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And I have another little gem from Stanford Social Innovation review! It's short so I've reproduced it here in full:

I Gain and You Gain: The Emergence of “Smart Power” Strategies in the Nonprofit Sector by Jean Butzen

I am often asked: Why is it important to learn how to collaborate with other nonprofits? My responses often have to do with the microeconomic changes that influence our sector, such as the pressure to raise unrestricted funding to pay for back office services. But recently I saw a very interesting podcast on Ted.com given by Joseph Nye, a historian and diplomat who made me see the answer to this question in a new way.

Nye explained that power—the ability to accomplish your goals—is changing in the 21st century. Most nonprofits develop power unilaterally, what Nye might call, “hard power.” But there is another type of power, “soft power,” which is getting others to do what you want through persuasion. Nye says that it’s soft power which is the emerging power in the 21st century. There are many problems that are outside the control of individual countries: climate change, pandemics, etc., and that the only way to deal with these issues is through cooperation among nations. The same is true in the nonprofit sector where we often are struggling with failing state governments, recessions, and complex social problems. Nye advised that we have to stop thinking of power as a “zero sum game,” where I win and you lose, or vice versa. Today, power could be also be a positive sum game: I gain and therefore you gain as well. Increasingly this is the way we want to think about power in the 21st century in the nonprofit sector.

How can we work together in the nonprofit sector to produce results that we can all benefit from? One way is through exercising soft power by creating alliances, partnerships, and mergers between organizations as a strategy to address those chaotic issues that are beyond any single organization’s control. Nye explains that by exercising both soft and hard power, one creates “smart power,” the ability to move back and forth between these two strategies. In the 21st century, let’s vow to exercise smart power in the nonprofit sector in order to deliver on our nonprofit missions.

You can read it for yourself here.

I completely agree with your notes John. What kind of support exists in your area for this?

Hi Caro

That does sound really interesting. Maybe for those of us out there that don't use this terminology daily - could you outline what you mean by Third Age Participants? You may find the University of the Third Age have some useful information or Sandwell Third Age arts.

I look forward to reading your thoughts!

Did you know, this week (25 October - 29 October) is the first Trustee's week. Jointly launched by the Charity Commission, Getting on Board, Reach Volunteering, NCVO, Charity Trustee Networks and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales (phew!) aims to get people more involved in trusteeship.

Did you know that the average age of trustees in England and Wales is 57, two thirds are aged 50 and over? What implications might the ageing population have for trusteeship then?

Will we see more 'digital trustees'? People taking advantage of improving e-comms to get involved?

If you want to find out more about trusteeship or charity governance, have a look at NCVO's information pages on this.

And if you're thinking about the nature of leadership, have a look at the 'Nine key workforce trends for the next decade' from Tomorrow Today (@workforcetrends on twitter).

This is a great article from the folks over at Mashable HQ: Why social media is reinventing activism aka why Malcolm Gladwell is wrong. They present their case compellingly, but the most interesting parts for me were the case studies they used.

And remember, if you're interested in this, join us online on the afternoon of the 28th October to talk about the future of campaigning.

Visioning the future

Another way of getting people in a Foresight Frame of mind is to use images. Often people deal with so much text in their day to day work that pictures can be quite powerful. (and no, I won't mention that oft-used phrase about a picture being worth....)

With that in mind, have a look at the Metro's London Futures photo competition. Each photo up there at the moment explores the impact on the city of various scenarios. There's a tropical garden at the Hilton, and wind power on the Mall....

You could print them off and bring them to a meeting to kick off conversation about how likely each situation may be; explore what lies behind each image and from there think about what your organisation can do to prepare.

They're all quite focused on the impact of global warming in various guises:

• higher sea levels due to melting of the ice caps
• global migration as much of the developing world turns into deserts due to reduced rainfall.
• scarcity of resources leading to a greater need for food generation

If you want to think through this specific issue in more detail, have a look at our climate change driver, resource constraints driver and NCVO's Big Response project.

Let me know if you find these photos useful for sparking up discussion!

This thread has all been about social return on investment...Whilst the debate around the best way for charities to demonstrate their impact is key, and ongoing, I also wanted to flag something up here which has a slightly different emphasis.

Just recently, Nottingham CVS commissioned research into the impact the voluntary and community sector has on the life of the city of Nottingham. The research has looked at some interesting ways of putting a value on the contribution of the sector, including local spend and funding the voluntary and community organisations have brought into the sector.

This is a good example of the kind of thinking that needs to be done across the sector, with the cuts and greater emphasis on outcomes that is occurring.

