This Charity Business: Who Cares?

SPECIAL FEATURE

This Charity Business:Who Cares?Margaret Harris

In her inaugural lecture at the Aston Business School inBirmingham, England, presented here in an edited version,Margaret Harris looks at the contributions of the voluntary andcharity sector to individual lives and to our society. She exam-ines the distinctive features of voluntary organizations and out-lines the threats currently facing them. She argues thatuniversities have an important role to play in ensuring the sur-vival of the voluntary sector, the accumulation of “social capi-tal,” and the maintenance of “civil society.”

IAM VERY honored to have so many colleagues and friends here thisevening, as well as members of my family. I know some of youhave made special journeys from places well beyond Birmingham

and the West Midlands to be here, and I am very grateful to you fortaking the time to join us.

How can it be that the great granddaughter of an EasternEuropean Jewish innkeeper—most of whose other descendants dis-appeared without trace during World War II—has been appointed aprofessor in one of the best business schools in Europe? How can somuch have happened in one family and one continent in a mere onehundred years?

To my great grandfather, living in a small town in Russian-controlled Poland in the late nineteenth century, the very concept ofa university would have been hard to grasp. And the idea of a uni-versity would have meant little to his son Moses, my paternal grand-father, who had the good sense to leave behind the pogroms of czaristEastern Europe and make for England.

My grandfather worked diligently as a tailor but never earnedenough to support his wife and four children. They survived all thesame—with the help of family and the hundreds of small synagogues,charities, and mutual aid associations established to meet the needsof the new immigrants.

Although universities would have been unknown to my grand-father in his East End ghetto, the idea of an educated woman was

NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP, vol. 12, no. 1, Fall 2001 © John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 95

nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 95

not. His children were educated at Raines Foundation School—acharity school established by an English philanthropist in the eigh-teenth century.

But sixty years after my grandfather arrived in the Londondocks, I, his granddaughter, did make it to university—part of thatgeneration of postwar grammar school children who grabbed theopportunities offered by a higher education system that was expand-ing in the 1960s to embrace even those who were not born into thetraditional British elites.

In the 1960s when I was an undergraduate at Edgbaston,Birmingham was optimistically building ring-roads—a city fit for themotor car in which pedestrians, in the words of the city engineer,were to be “controlled” into using subways. You couldn’t get a glassof beer after ten o’clock at night, and Aston University’s predecessor,the College of Advanced Technology, was where you ventured forSaturday night hops and to have revolutionary little contact lensesfitted free by students with nervous fingers.

Much has happened to the city, to Aston University, and to mesince then, but now here I am back in the city of my youthfuldreams, celebrating with you my appointment as Britain’s first pro-fessor of voluntary sector organization.

So why should we bother about this so-called “voluntarysector”—charities, self-help groups, community groups, not-for-profit service providers, membership associations, faith-based orga-nizations, campaigning groups, and philanthropic trusts—the kindsof organizations that historically sustained impoverished people likemy own immediate forebears? Isn’t the voluntary sector an anachro-nism now? Don’t we have a welfare state to meet health and socialneeds, as well as an array of companies providing help for those whocan afford to pay for care? Why should Aston Business Schoolappoint a professor to research and teach about the voluntary sec-tor? Who cares about this charity business anyway?

How Voluntary Organizations Affect UsI argue here that the voluntary sector remains a crucial part of ourindividual lives and of our society. I will try to explain why weshould cherish it and why it is important for universities and busi-ness schools to devote resources to research and teach about it. Indeveloping my theme, I draw on examples in my own life, but I hopethat will stir you into thinking about how the voluntary sector affectsyour lives as well.

In a rapidly changing world in which we are well aware of theimpact of market competition, government agencies, technologicalchange, and global trends, it is easy to forget the way in which vol-untary organizations affect us. They are the little platoons of theorganizational universe. A few of them are well known nationallyand internationally—the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty

96 HA R R I S

So why should webother about this

so-called“voluntarysector”thathistoricallysustained

impoverishedpeople like myown immediate

forebears?

nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 96

to Children, Oxfam, the Salvation Army, the Grameen Bank ofBangladesh—but most are not big players, nor are they the kindsof organizations used as case studies for M.B.A. courses. They are notabout distributing profits. In the words of Kenneth Boulding, they“are characterized not so much by exchange in which a quid is gotfor a quo . . . as by universal transfers that are justified by some kindof appeal to a status or legitimacy, identity or community” (1988,p. 56).

