November 2007 News
Debate the burning issues facing civil society
NCVO Third Sector Foresight is hosting a seminar at the next NCVO Annual Conference on 20 February 2008.
The seminar will explore a number of burning issues facing VCOs in the medium to long term future, looking out to 2025, drawing on the Carnegie UK Trust's Inquiry into the future of civil society in the UK and Ireland. As we develop our thoughts on which burning issues we will be exploring I'll be posting them here. Anyone who was at last night's excellent Tomorrow Project event on the...
The future of citizenship - NCVO Third Sector Foresight seminar
How will changing notions and behaviours of citizenship affect your organisation and how should you respond?
This will be the topic of the next in our popular series of NCVO Third Sector Foresight seminars. Read on to book your free place at the seminar on 17 January, from 2.30 to 5pm in London.
What is happening?
The ways in which people are engaging with both the state and with each other are changing as ideas about what it means to be a 'citizen' shift. This will have implications for the...
Collaborative working annual conference
Collaborate for a stronger, more successful and sustainable sector!
Collaborative working is increasingly becoming one of the key issues for the sector and is an important strategic issue for every organisation. This year's Collaborative Working Conference will provide a unique opportunity to exchange ideas and experience, and contribute to the development of the collaborative working agenda.
The event will use the interactive Open Space method – an approach that maximises participation,...
Thoughts from the NCVO political conference (part 2)
After discussing the (potentially?) changing role of VCOs in the political sphere, the panel at NCVO's political conference last week moved on to address a question about the place of the VCS within the different political parties' visions for society. Or to use the turn of phrase of the questioner: 'Is the government/VCS love-in just a trend or is it here to stay?'
Shaun's view was that VCOs are becoming an arm of government and are too cowardly to resist this. As to whether this would...
Thoughts from the NCVO political conference (part 1)
Last week I chaired a session on new media at the NCVO political conference. I stayed around to listen to the final Q&A session, a question time-style panel debate with Shaun Bailey, Rushanara Ali, Peter Oborne, and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.
My ears pricked up as the chair opened with a particularly interesting future-focussed question: As we reach the end of a particularly turbulent political period, what's next?
Consensus amongst the panel was that we are not at the end of anything; it could in...
Human rights, a tool for change
The final seminar of the NCVO/ESRC seminar series on Engaging Citizens looked at human rights and how the work of voluntary and community organisations could benefit from having a human rights approach. Katie Ghose from the British Institute of Human Rights (BIHR) highlighted how in the UK, public awareness of human rights remains very low and that most people and institutions think about human rights through a very narrow lens. The general tendency is to think of rights as a litigation...
The voluntary sector workforce: challenges and opportunities
New research from the Workforce Hub and NCVO has revealed a significant growth in the VCS workforce in the last decade. This rate of growth has in fact been at a higher rate than the public and private sectors. However, the '2007 Voluntary Sector Skills Survey’ published in tandem with this reveals a number of challenges for the sector’s employers. One-quarter of organisations report hard to fill vacancies within their organisation and skills gaps in IT, legal knowledge and fundraising. Some ...
Ten trends in philanthropy
This article from the US onPhilanthropy newsletter lists ten trends in philanthropy in the UK:
- The return of philanthropy
- Growth in the UK economy
- Accumulation of private wealth
- Growth of private philanthropy: mega gifts
- Rise of the 'committed giver'
- Emergence of philanthropy 'think tanks'
- Professionalism of the fundraising sector
- Emergence of capital campaigns
- Tax incentives to encourage private philanthropy
- Government incentives to leverage private philanthropy
Some of the implications of these...
Climate change - tipping or turning point?
Is the debate about the impact of climate change really over? The last few years have seen a growing consensus about the potential consequences of our damage to the planet amongst the public, media and government. Barely a day goes by without a media headline telling us of the possible impacts. In the high street we are confronted by more and more sustainable choices — HSBC is suddenly a green bank; Ikea doesn't give free plastic bags. At the ballot box David Cameron wants us to "Vote Blue:...
What does the private equity boom imply for the third sector?
I’ll start this post by freely admitting that I am not an economist…so these thoughts (opinions?) probably won’t stand up to rigorous analysis. As such, I am trying to stimulate debate.
Private equity funding – those investors who are taking companies private by buying the publicly listed shares and then delisting them in the expectation that they can run them more efficiently and therefore profitably – is a global phenomenon that has been boosted by low interest rates (and in turn cheap...
