As a next-gen leader of the Aziz Foundation, in this Global20 interview, Rahima Aziz BEM opens up about how the charity, established by her father, has grown into a powerhouse of postgraduate support for British Muslim students. With over 670 scholarships awarded so far, the Foundation now offers internships, strategic university partnerships, and wraparound student support. For Rahima, it’s the relationships, not just the funding, that are helping young people succeed.

She and Ben Morton Wright speak candidly about the pressures facing her generation, from mental health to climate anxiety, and why philanthropy must evolve to meet these challenges. Rahima shares honest reflections about being both inspired by (and slightly intimidated by) the power and potential of her peers.

Ben Morton Wright  0:04

I’m really pleased to welcome Rahima Aziz to this Global 20. It’s been a while since we did our last Global 20, but we’re back on it! 20 minutes of conversation about philanthropy and Rahima, we met and shared the stage a few weeks ago in London to talk about my favourite subject, which is wealth transfer and the incredible transfer of wealth that’s going to happen intergenerational over 30 trillion in the next 10 years, I’m told. And you kindly shared your experience and insight to the gathered group about the foundation. So the Aziz Foundation is pretty famous, I think, in the UK, but you’re the next gen holding the torch for the next gen. I think your brothers and sisters, I think may joke and say that they earn the money and you spend it, but anyway, that’s probably a little bit unfair! But tell us a bit more about the foundation, because it’s got a great history and it’s done amazing work. Tell us a bit more about what the vision was and the last 10 years.

Rahima Aziz  1:05

Well, thank you so much. Ben, the Foundation is an interesting one. It’s a family foundation, and it was established in 2015, so just over 10 years ago by my father, as a kind of way of really registering a charity in the name of the giving that he would like to formalise that giving. And when we first started, we were working just really in the grant space. We were working with the Prince’s Trust Mosaic Program, you know, Football Beyond Borders, the young bit, kind of a range of different, different areas we were distributing grants to. And then we kind of moved forward. A couple of years later, we had a review, an internal strategic review, and we realised we were spreading ourselves too thin. And as a young Foundation, we really needed to look at an area that we could slot ourselves into, that no one else was really giving in, to be strategic about your philanthropy. And we found this area to be post-grad scholarships, because the Muslim population in Britain it’s very, very young. I think at the time we did some sort of calculation that just about 50% of the Muslim population in the UK is below the age of 25, it’s incredibly young. We’re an incredibly young group, and so that just kind of led us naturally to post grad scholarships, because a lot of British Muslims, they fall off when it comes to postgrad education. They do their undergrad, and then they go on trying to find a job in the professional field. And they don’t always succeed, because there are so many barriers in place. So we kind of slotted ourselves in there, and since then, we’ve awarded, I think now it’s our figures are looking about 670 master scholarships. We’ve just closed our first cycle of applicants for this year, awarding 21 scholarships. Our second cycle is already open. We’re interviewing, you know, today and for the next couple of weeks. And so it’s really been an exciting time for us. Our scholarship program has expanded massively. But kind of the more interesting side of expanding the foundation has been what we’ve been able to provide to the scholars, outside of just the scholarships, because once you finish that master’s degree, you can’t just immediately jump into a job, because of all the barriers in place for young British Muslims. So we’ve developed an internship program, and we now work with over 40 internship organisations in a range of different fields.

We developed a preferred Partnerships Program, so we work strategically with certain universities. We’re up to about 50 now, where we have measures in place to ensure they’re providing the best student experience. So we work really closely with the EDI and access teams at those universities, we really leverage the scholarships we have there to make sure that any scholars we are sending to those universities, they’re having the best kind of experience that will truly nurture them, because education is a gift. It really is, and it’s one that they should receive with the best kind of mental state possible. So we’ve still stuck to our grants program more discreetly. I think we’ve awarded over 250 grants to note to this day, but we do these discreetly, but on a much kind of higher value space. So, I think the best example I’ll give here is the Ramadan Lights Program that this started in about 2022 but in 2023 we were really pleased to be able to put up the first ever aerial Ramadan lights display that, you know, in the Western Europe’s ever seen right in the heart of Piccadilly Circus. It’s an area with huge tourism and also an area where a lot of young Muslims would come in and explore what we call the afternoon economy of the area. So you’re, you know, so a lot of economic empowerment for the area. It’s also a way of showing the community that they’re listened to and they’re valued. So that’s kind of where we’ve gotten to in our 10 years. It’s been an interesting journey!

