Big Society and Campaigning
Hi everyone
I am doing a piece of work on the Big Society and its impact on campaigning. If you can spare a couple of minutes, I would really appreciate it if you could fill in my short survey using the link below.
https://rnid.wufoo.com/forms/campaigning-and-big-society/
I'm looking for anyone who works in a campaigning-related role so please pass this onto colleagues and friends as well.
If anyone would like to see the results afterwards, make sure you leave an email address that I can send these to.
Thanks for your help!
Andy
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Hi Andy
I've just tweeted this for you. Have you checked out this thread? Lots of useful details related to big society and campaigningThe campaigning landscape -what's new?
and also our last research report which has loads of insight that could be of use to your project.
A new campaigning landscape? Implications of the of the 2010 General Election (PDF 2.37 MB)
Be really interested to hear the findings.
Thanks Amelia for the info and the tweet!
There was also a really interesting twist yesterday in the debate around Big Society. RNIB Chair Kevin Carey made it quite clear that he believes that campaigning by charities should be pulled back in this day and age with much more focus on service delivery. He even went as far to say that we should be dropping the name "charity" and adopting the social enterprise model.
http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/finance/news/content/9088/sector_campaigning_must_take_a_back_seat_to_service_delivery_says_rnib_chair
As far as I am aware, this the first time a sector leader has said something like this publicly regarding the Big Society. It's a shame that he does not recognise the value that campaigning can have, especially when done alongside service delivery. There is a really good chapter about this in Forces for Good by Leslie R Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant.
In case anyone is interested, I will post the top line results of the survey next week.
Thanks
Andy
No worries, I'm sorry I didn't spot it earlier. Yes do post it up be very interesting to see what people are thinking.
Yes I saw that peice by Kevin left me a bit speechless. I get some of the logic behind the thinking but he's definitely missing a trick not thinking about the transformative role of campaigning. It's definitely be good to get a debate up and running about it.
Mr Carey's comments seem predicated on the idea that all charities/voluntary sector organisations are primarily engaged in social service delivery. This is certainly not the case in the environmental sector, where the policy framework in which we have been operating, in somce cases for over 100 years, is still not "fit for purpose" as it assumes the planet's resources are infinite, and the ecosystem services it provides for humanity are indestructable.See http://www.lancswt.org.uk/index.php/save-chat-moss.php and http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/24/england-wildlife-areas... for examples.
Some of you might be interested in the blog piece I wrote yesterday: http://www.emmataggart.co.uk/big-society/
I'm arguing that the sector needs to engage more positively with the Big Society and that there's an opportunity for campaigners to shape what it becomes.
Thanks Andy for this post and the survey.
My feeling is that the sector's leaders are now resigned to defeat by the government, and are now accepting they have lost the fight in the area of lobbying and campaigning for the needs of vulnerable people. The sector, I am afraid, has lost its teeth, and this comments by Kevin Carey does not help the sector at all in regaining the ground on campaigning.
My personal opionion is that the profile of the sector's key leaders and players does feel quite conservative and middle-class, and they have now been swayed by the government's rhetoric on how they see Big Society working. Service provision on its own without any voice of the people campaiging for its positive direction in changing their lives for the better is, in fact, a kind of systematic civil oppression of the masses. Spoonfeeding people without empowering them through effective campaigning keeps them down and increases dependency on the state and the elitist classes the govern it.
Ade