In practice, most people are involved with these kinds of orga-nizations in one way or the other, but because the involvement tendsto happen within the household or in leisure time, it is easy to under-estimate their importance. In fact, there are 135,000 active generalcharities in the United Kingdom, and they in turn constitute only apart of the total voluntary sector. Those charities employ 2.2 percentof all U.K. employees, have a total income of £13 billion, and con-tribute £4.5 billion (.7 percent) to the gross domestic product (GDP).Estimates of the contribution of volunteer effort to general charitiessuggest that a further £8 billion could be added to this calculation tomake a total of £12.8 billion contribution (or 1.89 percent) to GDP(National Council for Voluntary Organisations, 1999).

As with my parents and grandparents, this voluntary sector hasloomed large in my own life, literally from the start. I was born in acharity hospital—the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson in London’s EustonRoad, just at the moment when one of the last German bombs of thesecond world war shattered its windows.

How Charities DevelopedBut just about the time of my birth, the idea that people in needshould have to rely on the vision and entrepreneurialism of a fewpeople was, quite rightly, being questioned. During the Depressionyears of the 1930s, it had become clear that the voluntary sectorcould not provide adequate amounts, or standards, of care to meetsevere need.

New ideas were emerging in the 1940s about how to meet thesocial and health care needs of the nation—stimulated in part bythe experiences of citizen solidarity in wartime Britain. WilliamBeveridge’s vision of the “welfare state” was taken up by the postwarLabor government. Governmental agencies and services funded bytax revenues rather than old-fashioned charitable activity became thefavored means of meeting needs.

The new National Health Service (NHS) and local governmentwelfare and education departments did a remarkable job. The strongbones, healthy teeth, and high educational achievements of my gen-eration are largely attributable to the benefits of a generous state com-mitted to ensuring our welfare from cradle to grave. If you rememberbuying sweets with ration books, you also remember the free orangejuice and cod liver oil provided by the Ministry of Food, your free

TH I S CH A R I T Y BU S I N E S S : WH O CA R E S? 97

nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 97

third of a pint of milk at school playtime, and free NHS spectacles assoon as you couldn’t read the blackboard (pink for girls and brownfor boys).

In those heady days of the new welfare state, it was assumed thatthe voluntary sector would just wither away. It didn’t. It is true that thework of some charities was taken over by the state in the 1940s and1950s, particularly schools and hospitals. But others adapted so thatinstead of providing mainstream services they could add towhat the state provided. Many faith-based organizations—MethodistHomes for the Elderly, the Church of England Children’s Society,Dr. Barnardos and the Jewish Board of Guardians—did just this.

The Jewish Board of Guardians, as its name implies, was estab-lished, like so many of our charities in Victorian times, to help keepthe “deserving poor” among the Jewish population from the work-house (Lipman, 1959). It has long since changed its name to a cool“Jewish Care” and gobbled up several smaller voluntary agencies.However, it still had its Victorian name and attitudes when it sternlyinterviewed my eight-year-old self to assess my eligibility for one ofits convalescent homes when I was having difficulty recoveringfrom a bout of pneumonia in those dimly remembered days beforeantibiotics.

My experience as a sick child reflected the general pattern ofpostwar social and health care. The fledgling NHS, which was run bythe state, looked after me in the life-threatening stage of my illness,but it was left to a charity to provide the complementary service nec-essary for me to make a full recovery.

So in practice, many charities and voluntary agencies continuedto make a useful contribution during the early years of the welfarestate, albeit with an altered focus and a new relationship to govern-ment. In fact, far from disappearing in the welfare state era, the vol-untary sector grew. During the fifties, sixties, and seventies, there wasa flowering of pressure groups, community groups, and self-help andmutual aid groups. Within the voluntary sector, pioneering wayswere found of meeting old needs such as telephone help lines, adviceservices, drop-in centers, neighborhood care projects, TV media cam-paigns, and “intermediate treatment” for young offenders.

