Our philanthropy is political.
Our hospitality is radical.
Bertha Foundation exists to create space, opportunities and connections for social justice work that is often seen as radical or not measurable. We do this work through our Fellowship programs, Bertha Spaces, grant funding and activating our network.
Bertha is a small family foundation run by a team based in Geneva, London, and Cape Town. Founded in 2010 by Tony Tabatznik and his daughter, Lara, Bertha Foundation works towards a society in which activists build collective power, stories come from many different voices and the law is used as a tool for justice.
Tony’s political consciousness was borne out of witnessing the evils of apartheid in his home country of South Africa. Bearing witness in this way instilled in him a true desire to try to make the world a better place. When his second international pharmaceutical business was sold in 2010, Bertha Foundation was brought to life. Bertha’s vision was established: to change the world you need an activist, a storyteller and a lawyer.
The generic pharmaceutical business had taught Tony an important lesson about using the law as a tool to help the underdog win. He’d had many battles against giant drug companies to break their monopolies and make medicine affordable to people around the world. Tony and a single lawyer would often go up against huge legal teams that were backed by massive corporations. Yet the better argument often meant that Tony would win. He’d take this lesson forward when thinking about social justice.
In 2012, Bertha Foundation launched its first bespoke program: the Bertha Justice Fellowship. The idea was to train the next generation of radical lawyers to hold those in power to account, all in service of the world’s most marginalized communities. This was Bertha’s anchor Fellowship program and trained nearly 500 emerging lawyers. This program taught us many things about our approach to supporting Fellows and how to provide the best assistance we can. These learnings laid the groundwork for our current programs; the Bertha Challenge, Bertha Spaces, the Bertha Artivism Awards and the Bertha Accelerator.
We’ve learned that investing in programs run by our team allows us to help innovative - and often overlooked - work succeed. It allows us to leverage our team’s field and issue fluency, while fostering relationships, to carefully select the projects that have the greatest impact. We theorize that our role is to create and hold space for our grantees to do their work and we put that theory into practice within these Bertha programs.
Philanthropy takes place in a world shaped by deep structural inequality and which is often created and reinforced by the very people and systems that fund it. Too often philanthropy diverts attention from the political projects through which wealth is accumulated while communities are disempowered, disenfranchized and harmed. Philanthropy is often part of this design - sometimes intentionally, and sometimes unintentionally.
Philanthropy frequently reinforces existing power rather than challenges it. We work deliberately against that trend. We interrogate whether our philanthropy reinforces systems of oppression through the lens of the political, particularly as it relates to those with power. So, we support those who actively challenge power, politics and profit. Our philanthropy is political because meaningful change requires political will. Politics and philanthropy must be linked in order to create transformation.
We want every person in our spaces to feel seen and heard. Politics does not happen without connection, and connection cannot happen without spaces that welcome people fully. Public gathering spaces are increasingly rare. Repressive governments know that the first step toward control is to stop people from gathering.
So we have intentionally built these spaces to counter this. Bertha Spaces are places where people can gather, connect and hone their political understanding of the world. That’s why our hospitality is radical: we create a place you can return to, belong to and fight for.
"Towards social justice without compromise"
"The UK's only documentary cinema"
"A vibrant community and entreprenurial hub"
"Training 1000 social justice and movement lawyers suing governments and corporations over the next 10 years"
“Strengthening independent documentary filmmaking"
“An innovative non-profit working with the boldest, with the most inspiring filmmakers all over the world"
“supporting social justice advocates to take advantage of unique and time sensitive opportunities”
“Over 300 social change documentaries supported over the next 12 years”
"A 55-seat dedicated documentary cinema housed in the Curzon Bloomsbury"
"Independent films, series, interactive projects and artworks of historical relevance, social purpose, commercial value and artistic integrity."
"A hub for individuals, activists, storytellers and collectives working to make a difference in their communities."
“Fellowships for Activists and Investigative Journalists to confront systems of profit, politics and power”
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“Spaces intentionally designed to advance spatial justice and reinforce a people-centered society.”
“Imagine what thousands of young people with the right platform could do”
A new Bertha Member Space joins the network
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