Think Pieces News [2]
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...The future is not what is used to be
This Autumn the latest in NCVO’s Third Sector Foresight free mini-guides, 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...
Free: what membership organisations can learn from newspapers
Simon Jenkins wrote persuasively in yesterday’s Guardian about the future of the paper and of the newspaper model in general. I read it online, for free, here. It’s also in print, but that would have cost me 90p [the fact that I had to look this up exposes the last time I felt the need to buy a daily paper] and it’s this problem – "Why would you pay when you can get the same thing somewhere else for free?" – that he’s addressing.
<>And the answer he provides is simple – “ensure that "the...Is this the new direction of [party] membership?
GP Sarah Wollaston was yesterday elected as the Conservative candidate for the Totnes seat currently held by Anthony Steen.
But it was not so much her election as the manner in which it took place that is interesting: Wollaston was elected through a postal ballot open to everyone on the electoral register for the constituency.
<>A back of the envelope (groan) calculation suggests that around 16,500 people voted, in other words just under a quarter of those eligible to do so. Whilst therefore...Trust us, we’re charities
Trust has to be earned, and re-earned
Third Sector reported yesterday that incoming RNIB chair Kevin Carey has questioned the efficacy of current charity law, asking instead for a new definition of social gain.
In a concern which seems to particularly hinge on whether trustees should be eligible to be paid, he asks:
<>To me, this called to mind ...Who says charities should have extra controls in case we hoodwink the public when we have a long record of trustworthiness that far exceeds other sectors?
The death of the report?
New technologies are changing how information is generated, distributed and consumed, with implications for some staple products of many VCOs, publications and reports
<>The web has become central to our lives and therefore providing web-based information is now a core part of the strategy of many voluntary and community organisations (VCOs). But the online world is developing fast, providing new opportunities to improve how we distribute information and new challenges as patterns of...Make campaigners history? The impact of large scale campaigns
<>In 1985 Live Aid changed the way people thought about and participated in campaigning. For the first time in history, activism was not confined to the zealous few devoting their lives to the cause; the campaign opened up participation to all, and in doing so, made people feel that their actions could make a difference and indeed ‘feed the world’. The success of this campaign saw rise to other mass campaigns; Children in Need and Comic Relief became annual TV bonanzas, raising millions of...Olympic success
At the moment I quite like being British. I don’t always feel that way, but as we win ever increasing number of medals at the Olympics, it seems to be having an impact on my feelings towards the country I live in. Don’t worry; this is not about to be a monologue on how wonderful it is to live on this small island. But it got me thinking, if it affects me in this way, who else might it be affecting, and what effect might this have on the country, and the VCS within it?
<>Recent trends have...The Future Face of Enterprise
Anyone else ready to jump on the enterprise bandwagon? Dragons Den is trying to make entrepreneurs of everyone, enterprise has now entered the national curriculum, and everywhere I turn, it seems that organisations within the sector are embracing enterprise with a gusto usually reserved for voting on Britain’s got Talent. The capacitybuilders programme has recently announced a £6million investment in social enterprise, and Gordon Brown aims that ‘enterprise is truly open for all’’.
<>Rela...