Ben Morton Wright  4:54

It’s just absolutely remarkable. I mean, we when we met in the room, I think you had a number of universities that you’ve funded, I think St Andrews were there, and Goldsmiths University, which obviously close to my heart, was there as well, and so it went on, and it’s incredible. So over 50 institutions, so you’ve actually created a kind of a family of scholars now, I feel, and that’s very similar actually, to the kind of experience that we’ve had with the equity scholarships at Goldsmiths, which is for black students, and there’s now about 120 scholars, and we’re finding the same thing is the actual support amongst students is as valuable often as the money. I mean, obviously the money helps a lot. So what about De Montfort? So you were talking about your visit recently to De Montfort, and could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Rahima Aziz  5:41

So De Montfort is new to our preferred Partnerships Program. I think they were established last year with us, and we don’t have any scholars there yet. But, you know, hopefully fingers crossed that this cohort will bring in a few. It’s really important to us that we keep a really good line of communication open with the university partners. You know, like I said, to really make sure that they are capitalising on the EDI programs that they should have in place. So our visit to De Montfort was fantastic. We’re in close contact with the EDI team and the development team there. They took us on a fantastic tour of the campus, and we got to meet several different teams within the campus, within the organisation, and it was really fantastic to see and to be really like, relieved that, okay, we bring our scholars to a good place. You know, we met with the Imam, and we got to see the prayer facilities in place for Muslim students, which, honestly, for a fairly small university, was incredibly impressive. So it’s moments like that where you’re like, Okay, this is fantastic. We’re happy sending our scholars here. So we try and organise a number of campus visits across the year. We have a few coming up this summer, actually, and I’m really looking forward to it’s a good chance to touch base with the institution and see what their values are, what their needs are, and communicate, you know, the needs of us and our scholars as well.

Ben Morton Wright  6:57

And I mean, you kindly invited me to one of the Ramadan celebrations, and just met with, actually, one of your Goldsmiths scholars, and who just that further week, was having his play opening up in London that he’d written. And I just thought, my goodness, that’s proof of the pudding. I mean, he just wouldn’t have got there. He told me he wouldn’t have got there without your support. So it’s very, very powerful. So we’re going to come on to the future of the foundation, because obviously, you’re going to be a key driver in that. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. What I’d quite like to talk about is actually just what we spoke about at the London event to the group about the next gen, because we obviously undertook Talking Philanthropy around this theme and there’s plenty of videos on the talkingphilanthropy.com site with Ted Turner’s granddaughter, the oldest granddaughter, I think, who talked about her work, and Lady Edwina Grosvenor as well, who chaired the whole event. And so there was some great content. And some of the things that came out were that the next generation, you have to understand, are really passionate about themes. For Vasser Sydel, it was very much about Deep Oceans, making sure that they continue to be protected. With Lady Edwina, clearly, it’s very much about the work she’s done in prisons and women’s prison system and so therefore, rather, maybe the old generation was a little bit more programmatic, or that worked around other people’s programs, and the next gen seem to be more about passion or things that they really care about. I know mental health issues we talk about that for the future is something that you care about, but we also talked about next gen in terms of the digital environment. But perhaps you could share with us what do you think is the themes for the next gen that we should be aware of as we as we think about how we access the next gen and actually communicate with the next gen and engage them so that we can take advantage of being perhaps part of this massive wealth transfer that is happening across the world.

Rahima Aziz  8:57

This is, in my opinion, an incredibly interesting generation we’re moving into. I’m both in awe of and kind of in fear of this generation and its capabilities. Because I think what’s different about how we approach philanthropy is we have to look at it differently, because society, let’s face it, is completely different. 50 years ago, the world looked completely different, so the needs were also completely different. Society has changed. Our culture, our way of thinking, our way of approaching things is completely different. The present issues right now they’re kind of pressing on this generation. You know, one of them is absolutely climate change. So it’s good to see a lot of people in my generation focused on that. It’s good to see organisations focused on that, because at the end of the day, you know, we have one planet. And I think previous generations, they didn’t have the knowledge that we do about how active, proactive we can be in keeping this planet as long and preserved as possible.

Another really important aspect, I think, of this generation’s priority is mental health, because we live in a society where everyone knows everyone’s business, and that’s a double-edged sword. That’s fantastic, because there’s so much knowledge out there, and there’s so much access to knowledge, and certainly social media and AI and technology play a huge role in that. But mental health has been hit. I think the pandemic must have had some effect on that. You know, people spend far too much time on their own, dwelling in their thoughts and the access to mental health support it’s a tricky one, because on one hand, everyone knows about mental health, and more or less is understanding. In some cultures, that can be different, but more or less people what people understand mental health. But on the other side of the coin, because mental health issues are so much more pressing than they ever have been, we simply don’t have the resources to put funding towards everything that this generation really needs. And for British Muslims and many other marginalised societies, mental health concerns have always been secondary or tertiary to so many other existing barriers in place for them. So I think something I’ve seen in our scholars is there’s a need for mental health support, even if it’s at the most basic level. So something that we’ve done starting last year is within the team. Note, the team at the Aziz Foundation is quite small. There’s four of them, and then plus me, who tries to be as involved as possible. So we divide up the scholar cohort. Everyone takes an equal number of scholars, and we make sure we have constant engagement with them. So we have, every two or three months, a Teams meeting, a check-in. You know, how are you not just, how are you liking the course, and how do you feel like the scholarship is benefiting you? But how are you personally? Is there anything we can do? Is there any support we can give? A lot of them they don’t have that. Maybe they have families. Maybe they don’t, but they don’t have that completely touchstone of support all the time. So for us, that’s a really important aspect of looking at this generation, our focus has to be on how can we preserve our mental health? It’s the only way we’re going to make it through all the other issues that I think that the next decade or two will present to us, especially in this new age of technology.

