Leading charity CEOs have today published a series of essays calling for a fundamental reset in how charities work with government and business to tackle urgent social challenges.
The essays, published by the Charity Reform Group (CRG) and the Sheila McKechnie Foundation (SMK), come at an opportune moment for renewed relationships between sectors.
“This is a moment for a re-set,” said Sue Tibballs, Chief Executive of SMK. “With a new Government in office, and many private companies and philanthropists stepping into social change, the potential prize is enormous – both for the success of Government missions and, more broadly, the kind of society so many across sectors want to see.”
The report argues that charities are being held back from their full potential by misconceptions about their role and unnecessary constraints on their activities. It calls for charities to be seen as trusted and equal partners, bringing unique strengths including their deep community connections, evidence-based insights, and ability to tackle complex social problems.
Angela McConville, CEO of the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), called for “open, radical and respectful discourse” between government and civil society to “co-design a bold and inclusive future and develop high impact policies that make a real difference in people’s lives.”
Crisis CEO Matt Downie highlighted the sector’s untapped potential: “Pick a social problem. Pick a sticky, seemingly intractable, multi-faceted one… Each of them has real, tangible and available solutions on offer from the third sector. Costed, trialled, evidenced, breakthrough, co-produced solutions.”
Guest author Sarah Elliott, CEO of NCVO, noted the sector’s economic impact: “Measured in purely financial terms, the voluntary sector in the UK contributes around £18.2 billion to the economy. If the value of its social impact is included, the sector’s contribution is 10 times as much.”
The essays make recommendations for changes needed from all sides – charities themselves, government, and businesses – to unlock the sector’s full potential and forge more productive partnerships around shared missions.
What charities can do
- Change their story: tell a confident story about what they exist to do and the change they want to see. Connect with people’s desire for a better, fairer, or healthier society – and start making the political weather.
- Crack collaboration: to tackle the most complex challenges, charities have to work more purposively with others. Focus always on mission and seek out those who share it, regardless of sector.
- Be more confident campaigners: campaigning is a vital, legitimate, and legal activity for charities, so “take all the space” offered by Charity Commission guidance. Learn to better hold the tension between a close relationship with government and speaking truth to power. Join forces to boost research, policy development, and co-ordinated messaging.
- Get our own house in order: work actively to improve equity, diversity, and inclusion. Open up decisions, scrutiny, jobs to people directly affected and support those willing to take them on. Explore how leadership and regulation need to change as charities’ understanding changes.
What government can do
- Recognise the role charities play: Let go of outdated assumptions and be open to charities’ current reality. Lead by example by being visibly open to working with charities to reach shared long-term goals. Show they are held in equal regard with business, each contributing essential elements of national success and economic growth.
- Be an enabling Government: Create the conditions for all sectors to play their full part in Britain’s success by creating the ‘landing space’ for what charities are offering. Provide leadership and long-term thinking, convene stakeholders from across sectors, and allow spending to be prioritised on key outcomes. Enable more locally designed and led solutions.
- Recognise and protect the independence of the sector: Publicly assert and defend the independence of the charity sector – and its right and duty to speak and act however it wishes, in line with the law and each charities’ own objects. Develop the ability to handle charities as both ally and antagonist.
- Remove barriers to charity voice and campaigning: Embrace challenge as an essential aspect of testing and improving policy. Review of the law covering ‘third party campaigners’, ahead of any further electoral reform. Abandon grant and participation conditions, such as unnecessary NDAs, allowing charities to engage on their own terms.
What the private sector can do
- Come together around shared purpose: Think beyond simple fundraising partnerships, and seek out charities whose missions overlap with yours, and whose expertise, insight, connection, and creativity make them ideal partners in developing innovative solutions.
- Build partnerships with open minds and without assumptions: Make space, especially in the earliest stages of a relationship, for openness, curiosity, and exploration.
- Play a part in the wider change ecosystem: Let go of any idea that enough resource or profile can make dramatic change on its own. Seek out the actors, approaches, and expertise that you can work alongside, learn from, contribute to, or simply watch out for.
Read the full report and essays.