD announced it was being postponed. A number of companies had pulled funding ($68,000 to be exact), resulting in a financial loss WATBD couldn’t recover from with only weeks to go. While the team remains dedicated to returning in 2027, the postponement was a resounding reminder of the precarious times we find ourselves in.

Put plainly, organisations like WATBD cannot exist without funding from governments and commercial entities, let alone put on events. “Funding and financial support are essential for any grassroot organisation,” says Roshannah. “Finances make it possible to ensure our efforts become lasting change.”

A core tenet of WATBD is ensuring that the people they aim to support and uplift – Black designers and creatives – aren’t putting hands in pockets to ensure it exists. “We believe that it shouldn’t be people, especially Black folks, donating money to our organisation that exists to combat diversity problems created by companies upholding systematic racism,” says Mitzi. “It should be companies within the industry that have a lot of money paying organisations like us to help solve this issue.”

It’s not only money that’s lost. Mitzi, Roshannah and the rest of the WATBD team – creatives based across Canada, New York, Lisbon and Manchester, and producers in London and Lisbon – spent two years planning and organising the festival, on their own time. The organisation is run around and alongside full-time jobs, with its team investing personal time, energy and finances. While previous conferences have taken two weeks, or six months to plan, WATBD believed – rightly so – that two years would be more than enough to ensure everything ran smoothly. “It really takes a community to run a community, and certainly to plan a festival for the first time,” says Roshannah. The postponement doesn’t just mark financial loss, but the loss of years of work.

These rollbacks don’t happen in a silo, far from it. In its recent statement, WATBD emphasised what’s happening to them is not an isolated issue. “Many grassroots communities are silently struggling with the same challenges.” In the creative sphere, Mitzi identifies certain topics of the day as providing a smokescreen for companies to hide behind. “The rise of AI is being used as an excuse to not talk about DEI and community-centered projects” Mitzi says. “Everyone seems to be using the excuse that they are too focused in this AI race to dedicate time and resources to the unfinished conversation of DEI.”

The potential impact of the U-turns is catastrophic, with decades of work risked and progress being stunted. It already comes hand in hand with an unfettered capitalist system that is “muddling the definition of what community is by associating it with social media and influence”, says Mitzi. Such rollbacks pull up the communal and sincere roots that organisations like WATBD have been sowing and growing for decades – the spaces that support people’s wellbeing, not just their creativity or career. “We’re people first, designers or creatives second – it’s our humanity that guides everything we create,” says Roshannah. Mizti adds: “If we all cease to exist, I’m afraid humanity will be lost in the creative and tech space.”

In the face of such a worrying climate, it could be easy – and understandable – to fall into a sense of despair, but the WATBD team are steadfast in their determination. While a decrease in the representation of Black creatives in the industry feels inevitable, Roshannah caveats by saying: “Black folks have always created something out of nothing so I’m positive that we’re going to start seeing a new wave of Black creative entrepreneurs.”

What’s more, they’ve lost no drive in making the postponed festival – The Spaces in Between – the best event it can be, with all curation and planning carried over into 2027. “The concept of this festival is too important and beautiful for us to let it go, especially because a few companies are being spineless,” says Mitzi. “We love our community too much to let global hateful policies bring us down.”

But it’s not something that rests on their shoulders alone. Mitzi’s clear that while donations are important, what matters most is people’s advocacy. “We need people to advocate in their workplaces and companies that we are a community that is worth financially supporting,” she says. It’s about longevity, and dedication too, extending support beyond one-off gestures. Roshannah says: “Whether through financial investment or advocacy, what matters most is a willingness to see us as partners, not as a charitable cause. We’re not asking for sympathy; we’re asking for collaboration.” She adds: “When Black creatives are appropriately valued, the impact doesn’t just stop with individuals, it ripples out, benefitting the entire creative industry regardless of their lived experience.”