Ben Morton Wright  12:02

Climate and mental health. I think you you’re spot on there in terms of two of the critical factors, and so in terms of the work, of the foundations that move forward. I mean, your mental health experience and work has come very much, I think you started at UCL, didn’t you, and as an area that you actually have, rather like Edwina becoming a criminologist and studying and then actually, actually working with that. In terms of her philanthropy, I see the same in terms of your experience in mental health now coming into the programmatic direction of the whole foundation. So for the next 10 years, is it another 650 or is it 650 plus? Plus, in terms of all these other additional so you’ve got quite an army of people, aren’t you? It’s your scholars. Now won’t be able to fit in the room soon. I mean, it’ll be 1000, 1200! What’s your sense of how you would like to shape and how would the family like to shape the next iteration, the future for the foundation?

Rahima Aziz  12:58

I think the legacy my family’s always wanted to carry on is one of economic empowerment and social mobility for Muslims and generally for marginalised communities, because it’s like you can’t have one without the other. You know you need to lift people up. And as you lift up the Muslim community, you’re also lifting up other marginalised communities by giving them voices in spaces where they hadn’t had them before. So the direction that we’re very keen to go in is is one where we’re always looking at what this community needs. And I think what’s very interesting in terms of what our values are. You know, my backgrounds always been in mental health. With my education, my undergrad, my postgrad has been in psychology. I’m now working in a psychiatric hospital, and it’s taught me incredibly important lessons, firstly, about perspective and you know, looking at looking at your life, you know, sometimes you get down on the dumps about things, and then you realise, oh, I’m working with people who are literally having the worst days of their lives. And it’s definitely changed the way I’m approaching the foundation, because I’m realising how large the need is, how many people fall beneath the cracks. So I think by making our programs a bit more wrap around with our scholars, and really making them feel like they’re part of the family, we’re hoping to kind of make it more watertight and really seal in the community here, not let anyone slip through, because we haven’t been able to reach out to them. You know, with with almost 700 people, certainly there are people certainly there are people we haven’t heard from since we’ve given them the scholarship. We don’t want that to be the case anymore. We want to make sure we’re engaging with every single one, and every single one of them, maybe even if they can’t fit in a room, they know they have a place with us, and they know they can come to us with anything. So something we’re working on is like kind of a development fund, a pot of funding that we can provide for our scholars if they come to us and they want to expand in their field, you know, if they want a grant of a certain amount to help them, you know, put on a play. You don’t know where they could go with that five years around the impact that what is essentially a small grant could make in their lives. So we want to make sure that is as wrap-around as possible, provide them with support every single step of the way, and mental health support is a big part of that. So I’m looking forward to looking at how the next 10 years, we can bring that in slowly, slowly, slowly. Maybe not in the scholarship space, maybe not in the internship space. Maybe it will be more in the grant space. But I’m definitely committed that when I envision the next 10 years of the foundation, I envision it certainly leaning more into into that perspective, because at the end of the day, you are not, you’re not being strategic in your philanthropy, if you’re not listening to what the community that you serve actually needs and is yelling out for.

Ben Morton Wright  15:32

That’s a lovely way to come to the end of this 20 minutes, Rahima, it’s been a fantastic conversation, and it’s also mindful that at Talking Philanthropy, the sort of takeaway were the fact that this transfer of wealth presents a massive opportunity for the world. So with philanthropists and families like yourselves doing such incredible work and having such optimism, I think that really reinforces also the hope, which is the second word, and the third word that a lot of families talked about was dialogue. And clearly there’s great dialogue in your family around the Foundation, the work of the Foundation, which is so wonderful to see and to see you shape it for the future as the next gen, is really exciting. So many excellent topics that we cover, and thank you for being so open today. I’m sure many will listen in and be really inspired to see the next generation coming through and see with such confidence the work that you’re doing. So thank you so much, and best wishes with you and all your scholars for the next 10 years, it’s going to be an exciting moment -watch this space. Thank you so much.