Day Conference Abstracts, Report and Papers

Abstracts

• Global Concepts, Local Meanings: comparing the third sector experience of governance in four countries; Jo Howard and John Lever, University of the West of England

• The Co-production of Social Inclusion in European Union Funded Urban Renewal Programmes: findings from a cross-national case study; Hans Schlappa, Aston University

• Agendas, Networks and Cohesion: examining empowerment or refugee community organisations at neighbourhood level and beyond; Pat Jones, University of Birmingham

• Mind the Gap: voluntary and community perspectives on 10 years of the Compact; Stefan Simanowitz, Compact Voice

• "This is More Important Than Just Saying No Nicely?" Grantmaker and grantseeker communications at the point of grant refusal; Anton Bradburn and Jenny Harrow, Cass Business School, City University

Report from Marilyn Taylor, event organiser

The Spring 2008 Day Conference took place at the University of the West of England in Bristol. It was well-attended, with 33 participants and lively discussions after each paper. The day opened with Jo Howard and John Lever from the host institution presenting findings from their comparative study of the experience of non-government organisations in governance and partnership working. They drew on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu and particularly the critique developed by Nick Crossley, which offers a more optimistic view of the potential for change than Bourdieu. Using Crossley’s concept of a ‘radical habitus’, they compared the context for participation in Bulgaria, Nicaragua and the UK to suggest how this affected people’s disposition to participate.

Hans Schlappa continued the cross-national theme by discussing the impact of EU funding on organisations in Berlin, Belfast and Bristol. Drawing on his PhD research at Aston University, he argued that co-production was a more appropriate term for a relationship that is more than partnership but less than incorporation, with the Programme Manager a particularly important player in this relationship. However, he argued that a commissioning approach undermined the potential of this relationship. Both papers highlighted the complexity of relationships both with the state and between the individual and the organisation.

Following these two papers there was a short business meeting. Brief reports were provided on current membership members, the Network's financial position, progress in developing a new journal and engagement with the ESRC Knowledge Transfer team. The main business was to vote on a proposed amendment to the Network's constitution. This would extend the term of office of elected Steering Group members from one year to three and limit their eligibility to a maximum of six consecutive years of office. The proposal was carried without dissent by the members present. The morning ended with the usual informal exchange of information, with members reporting on the establishment of the ESRC Centre for Charitable and Philanthropy, forthcoming events and other activities.

After lunch, Pat Jones presented her CASE funded research (University of Birmingham) on refugee organisations, exploring the value of the concepts of social capital and community cohesion. She highlighted the enormous reserves of social and 'experiential' capital on which theses organisations can draw and the skills that volunteers bring with them, but also the problems associated with mobility, language and cultural barriers. She argued that there was a case for these organisations to get the kind of recognition accorded to more mainstream organisations, such as tenants' organisations.

Pat's paper was followed by a presentation from Stefan Simanowitz, who is National Compact Voice Officer for Compact Voiced based at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. Stefan reported on research carried out to explore voluntary organisations' views on the impact of the Compact, suggesting that perhaps the Compact had done more for the sector than people realised. There are still challenges of implementation but Stefan also challenged the sector and its members to become 'active constructors' of the Compact and to learn to operate it to its full potential.

The final paper, presented by Anton Bradburn and Jenny Harrow from Cass Business School at City University, explored the concept of 'grant rage' - a topic that struck a chord with many participants, since researchers are themselves part of the grant-seeking world. They argued that communications between grantmakers and grantseekers at the point of grant refusal were about much more than 'just saying No nicely' and pointed out that sometimes trying to support organisations who had been refused a grant opened the grantmaker up to more challenge. The discussion highlighted the need to look at context, not only commenting that different rationales for refusal might affect grantseekers' responses but also the fact that rage might be a perfectly rational response to decisions that were seen as irrational.

Abstracts and papers

Jo Howard and John Lever: Global Concepts, Local Meanings: comparing the third sector experience of governance in four countries

Much has been written about the move from government to governance in the UK and its implications for the third sector. But while the trend towards governance, partnership working and community participation is a global phenomenon, is the third sector experience of this trend similar in other parts of the world? Does it pose the same dilemmas and what can be learnt by comparing experience across different countries? In 2005, we began a research project which aimed to address this question, to explore the ways in which trends towards governance play out in different regions with different political and civil society traditions and to explore the ways in which third sector organisations at local level experience and ‘navigate the tensions’ of working in these spaces – the countries in question are Bulgaria, Nicaragua, England and Wales. The research has centred on four localities – one is each country.

Carrying out this research has posed dilemmas of its own. How can we arrive at common understandings of governance across very different settings? What resonance do concepts of voice, accountability and autonomy have in the different countries? Is it possible to develop a meaningful dialogue between the countries on these issues and what are the important commonalities and differences? This paper will explore some of the dilemmas of working in this way and reflect on the meaning and significance of the concepts we have been exploring in the light of our initial findings.

