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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
24 August 2016
Updated: 04 December 2020
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Andrew Barnett has been the director of the UK Branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation since 2007 and is the Convenor of the Funders’ Collaboration on the Leadership.
Social sector leadership is an issue that’s close to my heart. I’ve worked with some exceptional individuals during my career: passionate and empathetic, thoughtful and strategic, collaborative, outward looking, with vision and foresight. They’ve not just been effective; they’ve been an inspiration to me. These qualities are found across the 163,000 organisations that make up the sector but not consistently so. Some heading up organisations lack the sort of insightful, collaborative and ‘generous’ leadership that feels so necessary when organisations should be collaborating, rather than competing, in the interests of their beneficiaries. Understandably, the response of some leaders is to retreat in the face of the huge external challenges whilst a tiny few – a small fraction of the total - act in a way that brings discredit on the sector as a whole and the values it stands for.
We have often neglected to invest in developing the next generation of leaders with such investment perhaps regarded as an indulgence. The fragmented nature of the sector – with many smaller charities and a limited number of larger ones – creates conditions in which we just hope and pray for good people rather than identifying and developing them. And this happens at a time when the social sector plays an increasingly important part in the fabric of society and yet faces some of its biggest strategic challenges. We have huge potential to be forces for good if only we can address this deficit.
This was the context for a ‘retreat’ held six months ago in Windsor. The gathering was convened by Sally Bacon from the Clore Duffield Foundation (a pioneer in this field), Sara Llewellin from the Barrow Cadbury Trust and myself from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s UK Branch (another early supporter of Clore Social Leadership) with the support of Shaks Ghosh from Clore Social itself. We were joined by colleagues from thirteen other funders, from the sector’s major umbrella bodies and from government. It was an opportunity for challenge and critical assessment. The big question was how we, as sector “stewards”, could ensure that it was well led and governed now and in the future.
A sense of urgency was hung over our discussions and a number of observations emerged: there is no ‘market place’ where organisations can find affordable and accessible leadership education (and no sign-posting to what exists); for a variety of reasons, demand from the sector itself appears weak (whether driven by short-termism or lack of resource). We felt strongly the need to support charities in their work. This is not just to reclaim their place in the affections of the British public, challenged of late by the behaviours of the tiny few, but to fulfil their potential acting alongside the state and a private sector who share the mantle of meeting the demands and needs of the British public now and in the future. We committed to collaborate on a bold initiative to transform social sector leadership - what some call “pulling all the levers at once” and others as “a collective shot in the arm” - to be delivered within a fixed timeframe but with an impact that lasts beyond the activities themselves (or funding).
The Funders’ Collaboration on Leadership, as it has come to be known, has brought together 50 individuals from funders, umbrella bodies, social sector organisations, and government with the aim of developing innovative and scalable solutions to the problems identified at the retreat. The focus is on four main themes, each of which now has a working party:
- Restoring trust in the voluntary sector.
- Sharing foresight information and preparing the sector for the future.
- Improving the standard of governance by informing and skilling trustees.
- Developing a new leadership style for our sector.
Each working group has been challenged to develop a defined, time-limited experiment that tackles each priority head on. If we can demonstrate evidence of the potential to be transformative, the plan is to prototype, pilot and take each to scale. We have a strong interest in ensuring this initiative adds up to more than the sum of its parts and we will be seeking to link the work of the different groups in ways that create a multiplier effect. We have a strong commitment to avoid duplicating other sector initiatives on governance, leadership and trust, complementing and supplementing them, where we can. We will disseminate the findings from the work and keep the collaborative flame burning with events and communications.
This doesn't happen by accident. It happens because of the commitment of people like Shaks, those who joined us in Windsor and others besides. And, it doesn’t come free. We are pleased that the Office for Civil Society has set aside a budget of £1.7 million for the most innovative projects and the Big Lottery Fund has agreed to match this. This leaves £1.7m to be raised from other sources including trusts and foundations who will be encouraged to trial the approaches with the organisations in their grantee portfolios.
We intend that a real difference is felt by the organisations who make up our sector, those who work with us, who benefit and even those who have been of our detractors of late. We estimate that there are 1.3 million leaders in our sector. To empower them further, we must extend a rich but coordinated offer of support to remarkable people in a context in which their work is not only valued but sought out.
Join in on the conversation with #FundersCollab and keep an eye on both the Calouste Gulbenkian (UK Branch) and Clore Social Leadership pages to stay abreast of the work being done by the Funders’ Collaboration on Leadership.
Tags:
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
10 May 2016
Updated: 04 December 2020
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Jean Demars is a 2015 Fellow and former Housing Lead at Praxis Community Projects. Jean is interested in the nature of complex change within various systems.