Some of the products of these new forms of voluntary sectoractivity are now household names: Samaritans, Child Poverty ActionGroup, and Greenpeace, for example. Other voluntary organizationsremain the unsung heroes of our local communities, making a cru-cial difference to the quality of life of people who are sufferingthrough ill health, bereavement, poverty, lack of employment, orsocial exclusion and quietly giving a sense of meaning to the lives ofordinary people who have a place to turn, whether their needs arespiritual or social. Think of where you live yourself and think aboutthe leisure clubs, drop-in centers, baby-sitting circles, help lines,churches and temples, and volunteers that make your neighborhood

98 HA R R I S

In those headydays of the newwelfare state, it

was assumed thatthe voluntary

sector would justwither away—it

didn’t

nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 98

what it is. If you like where you live, chances are it is largely becauseof the formal and informal activities that happen locally, often sus-tained by freely given time and money. Of course, we are all aware ofthe “big” government sector services that underpin the quality of ourdaily lives: the general practitioner practices, the hospitals, thelibraries, the swimming pools, the police, the road maintenancecrews, and so on. And the crisis in the West Midlands car industryhas made us all well aware of the crucial role now played by govern-mental economic development agencies working at a regional level.

At the same time, we should not forget the nongovernmental orthird sector contributors to the quality of local and national life, ingood times and bad. Two such organizations have been pivotal to myown life experience and are fairly typical of the contemporary localvoluntary sector. One is my local Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB),which began during World War II as a response to the needs of citi-zens needing advice as a result of wartime conditions, includingbombing and food rationing.

CABs did not cease trading when the war finished. By then, theneed was apparent for a place where people could go for indepen-dent and impartial advice on a range of issues, not least the benefitsprovided by the new welfare state.

From the start in wartime Britain to this very day, the advice pro-vided by CABs has been given largely by volunteers—people whocommit themselves to ongoing onerous training and to a minimumnumber of volunteer hours each week. CABs are run by volunteerboards of charity trustees—local citizens who donate their time andexpertise. In these two senses, they are truly “voluntary organiza-tions.” At the same time, CABs have paid staff: bureau managers, spe-cialist advisers, outreach workers, and national office administrators.And the vast majority of their funding at both the local and nationallevel comes from government (tax revenue) sources.

Immediately the question arises as to whether CABs are anythingother than government agencies. If government pays, surely it callsthe tune? And in that case, what is special about this kind of volun-tary agency? This is a question I will return to. For the moment Iwant to note that my own local CAB not only provides a tremendousservice to our local community but has enriched my own life enor-mously.

The annual grant from the local borough that sustains the bureauis less than £100,000 a year. This sum covers the renting of premisesand the time of paid managers, and enables a band of volunteers torespond to over eight thousand new inquiries from the public eachyear.

For many years I was a volunteer adviser. Later I became atrainer, and for the last few years I have served voluntarily onthe board that oversees the bureau’s work and is finally account-able for the service. I hope I have helped some people in the


If you like whereyou live, chancesare it is largelybecause of the

formal andinformal

activities thathappen locally,often sustainedby freely giventime and money

nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 99

work I have done, but I know that I have been the main beneficiary.I learned about legislation and benefits; I learned skills in listening,counseling, and communicating; I gained insight into local politics,and I experienced the pleasure of working with other highly com-mitted volunteers from a range of backgrounds. For me, as for oth-ers, volunteering has not been a one-way, altruistic street.

The other voluntary organization that has loomed large in myown life has been my local synagogue. As I have shown in my bookOrganizing God’s Work (Harris, 1998a), volunteering in religious con-gregations is rather different from in CABs. Mine was the twentiethfamily to join a group that, in 1971, had no more than a dream: toset up a new Jewish congregation in South West Hertfordshire. Wehad no building, no rabbi, nowhere to educate our children, and nowealthy members. But somehow, through evenings and weekendsdevoted to arguing and planning, we built the community wewanted.

Some of my own children’s happiest memories are of the first ser-vices held in the local Scout Hut and of the warmth of a tiny con-gregation where every young person was a precious commodity tobe hugged and kissed by all. They also remember the classes held atthe local Catholic priory by special permission of the nuns.

Nearly thirty years later, our congregation has over a thousandmembers, a building for services and meetings, a library, a full-timerabbi, a Hebrew School with over two hundred children, and a wealthof activities for all ages, tastes, and levels of spirituality. Whathas remained constant is that the congregation is still largely sus-tained by the volunteer time of its members. Membership subscrip-tions cover the salaries of the rabbi and the teachers, and the resthas to be done on a shoestring and goodwill. Hundreds of individuallives are the richer for participating in just this one small religiouscongregation.

