Sector differentiation
The flurry of hard-hitting opinions in the Guardian (5 January 2011) headed ‘Self-indulgent charities must change’ laments the ‘inevitable commoditisation of the third sector’.
While these letters make uncomfortable reading, they highlight some of the negative perceptions out there which need to be taken on the chin. Judging by the sheer volume of tweets, posts and Facebook links, the correspondence seems to have struck a chord with the British public.
Matthew Patten’s ominous prediction that ‘in 2011 the winners will be those organisations that start to behave more like corporate raiders than third-sector martyrs’ smacks as some sort of sector Armageddon (no charity ‘ecosystem’ in his book), but his point that ‘trustees are beginning to recognise that increasing their public benefit is similar to increasing shareholder value’ does highlight the difficulties of how impact reporting is best achieved. Recent research (see pages 5 and 26 of this issue) would suggest we are a long way from any mechanism that has the equivalent common language of shareholder value, but every effort must be made to sort something out. Our lamentable position in the World Giving Index has its roots, among other factors, in the public’s confusion about how charities really do make a difference.
Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, after congratulating Sir Stephen Bubb on his knighthood, reminded delegates at ACEVO’s AGM reception two weeks later that the Giving Green Paper was not merely a reaction to the financial deficit, but something that “we would have done anyway.” The whole point about the public service reform is to remove barriers to charities and social enterprises delivering services. If third sector organisations are experiencing exclusion or contracts are being terminated because a local authority finds it easier to do that than examine their own costs, Maude wants to know. “Give us the evidence”, he says because “we may have some influence and we may seek to use it.”
The only problem is that, if the Cabinet Office finds itself wading in too often, this undermines one of the main points of the Green Paper – decentralisation. Frank Prochaska’s letter is a stark reminder of why this must not go backwards.“All post-war governments have sought to co-opt and regulate charitable agencies. But there is a cost to our civic democracy as the two sectors merge, for as voluntary bodies become enmeshed with the state, they forfeit their role as critics of government policy”, he says.
So the challenge lies in finding more effective ways to engage and inspire an increasingly cash-strapped and critical public and just quietly getting on with it when difficulties emerge in service contracts. Otherwise one minority group of organisations – the 10 per cent dependent on the state for over half its income – distorts the perception of the sector as a whole.
Author: Clarissa Dann
Clarissa Dann was the editor of Caritas as well as an HR and management online service,he People Bulletin until July 2011.
She is now the editor of the specialist trade finance magazine, Trade and Forfaiting Review which can be viewed at www.tfreview.com but does write on charity finance and investment from time to time.
Clarissa has a background in legal and professional publishing, as well as business journalism and holds an MBA from
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