Economics News
What do we value?
On the day we have officially come out of recession, and new research on our social attitudes has been published, I would recommend taking a look at the McKinsey interview with the extremely lucid Jim Wallis (you can watch, listen to or read it here on the McKinsey Quarterly website, though you will have to create a free account to do so). In the light of the current discussions taking place at Davos, he suggests that the question we should be asking about the economic crisis is not ‘when...
Wellbeing: a new paradigm or just a fad?
As someone with a long interest in language and how it is used, I am often fascinated by how changes of terminology take place. Suddenly people are using a new term, sometimes to refer to a new concept or approach, but sometimes the new term simply replaces an old one. Well-being is not a new term or even a new concept, but it is certainly being used much more these days, and in different ways too.
I am a great believer in the idea of ‘confluence theory’, the notion that significant changes...
Future of wellbeing: what does this mean for you and your organisation?
From debates on wellbeing as a political goal, to positive psychology 'wellbeing' is being used more and more. But what does this term mean? And more importantly, perhaps, what does it mean to civil society organisations?
Many charities have wellbeing at the heart of what they do, even if they don't realise it. The sector can play a vital role in this directing this issue to shape society into a good society.
Join us on 23 February for the Future of Wellbeing seminar (PM4) at NCVO's annual...
More on whether we get what we pay for
A while ago, I wrote a piece on the ‘freemium’ model that seems to be growing in relevance as people’s patterns of consumption of information and products, and their willingness to pay for them.
If you are interested in this topic and have a spare few minutes over the weekend, you might like to take a look at this slideshow (warning - there are 263 slides). Since we're all time poor, I thought I'd highlight that of particular interest to membership organisations are slides 200, 216 and 217...
Social media and membership organisations
The apparent threat (or opportunity) that social technology presents to membership organisations is summed up in the subtitle to Clay Shirky’s zeitgeisty book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of organizing without organizations. If ‘everybody’ can organise action by themselves (or rather, together), what possible reason is there for organisations to exist?
The first answer is, of course, that ‘everybody’ is not coming quite yet. Older people in particular – precisely those who,...
How important is the voluntary sector in public service delivery?
As we approach the chancellor’s autumn statement and a likely general election in Spring 2010 the debate over public spending levels is in full swing. What’s more, the language of cuts is now official government terminology: it’s no longer if, it’s now when, and how much. Everything is under review, which organisations in the voluntary sector – who are both delivering services to users and fighting for their rights – both fear and welcome. The mood is one of both trepidation and...
Legacies feeling the nip?
The latest findings from the Legacy Foresight’s Legacy Monitor service have been released. This survey benchmarks 38 of the UK’s leading charities, who together account for 44% of the legacies market. Their quarterly benchmarking helps set the scene around legacies and how they are being affected by, for example the recession.
Megan reported on the last quarter, ending that Legacy Foresight expected to see legacy incomes decline by up to 10%.
Well we're not quite at that trough yet! Compared...
Hitting the big numbers
Just the other day the FTSE 100 index hit 5,000 for the first time in nearly a year. As mentioned in our driver, stock market levels are mainly driven by confidence. So does this recent bounce mean we are seeing confidence in the UK stockmarket growing? Breaking the 5000 points barrier led to a fair number of news articles proclaiming the start of the end of the recession. An equal amount of media space has been dedicated to the Kraft takeover bid for Cadburys. Some see take overs (mergers...
The future is not what is used to be
This Autumn the latest in NCVO’s Third Sector Foresight pocket guides series, Future Focus 7, will study the future of campaigning. Here Nick Wilson, new Third Sector Foresight Officer and winner of a Sheila McKechnie Foundation Award for campaigning, looks at what the recent Camp for Climate Action tells us about that future.
Over the Bank Holiday weekend Climate Camp staged six days of protest in Blackheath, London, under the banner “The future is not what it used to be”. This was just the ...
Push Student Debt Survey
The Push Student Debt Survey, an annual survey on the financial position of students’, found that student debt levels are rising – students are averaging more than £5000 of debt each year, up nearly a quarter from last year. Push carried out face to face interviews with 2024 students in years one to four of their course, in over 130 universities.
The survey also found that levels of debt vary considerably between regions and institutions. For example students in England have the highest...