I am sure that each of you has stories equivalent to my own thattell of good experiences in and with the voluntary sector: serving oncommittees, organizing events, campaigning for a better world, help-ing others, holding church and temple activities, working and shop-ping in charity shops, and nurturing lifelong friendships in thepursuit of common goals.

Why Business Schools Should CareAbout Charity

So here is my first answer to the question, Why should we botherwith the voluntary sector? I say, because it is generally a good thingfor the individuals whose lives it touches.

But why do we need to devote precious university resourcesto research and teaching about it? More particularly, why should suchresearch and teaching be located in a business school? I would liketo suggest two key reasons.

100 HA R R I S

For me, as forothers,

volunteering hasnot been a one-way, altruistic

street

nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 100

Management Problems in the Third SectorFirst, any business school with aspirations to excellence needs toencompass in its research and teaching the full range of organiza-tional types. We may be called business schools, but in practice weare about management and organization—an issue for every sectorof the economy and every sector of society. To be sure, we need tofocus our research and teaching on the workings of commercial, for-profit companies. And we need to look at the local, regional, national,and international levels of the public sector. But we must alsoremember the third sector—organizations that are in neither the for-profit nor governmental sectors.

Just like business and governmental agencies, third sector orga-nizations experience problems of organization and management. Infact, as my own research over the last twenty years confirms, volun-tary agencies experience problems of organization and managementthat can be at least as complex and intractable as anything faced bymanagers in the commercial or governmental sectors. And thoseproblems may not be ones that can be explained using the standardtheories.

As an example, consider for a moment the challenge of strategicplanning for, let us say, a regional charity in the HIV-AIDS fieldemploying twelve paid staff. The chances are that the staff are brightand committed people with little or no training in organization andmanagement matters. They are on comparatively low salariesand unable to fund their own way on a specialist postgraduate pro-gram. The main funding sources for our charity is government agen-cies and local health authorities, each of which demand adherenceto their own—probably quite different—monitoring and account-ability procedures and each of which are likely to switch off the fund-ing tap or reduce the flow to a trickle at a few weeks’ notice if theythemselves suffer resource constraints or if social policy changes.Lottery funding for projects and individual donations might well belinked to further monitoring and accountability requirements. Andperhaps a national headquarters imposes its own quality assurancemechanisms as the exchange for the use of its name and logo.

Decision-making processes within our charity involve not onlysenior managers but the charity trustees or board members who, inlaw, constitute the very essence of the organization. The boardincludes not only health and social welfare professionals and funders’representatives but those who themselves have personal experienceof HIV-AIDS and feel strongly about the goals and future direction ofthe organization. Other paid staff will probably expect to be involvedin key decisions, as they are motivated to work in the charity becauseof commitment to the cause and will be demotivated if theyare excluded from setting visions for the future. And then there willbe anything up to one hundred volunteers who provide services, helparound the office, and do outreach work in the community. They too


nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 101

will need to be involved in decision making if they are to remaincommitted to their voluntary work. Moreover, strategic planning willneed to take into account that the volunteers, although highly com-mitted, may have health problems of their own and so cannot berelied upon to provide continuity of services to other people in poorhealth.

To make matters even more complicated, it is highly likely thatthere are all kinds of overlapping roles and statuses within the orga-nization. Board members may be former or current users or the part-ners or relatives of users; similarly with the volunteers. Paid staff mayhave prior experience of volunteering with this or another similaragency. Certainly there are complex personal ties between board, paidstaff, volunteers and users, making nonsense of any attempt to drawa formal organizational chart with clearly demarcated roles andauthority links. And the boundaries of the organization may be per-meable, too, with all kinds of complex interlinkages between theagency and other local and national voluntary agencies.

I will not extend this thumbnail organizational sketch of a hypo-thetical, but typical, voluntary agency. My intention is merely to jus-tify my claim that the third sector has distinctive features and that itexperiences organization and management problems that deserveserious and specialist attention.

The sketch also indicates, I hope, why business managementtechniques and theories developed for the for-profit or governmen-tal sectors are likely to require substantial adaptation before theycan be applied to the voluntary sector. In fact, in some areas suchas the management of volunteers, the work of charity trustees, andthe prominence of values and religious principles, new and differ-ent theories altogether may be required. For example, when I stud-ied the organization of religious congregations, I found that standardorganizational theories had little power to explain why things hap-pen the way they do in churches and synagogues. I had to develop anew theory of congregational organization, drawing on and adaptingearlier theories about voluntary associations and charismatic andbureaucratic power (Harris, 1998c).

