Blog

In June 2024, DFF moved to a new distributed leadership model. We are pleased to update that the new structure has been working well.

As part of this new structure, our areas of work are distributed into circles, and since June, we have established roles, priorities, and goals for each circle. We have broken down the powers in the old Director function into several roles and formally distributed these leadership roles across the different circles. One such circle is the new Fundraising Circle, which has developed a revised fundraising strategy, and a clear structure for sharing fundraising tasks and updates on a monthly basis throughout the team. The new Wellbeing and Care Circle has filled a significant gap, working on topics that were previously neglected as they were never prioritised, and there wasn’t the capacity to focus on them. This includes beginning to establish a better feedback system and culture, and creating a buddy system that promotes mutual support. Areas of work that were less changed in terms of structure, like grantmaking, finance, and community support, have all benefited in terms of independence and efficiency due to more direct decision-making.

As part of the design of this new distributed leadership approach, we planned to have regular reflection points, especially in the first year of implementation, to reflect on progress in implementation, check workload, and see how staff are feeling. Besides monthly evaluation meetings, we also planned a six-month and a twelve-month comprehensive evaluation. The six and twelve-month evaluations involve the DFF Board not only to allow for further oversight, but also to allow the DFF Board to engage and understand their role in the new structure meaningfully. This includes the Board adopting the same types of role and consent-based decision-making as the DFF team.

The six-month evaluation took place in February 2025. The DFF team worked with the Board in an interactive session to better distinguish changes to the DFF Board’s role. In the days following the Board meeting, the DFF team met to discuss how everyone evaluated work under the new model so far, and have dedicated sessions on decision-making, feedback, and meeting architecture.

Our main takeaways from the six-month evaluation are:

• The main feelings from staff towards the new way of working are positive, as it has been associated with progress, getting empowered, being inspired, and doing better.
• Compared to June 2024, we now have a stronger collective vision of this distributed leadership approach and how it works for everyone.
• Some critical parts of our structure still need to be further developed to ensure the long-term sustainability of the organisation, such as more clarity on decision-making and embedding more opportunities for feedback.

Moving forward, we will continue to monitor and adapt our way of working through our monthly evaluation meetings and take a deeper look at the one-year mark of the model’s implementation. We will continue to share our learnings and welcome any feedback, questions, and opportunities for collaboration that explore alternative organisational power-sharing models and other work practices and policies that centre organisational values and staff well-being.