The report also presents its finding in a visually engaging way, so if you don't get ideas of what evidence you can amass, you might get some ideas for how you can do your reports!

Hi Lesley

Thanks for this. It's a really interesting piece, sparking off thinking about how technology and work are impacting on each other.

If you have some time to listen, there's a good open data podcast from DavePress (a blog about the impact that social technology has on organisations, with a particular slant on the public sector). He interviews Tim Davies of Practical Participation about open data. It's quite long - 20 minutes - but does well in exploring how open data can link in with other buzz movements of the moment such as co-production, production of public services and community engagement.

Hi Jennie You make a really good point! I think a lot of the impetus behind Big Society equally requires people to have the will to act. As with any concept or policy, not everyone will agree. But there are things you can do!Examining the implications of all it might mean for your organisation can help people see whether there are benefits or not. Have you had a look at our localism driver? The localism agenda also has implications for public service delivery.

Thanks for this Kevin. You highlight an important point, which has been overlooked. McKinsey Quarterly have also understood the need to consider your workforce in tight financial times, with their article Retaining key employees in time of change. Their article is very much aimed at the private sector, with talk of ‘targeted retention measures’, not to mention the language used!

But this is where your piece comes in Kevin – it has tips which can be practically applied by people in the VCS.

The McKinsey article does talk about the need to move away from traditional financial bonuses, but you do have to read between the lines to draw out implications for the VCS. Pointers I pulled out were:

• You should look for hidden gems – people whose retention is critical to your effectiveness but who might not be obvious at first. Look for those whose

institutional knowledge, direct relationships, or technical experticse can make their retention critical

I read this as don’t ignore your backroom staff!

• Development and career potential are powerful incentives. The McKinsey article relates the story of

One financial services firm undertaking a recent cost-cutting initiative elected to use only non-financial measures – including leadership-development programes – to retain the pivotal players it had identified as being at risk of departure. One year later, none of those players had quit.

So there is hope for us cash-strapped charities!

Some other places you might like to look if you’re keen to keep your workforce engaged:

• The NCVO Workforce wheel helps you examine how well you're managing your workforce and meeting requirements.
• I follow @workforcetrends on twitter and he points towards useful and interesting news around this topic.
• I would also recommend this brief article from Wired Magazine which features an organisation that operates a 'Cloud workforce'.

Does this give you some ideas for how you could manage your workforce going forward?

Add your thoughts or questions...

Recent research from Counsel and Care has revealed some potentially worrying trends. In particular, that

64% said they had not even thought about how to fund their own care

could be storing up issues for the future. The move towards a market for care, such as identified in this driver and others (see personalisation of care for example) pushes the focus onto economic issues. So for over half the population to have not given it a thought, there could be trouble ahead. What can organisations do to help people with this? Perhaps some events to educate people about options? The research also showed that most people (69%) turn to the internet for information on care for older people, followed by GP surgeries (58%) and local council or social services (52%).

If you'd like to read more on the research, follow this link.

If you want to see how this trend fits into your life outside the world of work (gasp, surely that doesn't exist!), have a look at the Free Love trend briefing from Trendwatching.com

[1]If you're an infrastructure facing these issues, have you had a look at our infrastructure resource pages? We offer training - to be running in East Anglia, North West and London; a training pack and bulk copies of our future focus for free.

Have a look as well at the NCVO pages on this.

The Pathways through Participation project has flagged up on their website a bit of research from the JRF. The research looks at how residents on two traditionally white estates participate within their communities. I'd be interested in hearing how you think the findings of this report (I won't spoil it for you by telling you them!) impact on this driver, around attitudes towards community responsibility?

Hi Hugh Thanks for letting us know about this project. Have you also had a look at our participation driver and the one on community responsibility? How do you think they might play out with citizen-led online networks going on?

Useful bit from the Guardian website which looks at some of the implications for the VCS of a 30% cut in a local authority's - Rotherham's - budget. The borough council's chief executive emphasised what he sees as opportunity for the voluntary sector in the face of these cuts: the efficiency drive could be positive for charities who currently provide public services. And although this taps into the 'purpose of a charity' debate, it could be a small ray of sunshine.

He also mentioned that they will no longer provide some "non-core" services, with a view that "The communities that can help themselves, will help themselves,". This links to empowered communities, which I talk about in our localism driver and the personalisation agenda.

See this blog which also talks about this, by one of our members, Giles.

Working Wikily – do you do it?

This article from Stanford Social Innovation review is well worth a read if you’re interested in ways of working more effectively, or the impact of web 2.0 or social media on how we work.