Similarly, my work on volunteer boards has indicated the needfor new theories to explain the organizational relationships betweenthem, their paid staff, and their service users (Harris, 1994). My for-mer colleague David Billis has developed a widely used theory of vol-untary sector organization that explains the ambiguity of roles androle relationships in the sector (Billis, 1993). So here is one reasonwhy universities—business schools in particular—should take thischarity business—the voluntary sector—seriously. It has distinctive,often complex organization and management features and issues thatrequire the development and application of specialist theories. If uni-versities are about teaching and research that responds to the practi-calities of the real world, they cannot afford to ignore or marginalizethe third sector, which looms so large in most people’s lives. Nor can

102 HA R R I S

nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 102

they expect those who work in the voluntary sector to tag along qui-etly on courses developed for the business and governmental sectors.In fact, we might consider the possibility that students from the com-mercial sector could even learn something from the voluntary sector,for example, about how to incorporate ethical values into work, howto get participation in meeting organizational goals, and how to han-dle ambiguity and paradox in management.

Need for Resources in the Third SectorMy second reason for arguing for university involvement in the char-ity business is that the voluntary sector is under threat, and univer-sities have resources that are crucial for the long-term survival of thesector and democratic society. As publicly funded organizations thatbenefit the public, universities should be considering their obliga-tions to put their specialist resources at the disposal of those strivingto ensure the future of the voluntary sector and democracy. In fact,Aston University is one of the universities actively encouraging itsstudents to contribute as volunteers to the local community, but thereis far more still to be done.

To elucidate my second reason for university involvement withthe voluntary sector, I need to pick up an earlier point about theimplications of government funding for the voluntary sector. And Ialso need to move beyond my earlier theme about why the voluntarysector is important to you and me as individuals to look at its impor-tance at a macro level in our society. The current threats to the vol-untary sector are linked to its growing dependence on governmentalfunding.

Overreliance on Government Fundingin the Third SectorEarlier I referred to the way the voluntary sector adapted to the wel-fare state era. But during the 1980s, public policy started to changeagain. Successive Conservative governments were committed torolling back the frontiers of the state. The voluntary sector was thrustback into the public spotlight—expected to fill gaps left as the stateretreated. Voluntary agencies were to provide not just a complementand supplement to state provision but an alternative to it—to takeon responsibility (as in the pre-welfare-state era) for delivering main-stream services and for responding to the needs of the most vulner-able, dependent, and marginalized people in society: those dischargedfrom long-stay hospitals as part of the “care in the community” pol-icy to those in poverty in developing countries.

Of course, charities, community groups, and other voluntaryagencies were not expected to provide these mainstream servicessolely from the proceeds of legacies, subscriptions, collecting tins, orhigh-street thrift shops. Large sums of money were and are availablefrom central government departments, local authorities, the Hous-ing Corporation, and health authorities to pay for services devolved


As publiclyfunded

organizationsthat benefit the

public,universitiesshould be

considering theirobligations to put

their specialistresources at thedisposal of thosestriving to ensurethe future of thevoluntary sectorand democracy

nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 103

from the public sector. These are usually in the form of contracts andmore recently in the form of project grants from the National LotteryBoards, area regeneration schemes, and initiatives like the New Dealand Action Zones.

Thus over the last twenty years, the nature of the relationshipbetween governmental and voluntary agencies has changed radically(Deakin, 2001; Lewis, 1999). The expectations of the sector haverisen dramatically, and money transferred from central and local gov-ernment to the voluntary sector has been less and less in the form ofarm’s-length funding for general purposes and more and more in theform of fees for services purchased and short-term projects to beexecuted.

It is perhaps something of a paradox that the language used torefer to this changed relationship between governmental and volun-tary agencies is increasingly the language of equality and consensus.The concept of partnership is liberally applied, and New Labor hasintroduced the idea of “compacts” between voluntary organizationsand government agencies that ostensibly recognize the distinct butequally valuable contributions to be made by both sectors (HomeOffice, 1998).

