Lewisham Council has finally unveiled its plan to re-develop a large empty plot of land at Besson Street, New Cross Gate, within what is sometimes known as the Kender Triangle. The plans are an interesting departure for the council, who instead of building new council housing, plans to build a Private Rented Sector (PRS) scheme of 250…
Category: Non-profit organising
Common Sense: a brief review
I’ve finally got around to reading Dan Hind’s Common Sense, which I’ve been meaning to do for ages on the grounds that I usually agree with his articles and The Return of the Public was at least interesting. Common Sense is a pamphlet in the tradition of the more famous Common Sense by Tom Paine. Here’s a video of…
Transparency is hard but we should all try: a challenge for Elevate Festival
A few weeks ago I was asked to contribute to Elevate Festival by watching livestreams of debates, joining in on Twitter and otherwise increasing the web presence of the festival. Elevate is discussing a wide range of things I am interested so I was happy to do this, but these days I really like to…
Foodbanks aren’t coping – and why should they?
Recently I spoke with the manager of a foodbank in South London. She didn’t offer to go on the record but I afterwards made a few notes on what she was saying: They have recently seen a big increase in people coming to them, many due to delays in benefit, the abolition of crisis loans…
The effect of government contracting on the non-profit sector
Here is an interesting post from elsewhere on the vacuum of politics in most of the NGO sector in the UK. It suggests that part of the reason for this is that they have allowed themselves to be contracted by the state, becoming part of the outsourcing industry. http://www.independentaction.net/2013/07/16/state-of-the-voluntary-services-sector-bob-baker-writes/ However this can’t be the whole…
Bringing anarchy to NGOs
Or somewhat more democratic and inclusive forms of organising anyway – this article is interesting: Carne Ross: our forms must reflect our fundamental political values I’ve thought a fair bit about the prospects for making NGOs more cooperative. Campaigning NGOs could have much more of a two way decision-making process with their donors and supporters….
Who do business and NGO leaders regard as their peers?
I think a good way to look at the nature of boundaries between organisations is to look at communication across the boundaries. We can ask, for example, who people at the top of those organisations talk to. Who do they consider their peers? These sites are a really good resources for mapping the individuals involved…
A successful campaign and the resourcing of ideas
Publish What You Pay (PWYP) is an organisation that campaigns for resource extraction companies to publish all royalties and other payments made in the countries in which they work. It is largely focussed on companies working in poorer countries where corruption is less subtle than we are used to and where governments often secretly negotiate…
The failure of intentions
I’m interested in people’s intentions within organisations, in the sense that I have often found them to be irrelevant to what the orgs do. It is easy for us to be convinced that our intentions count for a lot, yet we see orgs (the World Bank for example) that neither do what they claim to…