Avila Kilmurray

Taking the flak of unpopularity

Achieving social justice often demands actions that make funders unpopular. For the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland (CFNI), working through 30 years of violent conflict and a tenuous peace process, a commitment to social justice has meant accusatory newspaper headlines, frequent questions in the British Houses of Parliament, threats of protest pickets on foundation offices, and allegations of political partiality – with the director, on at least one occasion, being described by an MP as a ‘leading republican’. Why does this happen?