But in practice, the voluntary sector is a very unequal partnerwith government. In area regeneration projects, for example, researchhas repeatedly found that consultation is often tokenistic, thedemands made on voluntary agencies unrealistic; and those deemedawkward or those not behaving in what is considered a businesslikemanner are excluded. Again and again, we find governmental andcommercial agencies criticizing the voluntary sector for not beingmore like themselves. Why can’t they speak with one voice? they ask.Why do they take so long to make decisions? Why are they so“unprofessional” in their behavior? One is reminded of ProfessorHiggins in “My Fair Lady” asking why a woman cannot be more likea man.

Governmental agencies are, quite rightly, concerned about howthe money they have transferred to the voluntary sector is accountedfor. But their concerns affect voluntary organizations through tightand complex laws and regulations, through detailed scrutiny of oper-ational activities, through pressure on the sector to improve its capac-ity to deliver services in ways that meet governmental needs, andthrough requests for time-consuming consultation in public policydevelopment.

If you think about some of my earlier examples—the HIV-AIDSagency, the CABs, the religious congregation—you will see that sub-stantial governmental funding, especially if it is combined with tightregulatory and accountability systems imposed from outside, mighthave some fairly dramatic organizational effects. And indeed my ownresearch has shown voluntary agencies struggling to deal with theimplications of rapid organizational growth, formalization, andmultiple accountabilities (Harris, 1998b). Volunteers become

104 HA R R I S

nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 104

demotivated as their scope for involvement in their agencies iseroded and as they are replaced with paid staff. The flexibility of vol-untary agencies to respond to changing social needs is compromisedby pressures for standardized products, the freedom to lobby or crit-icize public policy is circumscribed, and users’ preferences are side-lined. Volunteer board members feel overwhelmed by legalobligations and the demands for specialist expertise. In extremecases, these pressures can be seen as coercive isomorphism (diMaggio and Powell, 1983) in which the structures, working prac-tices, and even mission preferences of the governmental sector areimposed on the voluntary sector.

In short, those same third sector organizations that are held upby politicians as examples of active citizenship, closeness to the com-munity, good governance, responsiveness, and most recently by Gor-don Brown, civic patriotism (Palmer, 2000; Straw, 1999), are nowsubject to policy pressures that erode those very qualities. The talkof politicians is the talk of valuing the voluntary sector in its ownright, but the walk is the walk of instrumentalism—a view of the vol-untary sector as just one tool through which governments can attaintheir own policy goals. The governmental payer of the voluntary sec-tor piper is indeed calling the tune, and the tune tells of the erosionof autonomy, of standardization, and formalization. For voluntaryagencies, short-term growth may be achieved at the expense of long-term survival as an independent organization with distinctive waysof working and contributing to the common good.

The dilemma of balancing governmental funding and autonomywas summed up by a woman I interviewed as part of my religiouscongregations study. She ran the church’s Day Center for elderly peo-ple on a voluntary basis. It had recently received funding from thelocal Services Department, and she was torn. She said, “When wewere running the Day Center in the church, we could let anybody in.Now it is much more formal. I’m not sure if the center is still ours. Weare not happy with the idea that somebody should take over as the bigboss, but we are delighted that a big burden has been lifted from us.”

Whether or not these changes are regarded as advantageous byand for individual voluntary agencies, the question of what they aredoing to the voluntary sector as a whole must now be faced. This isa question of organizational ecology. In the natural world, limitedindividual human actions that are apparently unproblematic and freeof side effects can accumulate in such a way that their overall impacton an ecological system is disastrous. Global warming is a dramaticexample, but there are numerous others such as the death of coralreefs and the Florida Everglades. In a like manner, the cumulativeimpact of the pursuit of individual voluntary agency advantage maythreaten the survival of an internally varied but nevertheless dis-tinctive voluntary sector.

If, taken as a whole, the third sector has no distinctive organiza-tional features, no separate voices, no alternative response to social


nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 105

need, no different ways of doing its work—what will be the rationalefor its inclusion within a mixed economy of service provision in thefuture? And if it becomes as “businesslike” as the private sector, whatwill be the justification for giving charities special tax privileges orasking the public to donate time and money to them?