It defines working wikily as:

‘an approach that is characterized by greater openness, transparency, decentralized decision making and collective action’

Quite a list! Have you heard of Ashoka’s Changemaker initiative? SSIR present it as an example of a more networked mindset. There’s a host of other examples which makes this article very readable. It talks about 5 key reasons why people use a network approach to achieve social change:

1. weaving community,

2. accessing diverse perspectives,

3. building and sharing knowledge,

4. mobilizing people,

5. and coordinating resources and action.

If your work relates to any of that, you might get interesting ideas from this article!

The joys of open data - neatly summarised here (slideshare presentation from developer of OpenlyLocal)

I love the optimism of NESTA’s radical efficiency report, released last month. If there are examples of public services being delivered at lower cost, because of radical innovations, why can’t they be adopted more widely they ask? If you look beyond the possible naievity of this, there is as I said, delightful optimism. Reading their report, I found the examples they give were heartening. If you work in the voluntary sector or public service delivery I would recommend reading it just for that! Quite nice to discover on a drizzly Monday morning.

However, warm fuzziness aside, what does their report bring to the public service delivery debate? The LSE blog rather bitingly comments that more is needed than just using

‘best-practice research’ to collect case studies of what has sometimes worked, somewhere else, in another society,

As suggested in its title, this report is focused on innovation and innovative responses to cuts and the need to deliver differently. I wrote about people’s potential to innovate when necessary a year ago and it’s actually echoed here when the LSE blog says government tends to bring innovation out for a rainy day:

Previous research has found that Whitehall departments tend to store up innovations in their back pockets and not take action on them, until a ‘rainy day’ crisis turns up and requires that they absolutely make some response.

So if the innovation, or responses, is sufficiently radical, as suggested in NESTA’s report we would be looking at a whole new way of delivering services. Which I think we’re all aware holds massive potential for civil society organisations.

The old chestnut remains however: will this re-envisioning actually take place? NEF have been calling for a long time for a new way of responding to the Triple Crunch; as CPLS points out, much of this agenda was spotlighted in 2007. Will it just be more shouts in the darkness this time round? What do you think?

No time to read the whole report? Have a look at these responses: CPLS blog; LSE blog response. You might also be interested in the NCVO work on innovation; and a previous post around innovation in times of fiscal tightening.

An interesting piece I've just come across: A short history of the social rights myth. The author talks about how the contemporary view of rights has developed. Originally 'securities against misrule' - ie a form of protection against what a state could do to a citizen, Patterson writes that 'rights' are now seen as what the government 'must do for an individual'. Would you agree?

Hi Paddy!

The only details remaining that we intended to add to this driver were under the Further Reading section. This is where we signpost to other resources and articles that continue the debate, as it were.

You'll see that I've added one about indices of deprivation, but we're always keen to use the wisdom of crowds for these! So links such as the one you point out there Paddy from Child Poverty Action Group are great.

To maximise the value for our website users, of for example information such as the CPAG report, I'd be thinking 'So what does this mean for charities?' The concluding comments or recommendations that reports often end with are usually useful for this!

Hi Kevin Welcome to 3s4!

Have a look at our list of members: there may be some who work in these areas that you could collaborate with.

You may also be interested in looking at the work Voice 4 Change England did with us on trends for BME organisations: http://www.3s4.org.uk/drivers/categories/bme-third-sector and also work we did with Age Concern http://www.3s4.org.uk/drivers/categories/older-people

[1]:

I frequently attend events which look at the relationship between blossoming new technologies and communication and campaigning. The most recent of which was Charity Comm's Fit for the Future event. Although focussed on the role of communications, there is a very close connection between campaigning and communicating – where do you draw the line between them? So there was a fair amount of discussion around how people are using these developments to campaign. If you read any websites, blogs or magazines (did I just refer to hardcopy?!) about new technology there are numerous examples of organisations campaigning using technology. See for example, the RAF benevolent fund's social media campaign bringing characters to life, or Nikon's very web 2.0-y site to support their campaign for the Singapore Children's Society

Essentially new technologies are more direct and engaging ways to reach and stimulate action in new and existing audiences. Techniques such as experiential, social media and web 2.0 technologies, can be used by most (if not all) campaigners to strengthen their campaigns.

However, I don’t run campaigns myself so my viewpoint is a somewhat distant one. I’d like to know what campaigns you’ve run using new technologies and if it was useful?

You might also like to have a look at this: Unleashing the power of live broadcasting which outlines some of the ways that individuals and organisations can use the new opportunities of a camera, a laptop and an internet connection, to broadcast live.