Notre-Dame-des-Landes is a small village in a bocage and wetland area, situated 20 miles North of Nantes (France). Wetlands are considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life.
Notre-Dame-des-Landes has been the site of a struggle between the French state, who decided to build an international airport on the land; Vinci, the largest construction company in the world who obtained concession for the development of the site in 2010; and the local population, who try and protect the land on which they have been living for generations.
Since 2009 it became the site of the first ‘Zone à Defendre’ (ZAD) when the local population invited people to occupy and repopulate the area which had been partly bought through compulsory purchase orders. Occupant-squatters came from radical[1] environmental movements and anti-capitalist struggles to live in the area and link up with the 50+ local groups fighting against the airport and its developers.
Commune for the 21st Century
In contrast to most social movements, which funnel difference and diversity into a unified whole, the ZAD cannot be simplified. For some, it is a local struggle against the building of an airport, whilst others see it as a concrete example of capitalist expansion and environmental destruction. Both these strands still believe in the legitimacy of democratic institutions, considering reform and more democracy to be the response.
Those most committed to social transformation go further in expressing that it is also ‘to defend the possibility of sharing a common future on this bocage’[2]. In order to create and maintain new social relations, another struggle is necessary, this time, against that which is embedded deep within us.
‘The autonomy that is being experimented in the bocage can’t be reduced to our food and material elements. We are not interested in self sufficiency for itself. What is happening here is political autonomy. What we are inventing, through trial and error, is the capacity to collectively decide our own rules.’ [3]
This typifies the depth of the social transformation at stake in the making of the ZAD. It should not be interpreted as some form of self-management, so prevalent in advanced capitalism, but rather as an exploration in modes of being and interacting that break with the imperatives of the market.
Tactics for Social Change
Legal proceedings against the French state have been going on for 15 years with the support of committed lawyers, expert economists and ecologists. Despite irrefutable proof of the damage the airport would cause, and despite the possibility of expanding the existing airport, the law continues to rule in favour of the state.
Outside the legal process, the primary form of resistance is expressed through regular protest marches, demanding the termination of the project. Similarly, some elements of the movement have engaged with existing political parties to access the higher echelons of power and attempt to influence the process and outcome.
Direct action has been an important element of resistance. When evicted by riot police in 2012, occupant-squatters resisted the destruction of farm buildings and refused to leave the area. The local community supported them and organised a re-building event that brought together 40,000 people. Following this, attacks were launched against machinery attempting to enter the ZAD along with acts of sabotage to ensure no preliminary works could be carried out.
Direct Action doesn't stop at self-defence. It has brought together the various elements of the ZAD via environmentalists recording protected species in the area, local farmers sharing knowledge and lending cattle to start a cheese-making workshop, the exchange of seeds, the weekly non-market where produce is exchanged and ‘sold’ for what can be afforded. The list is endless because it continues to be created in the everyday interactions of people inhabiting or engaging in the ZAD, without any external, superior or hegemonic body to arbitrate or intervene.
What lessons can be learnt from the ZAD for ethical leadership?
- Strong ethical principles guiding an experimental daily practice is key to the transformation of social relations.
- The importance of negating what exists as much as creating the new. Negation is a necessary but insufficient condition for the creation of the new. Trying to build participatory communities without first rejecting the current social order will sooner or later bring it against the existing order, whether that is in the form of eviction or recuperation.
- Dispersing power has to be a key feature of the new so that autonomous communities remain non-hierarchical. One consequence of this may be that mass movements are not desirable to build, unless they are the result of individual actions.
The ZAD is a community of struggle in becoming. Its inherent ‘messiness’ is its strength if only those involved don't see ‘difference’ as inhibiting, but the engine of the movement, the affect unleashed on its outside and the potential it can actualise in the everyday. As such the exchanges between local people fighting the building of an airport, and occupant-squatters building a commune for the 21st century are key, even though they could just as easily be exploited by the state to split the movement.
What makes this struggle so important is that it contains the world, old and new, within it and provides a concrete pressure point for people to get engaged in, far away from depoliticised community organising or abstract, even if radical, ideology.
Footnotes:
[0]: Crested Newt is a protected species found in the local area, which has been taken as a symbol for all species that will disappear as a direct result of the armed concrete poured over the wetlands to build the airport.
[1] : The use of the word ‘radical’ need to be reviewed in the current political context where states have been so radical in the imposition of inhumane policies. It is used here in the conventional sense of those seeking transformation rather than reform.
[2] : Defending the ZAD, Mauvaise Troupe Collective, p. 22, éditions de l’éclat.
[3]: Ibid, p.20
[4] : Ibid, p. 20
Further Reading
http://zad.nadir.org/
https://www.acipa-ndl.fr/
Defending the ZAD: A new little book about the struggle against an airport and its world.
Tags:
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environment
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housing
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