As we look more broadly, we also need to consider the implica-tions for democracy itself. The drift toward incorporation of the vol-untary sector into the agenda of the state should be of concern toevery one of us. Much more is at issue here than how to deliver pub-lic services effectively, efficiently, or with best value. What is at stakeis the preservation of the space that is the sphere of neither govern-ment nor business nor private households—the space in which indi-viduals do things for each other in overlapping groupings andnetworks. This is the space referred to by academics and politiciansas “civil society,” and the voluntary sector, however it is defined andwith all its imperfections, is an integral part of that space.

Through participation in the voluntary sector, we contribute tothe building of what the sociologist James Coleman has called socialcapital (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, Leornardi, and Nanetti, 1993). Byparticipating in the work of my local CABs, my local church, or myregional HIV-AIDS organization, by helping to raise money for victimsof floods or famine in Africa, by joining a lobby of Westminster onbehalf of an oppressed minority—by all these means I learn the bene-fits, obligations, norms, and skills of collective action. And the wisdomgenerated becomes a resource for the public good—social capital—because it encourages and enables people to work together on com-mon problems and tasks in other settings. In this way, we create whatthe political scientist Michael Walzer (1997) has termed regimes oftoleration in which there is respect for diversity and difference.

Those who write about civil society have suggested a range ofbenefits that can accrue from its activities: promoting social change,informing public policy, nurturing citizenship skills, providing medi-ating structures between individuals and the state, providing forumsfor debate, fostering volunteering, promoting social cohesion andtrust, and responding to social problems (Etzioni, 1992; Fukuyama,1995; Giddens, 1990; Hirst, 1994).

We cannot afford to lose any of these. As we have watched thegrowing pains of post-Communist Eastern Europe, we have seen howdifficult it is to rebuild civil society once it has been destroyed. Butthe slayers of civil society are not just totalitarian regimes. Evendemocratically elected governments can erode civil society throughgradual incorporation of the kind I have been describing. Althoughstate funding does not have to be synonymous with state control, itwill become the dominant model unless vigilant citizens protest andpropose alternative models that ensure accountability while guaran-teeing the independence of charities and citizens’ organizations.

Besides, even well-intentioned governmental agencies can bejust plain wrong. The story of Birmingham’s ring-roads is a prime

106 HA R R I S

What is at stake isthe preservationof the space thatis the sphere of

neithergovernment nor

business norprivate

households—thespace in whichindividuals dothings for each

other inoverlapping

groupings andnetworks

nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 106

example. We now talk in pejorative terms about the city’s concretecollar, but there was a time when local government planners thoughtthey had given the city a diamond necklace. It was a voluntary asso-ciation of ordinary citizens—Birmingham for People—that spear-headed the rethink of the 1980s.

Role of Universities in a Free SocietyHere we return to the crucial role of universities in helping to pre-serve our voluntary sector. If we are to retain an independent volun-tary sector and a vibrant civil society in this country, we need threekey ingredients.

First, we need citizens who are constantly vigilant about changesin public policy and its practical implications, people who can spotincorporation by the agencies of the state and by business interests,people who can analyze and criticize what is going on around them.We need, in short, what the philosopher Karl Popper (1950) termedan open society in which we are not afraid to debate and in whichdiversity of views and circumstances are valued rather than forcedinto consensus.

Second, we need a careful monitoring of trends in the role of thevoluntary sector and the impact of public policy on its distinctiveorganizational features. The findings need to be widely disseminatedto ensure that the implications are understood and debated amongpractitioners and policymakers.

Third, we need public and voluntary sector managers whounderstand the issues and dilemmas posed by the recent trends inpublic and social policy. There are clearly conflicting pressures andtrade-offs to be negotiated. The challenge is to keep the distinctivefeatures of the voluntary sector while responding to new opportuni-ties and changing circumstances. Of course we should not hang onto old ways of doing things through romanticism or fear of change.And of course the voluntary sector is not without its faults, even itsdark side. But we must discriminate between new ideas and trendsaccording to their likely long- and short-term benefits and accordingto which groups they benefit.

Voluntary sector practitioners facing these dilemmas need teach-ing, training, and advice that enables them to handle complexities,to make informed choices, and to resist inappropriate regulation.And they need teaching, training, and advice that is sensitive to thedistinctive management issues faced by people who work in volun-tary organizations. Repackaged business models are unlikely to be fitfor this purpose; neither are ambitious political theories about thepotential role of the voluntary sector that fail to take account ofthe realities of day-to-day management in the voluntary sector. Thetendency for governments to pursue policy initiatives without tak-ing into account implementation practicalities is a matter that aca-demics should be challenging—certainly not abetting.


nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 107

Universities are well placed to provide all three of these vitalingredients for voluntary sector survival. Those of us who research,teach, and manage universities must devise ways of monitoringtrends, teaching practitioners, and raising public consciousness aboutthe long-term implications of erosion of voluntary sector boundariesand the incorporation of civil society by an apparently benign state.The voluntary sector needs us and so does democracy.

