Robert Egger´s Piece of Mind

Last Friday afternoon, the Kitchen was proud to host a roundtable (and live webcast) that featured local and national nonprofit leaders meeting with United Kingdom Minister for the Cabinet, Tessa Jowell.

Minister Jowell was fresh from the Olympics in Vancouver (London will be hosting the Olympics in 2012) and she stopped in Washington to meet with people who could help her effort to “forward a policy agenda that supports the promotion of social inclusion through the development of third sector service delivery and a range of social enterprise models”.

Here, as in the UK, Nonprofit/Third Sector innovation is promoted vigorously, yet the current economic climate in both countries has exacerbated demand for basic services while putting significant pressure on governments to cut budgets.

During the roundtable dialogue,  Minister Jowell hoped to learn  more about direct service programs that achieve measurable outcomes in addition to exploring ideas with national leaders about innovation, public policy and community engagement.

Twenty leaders attended the intimate conversation, including Alan Abramson from the Aspen Institute, John Gompers from Experience Corp, Silvia Benatti from UDC/American Humanics, Jill Shumann from Lutheran Services of America (and Chair of the National Human Services Assembly), Bill Strathmann from Network for Good (and co-chair of the Social Enterprise Alliance which will host the 2010 Social Enterprise World Forum in April in San Francisco), Sandra Swirski of the Philanthropic Collaborative, Jeff Mason of the Alliance for Effective Social Investing, Chuck Bean from the Nonprofit Roundtable , John Herron of Harbor City Services, Shelly Whelpton of the Sheridan Group and Courtney Seiloff of the V3 Campaign

Highlights of the dialogue:

Minister Jowell detailed the role of the Minister of the Third Sector. The UK is one of only two countries (the other is Estonia) with a Cabinet Minister dedicated to working across government to support the environment for a thriving third sector, enabling the sector to campaign for change, deliver public services, promote social enterprise and strengthen communities. Minister Jowell spoke of the relationship between the NCVO (the UK version of Independent Sector / National Council of Nonprofits) and the government and suggested that, unlike the States, third sector groups had more room to voice their opinion about legislation and elections.

Minister Jowell also took significant time to speak about Social Enterprise in the UK. Their government sees Social Enterprise (and Third Sector work) as a form of economic empowerment, and as such, seeks to incentivize its growth and develop comprehensive measurable outcomes (an activity in which many of today’s attendees are involved in here in the States).

Additionally, in the UK, the Social Enterprise Coalition recently issued a Manifesto calling for a three-fold increases in government investment in their movement. In advance of the Olympics, the coalition also has suggested a “social enterprise square mile” that would highlight the role of “mission driven organizations which apply market-based strategies to achieve a social purpose”.  Minister Jowell has welcomed this idea and the use of the Olympics to drive new ideas forward.

The Minister also led a discussion on incentives for citizen involvement/investment in charitable causes. She energized attendees with information that donations to UK nonprofits earn tax breaks for the full amount of the donation, plus the amount that the donation would have been taxed.  

Finally…the group discussed our common aging societies. Both countries experienced “baby booms” following WWII. In the US, there has been a noticeable planning vacuum and Minister Jowell suggested that they too have been short sighted in thinking about the social and economic impact of a generation that will live longer than any previous cohort, but whose fortunes have been hard hit by the collapse of the banking/investment/housing industries. The Minister and guests all agreed that this generation represents a deep well of experienced volunteers (and new philanthropists) and that this cohort can no longer be ignored.

The hour and a half session opened many eyes to the divergent role that government plays in the evolution of the sector in each country.  Many of the attendees played significant roles in helping shape the newly opened Office of Social Innovation here in Washington. Many saw similarities between what each government hoped to achieve by elevating the expectations and funding for social enterprises.  However….few left the meeting not feeling that the UK has a distinctive edge over the US in its official attitude towards the role of the nonprofit/third sector.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 11:44 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.