The team carrying out this work consists of Marilyn Taylor, Chris Miller, Jo Howard, John Lever and Vicki Howard of the University of the West of England in the UK, Luis Serra Vasquez of the University of Centre America in Nicaragua and Rumen Petrov and Antaoneeta Mateeva of the New Bulgarian University in Sofia. 

The paper was presented by Jo Howard and John Lever. Jo Howard has also carried out a range of research on partnership working and the third sector and has also brought to the project a strong background in development studies, having worked in Nicaragua for a number of years. John Lever has recently been awarded his PhD at UWE, which examined the ways in which local community safety projects attract government support through partnership working. John has worked on various projects and evaluations that have examined community involvement and third sector development, including Neighbourhood Management and scoping the evaluation of ChangeUp. Previously he has worked for Oxfam, RISE (The Research and Information on State Education Trust) and the Citizens Advice Bureau.

Jo and John's presentation is available here (Powerpoint format).

Hans Schlappa: The Co-production of Social Inclusion in European Union Funded Urban Renewal Programmes: findings from a cross-national case study

This paper builds on the empirical data collected through a doctoral study which examined the implementation of European policy in the context of urban renewal initiatives. The paper argues that public agencies have considerable room to manoeuvre in choosing their approach towards involving third sector organisations (TSOs) in the delivery of European Union funded urban renewal initiatives, and that a commissioning approach towards the delivery of such programmes limits the scope for TSOs to contribute to the inclusion of marginalised communities. 

The findings reported here are based on a cross-national case study which analysed the work of nine TSOs delivering URBAN II funded initiatives in three European cities: Berlin, Belfast and Bristol. The data were collected through in depth case studies of nine TSOs, and included 44 semi-structured interviews with staff from TSOs and public agencies responsible for the local delivery of the URBAN II programme.

TSOs have a substantial profile in current European policy (Commission of the European Communities, 2005, 2006, 2006a) and their important contribution towards social inclusion in the renewal of deprived urban neighbourhoods is increasingly recognized (EuroCities and Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik, 2007). The paper puts forward the argument that a commissioning approach based on a paradigm of social enterprise (Evers and Laville, 2004; Nyssens, 2006) limits the ability of TSOs to define for themselves who should be targeted and how such groups could be engaged. This tends to reduce the capacity of TSOs to bring about social inclusion, and in addition, such an approach undermines the development of sustainable civil society structures which are critically important to engender social cohesion (Taylor et al., 2007). Public agencies responsible for the local delivery of European Union funded urban regeneration initiatives therefore need to be made aware of these implications, and receive support in developing approaches which enable TSOs to contribute towards social inclusion and social cohesion in European cities.

Before coming to the UK in the mid 1980s, Hans obtained a degree in town and country planning at the Technische Universität Berlin in which he focused on resident involvement in the urban renewal process. Since then he has worked for third sector as well as public sector organisations leading on the delivery of urban renewal initiatives in a number of cities in England. In 2001 he took his masters degree in public services management at Aston Business School and took up the post of Research Manager for the Aston Centre for Voluntary Action Research in 2004. He is currently working on a part time basis for the School of Languages and Social Sciences at Aston University while writing up his PhD thesis on the impact of European Union funding on third sector organisations.

References:-

Commission of the European Communities (2005) Working Together for Growth and Jobs: A new start for the Lisbon strategy, COM (2005) 24. Commission of the European Communities, Brussels
Commission of the European Communities (2006) Regions for Economic Change, Communication from the Commission (COM(2006)675 final), Brussels
Commission of the European Communities (2006a) Third Report on Economic and Social Cohesion: A new partnership for cohesion, convergence and competitiveness, Brussels
EuroCities, Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik (2007) Leipzig Memo. Proceeding of a conference organised jointly by Euro Cities and the Deutsches Institut für Urbanistic, Leipzig
Evers A, Laville JL, eds (2004) The Third Sector in Europe. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham
Nyssens M, ed (2006) Social Enterprise: At the Crossroads of Market, Public Policies and Civil Society. Routledge, London
Taylor M, Wilson M, Purdue D, Wilde P (2007) Changing Neighbourhoods: Lessons from the JRF Neighbourhood Programme. Policy Press, Bristol

Hans' presentation is available here (Powerpoint format).

Pat Jones: Agendas, Networks and Cohesion: examining empowerment or refugee community organisations at neighbourhood level and beyond

This paper is inspired by an on-going case study that forms the final stage of fieldwork within the PhD case-studentship of the Housing Associations Charitable Trust-led Programme – Accommodate 2004 - 2007. The Programme embraced five initiatives in Birmingham, Bolton, Bradford, Leeds and Sheffield where statutory housing providers, local authorities, voluntary agencies and Refugee Community Organisations worked together in partnership. Pioneering access to housing services and promoting housing solution for refugees was the Programme’s overall aim but each partnership explored resolution in very different ways.

