Host a Community Conversation on the new memorial

A Community Conversation is a way to have a supported structured conversation about a topic of importance to your community and networks.

Listening to Londoners’ perspectives on this painful, yet important part of the city’s history, is at the core of our plans in developing this memorial.

We’re planning a series of roundtables and events with our partners, which will include talking to historians, heritage experts, academics, artists and activists.

However, we also want to hear from all Londoners who are interested in the memorial, particularly descendent communities.

We anticipate funding approximately 15 conversations across London. To do this, we have a budget of £10,000.

You can decide how to hold your community conversation. This could be online, in person or at an event you’re already planning.

You can use your existing networks and channels, or promote your conversation across the capital, inviting Londoners to have the opportunity to have their say about the memorial. You can include any questions you feel are relevant, however, we will provide you with some discussion points that you’ll need to include, to help guide the conversation.
 
You don’t need to have all the answers about the memorial plans, just simply be able to host a conversation with Londoners and feed this conversation back to us through a short online form. The Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm team will then analyse your feedback alongside all our other engagement activities.

Your conversations can be quite wide-ranging, but you must include the following questions in your conversations:

1. Who should pay for this memorial? Given how much the British financial institutions benefitted and continued to benefit from the trade of enslaved Africans, would their financial contribution to this memorial be welcomed? Should London’s Black Communities pay for the memorial to ensure that the money is ‘ethical’, or should the government be responsible for funding it? 
2. What are the dominant themes or complexities of the memorial and what is it trying to achieve? What are we trying to express (feelings and emotions)?
3. What characteristics or processes should inform the  shortlist of the potential artists who’ll create the memorial? 
4. Should other ‘satellite sites’ at other places of significance across London be part of the artist brief and how might these sites relate to the primary sites?

We’ll send you a short online form to feedback on your group’s answers to these questions, and any others that your group wanted to cover.
 

Conversations to inform the artist brief should take place between 29 May and  23 June 2023.

We expect that some conversations may have to take place in July 2023, but feedback will not be included in the initial artists brief. However, all feedback will be collated and will inform further activities.

Maximum funding available is £1,000 and you may only send us one proposal per organisation and per conversation.

We’re looking specifically for applicants who may not be able to facilitate community conversations without additional financial support. 

Funding could be used for the following costs:

• Venue hire
• Translation and interpretation costs
• Volunteer costs – including expenses, essential training such as safeguarding, volunteer supervision, volunteer wellbeing costs, facilitators and workshop leaders, and other costs not normally incurred
• Specialist support services to help disabled Londoners access conversations
• Contributions to staff or freelancer costs
   

To host a conversation, you must be a registered organisation or a constituted group with a bank account in the name of your organisation.

Individuals wanting to host a community conversation must work with a constituted group to lead the project.

A constituted group is a group that has a written constitution – this sets out your name, how you will make decisions, who is involved and how you are managed – but you are not formally registered as an organisation
 

Who can’t apply for community conversation funds?

• Individuals or organisations applying on behalf of an individual
• Local offices of larger regional or national organisations/charities
• Local authorities
• Organisations not based in London
   

You can send us your proposal any time from now until 26 May. To give you the maximum amount of time to plan your conversation we will make decisions on proposals on a weekly basis.

Application received by: 12 May
Decision by: 19 May

Application received by: 19 May
Decision by: 26 May

Application received by: 26 May
Decision by: 2 June

Make sure you are allowing enough time between receiving your decision and planning your event. Please consider what you will do if your proposal is not successful.

• We’ll request that you complete a supplier registration form for our finance system. This form will request organisation bank details, registered company address and details for the primary contact.
• It will take us two weeks to register you on our finance system. 
• We’ll send you a funding agreement online (through a system called DocuSign). You’ll need to accept this offer.
• Once you have signed the funding agreement, we will pay you the full awarded amount up front.
• Then - hold your conversation!
• Send us your feedback by an online form, capturing the top level notes and themes that arose in the conversation. The online form will be circulated to successful candidates. 
   

This is a small amount of funding, so please don’t spend a long time writing your proposal.

You should include:

• Your organisation name, address, website (if you have one) and contact details
• Your organisation’s Charity or Company number (if you have one)
• A short biography of your organisation or group
• A budget – please tell us how you plan to spend the funding

You could also include answers to the following questions:

• Who will take part in your conversation?
• This could be the members of your group, people from your local area or wider community, or people who will find out about the conversation through marketing or outreach.
• Where will it take place?
• This could be an online conversation where you will reach out across London, or a physical space based in a particular borough.