Opportunity knocks? Resetting the relationship between philanthropy and government

The aim of this post is to seek feedback from my philanthropy colleagues on this question - Does philanthropy need to reset its relationship with government??

I am not talking here about how philanthropy interacts with government on particular cause areas. In some places it does this very well, for example in the migration and asylum sector funders like Unbound Philanthropy have a sophisticated political analysis and approach to influencing, as do the Legal Education Foundation on the law and criminal justice, there are many other examples. No doubt there is room for improvement and too many funders carry on as if the political context didn’t exist, but that isn’t my point here. What I’m thinking about is philanthropy as a component of civil society, as a field, as a ‘thing’ like business or the public sector. How do the interests philanthropy has in common as a sector get pursued with government??

Two observations have led me to raise this question;

1. Philanthropy’s engagement with government is shallow.?

It’s been a difficult period for the social sector and philanthropy. Austerity has meant a redrawing of the boundaries of the state. And in recent years there has been growing hostility from government to charities campaigning for policy change. Philanthropy, with some honourable exceptions, has generally been tentative on engaging with campaigning and politics anyway.

I would argue that in the face of these issues, philanthropy has withdrawn further onto safe territory, and some of the big trends in philanthropy illustrate this. For example, the? preoccupation with place-based funding, or identifying the perfect ‘intervention’. It’s not that these things aren’t important, or if done well can’t have an impact, and the positive take on them is they are about finding areas where impact has still been possible. The negative version, however, is that they are a capitulation to the difficulty of effecting structural change at a national level. And they have the effect of taking the edge off the problems revealed as the state withdraws. At their worst there is magical thinking here, the idea that you can solve poverty locally, for example, when so much that causes it is determined by national policy.?

I know I’m dipping into some big topics here and making a crude argument. The real point is that I think the ambition of philanthropy as an agent of significant reform and social change, has been blunted by a hostile government - understandable but also problematic.

The political context has now shifted. We’ve got a government that appears less interested in prosecuting culture wars, is willing to intervene, and is at least somewhat ambitious for social change. Possibilities for progress are opening up, and this is an opportunity. In order to seize it philanthropy cannot just react to government, it needs to lead the agenda, and it needs ambition.

On the government side the engagement with philanthropy, and maybe with the charity sector more broadly, has exhibited goodwill, but seems to mainly be about trying to enlist philanthropic resources in support of Labour’s missions (see Stephen Timms proposed unit on the ‘impact economy’). Money is short and government want leverage, which is an opportunity for partnership, but we need to ensure the engagement doesn’t end up shallow and peripheral.

2. Philanthropy isn’t in a strong position to influence government

The lack of serious engagement isn’t surprising when Philanthropy itself doesn’t have clarity on what it needs from government in order to pursue its collective mission more effectively. I like Andy Martin 's concept of a ‘Theory of the State’. The idea that individually and collectively we need to think about our stance in relation to government, so that we have a vision to pursue, and don’t just react to whatever they throw at us.?

So what are the interests that philanthropy as a sector might have in common? We won’t all agree on these things, but we all share a need to grapple with issues like;

• How we relate to the state - If we’re going to support Labour’s missions then what’s our role? Possibilities include provider of evidence and innovation, holding them to account, facilitating the influence of those directly affected, amplifying the voices of those we fund?
• How we are regulated and taxed - Should there be a minimum payout? How transparent do we have to be? How are we held to account in return for the privileged position we enjoy?
• The quality of our infrastructure - Do we have the infrastructure and collective tissue we need to be effective as a sector and to partner with government?
• The body of knowledge we draw on to do our jobs well? - do we have what we need to promote effective and impactful philanthropy? Does evidence and intelligence flow to where it needs to?

Government too has an interest in these things, they need philanthropy to be effective partners, even if they haven’t decided exactly how yet. And as a side note in talking about ‘partnership’ we must be mindful of the need to preserve our independence. Confidently asserting civil society’s freedom to hold government to account should be a fundamental principle of philanthropy, and a major contribution we can make to a healthy democracy. As more partnership opportunities become available under governments that are willing to engage, the risk of ‘appropriation’ grows and must be guarded against. We saw this under New Labour with the growth of public service commissioning. The solution is not to sit in splendid isolation. It is to be aware of and manage the risk whilst pursuing every opportunity for influencing government.

The next difficulty I can see is the lack of obvious candidates to facilitate meaningful discussions within philanthropy on these topics. Not everyone is going to agree, but a debate is healthy and I’d like to see progressive funders arrive at stronger positions on how philanthropy itself can be effective, for example revisiting minimum payout requirements. It’s hard to see who is a credible convenor though. ACF represent a broad church of members with all the compromises that entails. Who else could do it? Beacon (who deserve credit for their convening and work with government on promoting more philanthropy), NPC?? Possible, but the lack of a clear answer arguably reflects the collective weakness of philanthropy in the UK. And on the government side I’m not sure where responsibility lies, or who has an interest. Maybe this just isn’t clear yet.

I’m writing this with limited information and it may be that meaningful engagement between philanthropy and government is already well under way - in which case I apologise to those involved for my ignorance. It may also be that even if there is a gap there just isn’t enough common ground across philanthropy as a sector for it to matter that much. Maybe it’s better to let relationships build in cause areas where we have a better track-record. But if there is enough we share as a distinct segment of civil society then how do we get our act together? The purpose of this post is to raise that question - so please let me know what you think!

Thanks to Tris Lumley Rachel Rank Matthew Smerdon for feedback on this article.