The case study is located in one of the five partnership Projects, based in a Refugee Centre that emerged as one of this partnership’s significant outcomes. The Centre now provides a stable base from which Refugee Community Organisations can work free of charge. Data has been gathered over several months using an active/participative research methodology in order to capture the process and nature of empowerment of Refugee Community Organisations to greater self-reliance. Ideas and concepts of network management theory frame the analysis, mapping an understanding of internal and external networks, policy making and agenda-setting. The focus is on identifying how Refugee Community Organisations are best placed to strengthen their communities and integrate with wider established communities towards improved community cohesion in an area noted for past difficulties. Finally this paper reflects on the implications this might have for social sustainability in the broader context of the housing market renewal pathfinder’s master plan for regeneration.

Since studying part-time as a mature student on a Masters in Urban and Regional Studies I have got the research bug and was really delighted when I was selected for the HACT inspired ESRC case-studentship awarded in collaboration with the University of Birmingham in October 2005. As well as being a campaigner for housing rights in a personal capacity I have worked for many years in the field of community development with a wide range of groups including rural, urban and refugee communities. Both housing associations and local authority housing providers have commissioned me to support communities and help build their capacity to participate more fully in all aspects of social housing. My most recent post for Birmingham City Council was in the Study Support Development Team as a Support Worker to Somali groups in the eastern part of the city.  I am firmly committed to the rights of volunteer participants and ways in which they can mobilise themselves to influence policy. My particular research interest is in the use of grounded methodology to enable community voice and in the importance of theoretical framework to interpret the dynamic of voluntary groups working, as they are increasingly encouraged to do, in partnership.

Stefan Simanowitz: Mind the Gap: voluntary and community perspectives on 10 years of the Compact

Anton Bradburn and Jenny Harrow: "This is More Important Than Just Saying No Nicely?" Grantmaker and grantseeker communications at the point of grant refusal

This paper reports progress in a collaborative research project, examining communications between grantmakers and grantseekers, at the point of grant refusal.  Minimal research and practice attention, has been given  hitherto to such events and experiences. Yet these are often  milestones in organisational lives, with implications for grantmaker accountability, grantseeker skill and capacity, and inter-organisational relations within and across the sector.

We began this work asking whether we could identify such a construct as “grant rage” among grant-seekers, on receiving news of refusal, as resource pressures continue to grow. If so, how might this affect their subsequent organisational learning, and grant seeking behaviour? Conversely, we reflected on the ways in which grantmakers transmitted their refusals, and how they responded to any subsequent inter-organisational discord. Initial pilot field work with three grant -makers in SW England during 2006 encountered a range of organizational coping mechanisms for expressions of “grant rage”  by failed grantseekers; describing aggressive public criticism, and problems for some grant maker employees. Public seminar scrutiny of this work in December 2006 however, emphasized the importance also of those failed grantseeking organizations  which,  far from expressing public anger, and direct or implied criticism of fellow (funded) organizations, simply  suffered in silence.

The research is now a collaborative project, funded by the Charities Aid Foundation, to examine and learn from the experiences of both grantmakers and grantseekers in this encounter of grant refusal; and to do so via a wider review of  communications strategies among both groups. Our funder is clear that this project  must be far more than a study of  “how to say nicely”. We are working with the Association of Charitable Foundations, and grant seeker organizations, to take an opportunity-based as well as problem-based approach to this research. We do so however against a background of recent public reports of ‘grant rage’ where grant-maker (Arts Council) professionalism as well as judgment has been called theatrically into question, not least in the South West, expressed as almost community participative event, with grant refusals apparently overturned.  This approach may well hinder reflective opportunities for organizational learning but may also bring a community dimension to the notion of grant rage.

Dr Anton Bradburn is Research Associate, with Cass Business School and an independent consultant, based  in the South West. Previously Research Fellow in the Department of Education, University of Bristol and latterly Research Fellow, Westminster Business School, Anton has research interests in organizational knowledge development and transfer and social enterprise; as well as extensive experience in senior training and development roles in the London Fire Brigade.

Prof Jenny Harrow is Professor of Voluntary Sector Management, in Cass Business School City University, with research interests in governance, charity regulation, and developing research capacity in the sector. She is the Co-Director of the Research Centre for Giving and Philanthropy, being set up by the ESRC, OTS, the Scottish Government and the Carnegie UK Trust.

Anton and Jenny's presentation is available here (Powerpoint format).

More pictures:-

Thanks to everyone shown for permission to reproduce photos here.