It is we who must care about this charity business.

AcknowledgmentsI am very grateful to Reverend Malcolm Carroll, Aston BusinessSchool doctoral student, for his assistance with historical and pictureresearch. Thanks are also due to Melvyn Carlowe, Sue Pearlman, andRuth Thei for additional help with pictures. I would also like tothank the many other people who gave me support and advice inpreparing this lecture, including Professor Marilyn Taylor of BrightonUniversity and Peter Allen, Jean Hasson, Steven Proud, Julie Green,Jane Winder, and Professor Anne Stevens of Aston University.

MARGARET HARRIS is professor of voluntary sector organization, head ofthe Public Services Management Research Centre, and chair of thenew Centre for Voluntary Action Research at Aston Business School,Birmingham, England. She was formerly assistant director of the Centrefor Voluntary Organisation at the London School of Economics.

References

Billis, D. Organizing Public and Voluntary Agencies. New York: Rout-ledge, 1993.

Boulding, K. “The Boundaries of Social Policy.” Social Work, 1993,12, 1.

Coleman, J. “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital.” Amer-ican Journal of Sociology, 1988, 94 (supplement, S95–S120).

Deakin, N. “Public Policy, Social Policy and Voluntary Organisa-tions.” In M. Harris and C. Rochester (eds.), Voluntary Organisa-tions and Social Policy in Britain: Perspectives on Change and Choice.Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave, 2001.

di Maggio, P., and Powell, W. “The Iron Cage Revisited: InstitutionalIsomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.”American Sociological Review, 1983, 48, 147–160.

Etzioni, A. The Spirit of Community: Rights, Responsibilities and theCommunitarian Agenda. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

Fukuyama, F. Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity.London: Hamish Hamilton, 1995.

108 HA R R I S

The voluntarysector needs us

and so doesdemocracy; it is

we who must careabout this charity

business

nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 108

Giddens, A. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge, U.K.: PolityPress, 1990.

Harris, M. “The Power of Boards in Service Providing Agencies:Three Models.” Administration in Social Work, 1994, 18 (2), 1–15.

Harris, M. Organizing God’s Work: Challenges for Churches and Syna-gogues. London: Macmillan, 1998a.

Harris, M. “Instruments of Government? Voluntary Sector Boards ina Changing Public Policy Environment.” Policy and Politics, 1998b,26 (2), 177–188.

Harris, M. “A Special Case of Voluntary Associations? Towards aTheory of Congregational Organization.” British Journal of Sociol-ogy, 1998c, 49 (4), 602–618.

Hirst, P. Associate Democracy: New Forms of Economic and SocialGovernance. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 1994.

Home Office. Getting It Right Together: Compact on Relations BetweenGovernment and the Voluntary and Community Sector in England.London: Home Office, Cm 4100, 1998.

Lewis, J. “Reviewing the Relationship Between the Voluntary Sectorand the State in Britain in the 1990s.” Voluntas, 1999, 10 (3),255–270.

Lipman, V. A Century of Social Service 1859–1959. New York: Rout-ledge, 1959.

National Council for Voluntary Organisations. The UK Voluntary Sec-tor Almanac 1998–99. London: National Council for VoluntaryOrganisations, 1999.

Palmer, H. “Brown’s Civic Patriotism Could Release £1 in a Year.”Third Sector, Feb. 24, 2000, p. 1.

Popper, K. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton, N.J.: Prince-ton University Press, 1950.

Putnam, R., Leornardi, R., and Nanetti, R. Making Democracy Work.Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Straw, J. “Citizens, Corporations, Parties and Government: Rights andResponsibilities in the New Democracy.” The Constitution UnitAnnual Lecture. London: University College, 1999.

Walzer, M. On Toleration. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.


nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 109

nml12108.qxp 8/9/01 9:29 AM Page 110

Documents

This Charity Business: Who Cares?