Involve News

MyAid or WhyAid

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0100

MyAid or WhyAid

Simon Burall writes on the Our Kingdom section of OpenDemocracy about a new government proposal to allow the public to determine how development aid is spent which has come under heavy criticism. He argues that if this implemented correctly, MyAid could harness the knowledge of citizens and help build support for rising aid budgets. However, if the lessons from recent crowdsourcing attempts are not learnt then the case for aid could be weakened.

Read the full article here

DEA National Conference

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The Development Education Association (DEA) is a national organisation that brings together educational agendas related to globalisation and poverty, sustainable development and community cohesion. They work on both formal and informal education, including schools, youth work and communities, in England and the UK.

This year DEA's national conference will bring together the global discourse of citizen engagement and public participation with the government's proposal of the "Big Society". The conference will include policy and practice seminars with key figures in the field of democracy and public engagement.

Involve's Director Simon Burall will be speaking at the afternoon policy seminar "A Big Society for Sustainable Development". Fellow speakers for this seminar include Ann Finlayson from SEED and Rebekah Phillips of the Green Alliance.

Click here for full programme details or book tickets here.

Crowdsourcing campaign closes on a high

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The Guardian marked the closure of the government's "Spending Challenge" consultation yesterday, reporting the submission of almost 45,000 ideas. Asked to comment, Involve's Director Simon Burall explains how this form of consultation can be done well when information is clearly distributed among the target population, and that for legitimacy to hold, the government needs to be open with the public about why and how they are using this form of consultation. Read the full article here.

When "local" can’t happen locally

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0100

When "local" can't happen locally -

Simon Burall makes a substantial contribution to the Our Kingdom section of Open Democracy's innovative politicial discussion website argues how central government has a critical and active role to play if Prime Minister David Cameron's "Big Society" idea is to be successful.

Read the full article here

Local Action: The Handy Guide for communities working with councillors

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Urban Forum and bassac - both national charities with a local voluntary and community group membership - have recently published Local Action: The Handy Guide for communities working with councillors

The guide looks at the practical ways that community groups can work effectively with councillors on local campaigns and projects. By looking at the current policy context and delving deeper into the experiences of 10 case studies, the report examines how community groups can harness the potential of joint working with their local councillors.

The guide argues that with the government's Big Society agenda well under way, now is a crucial time for community groups to assert their voices, and shows many community groups are finding that their local councillors are natural allies. It highlights how poor communication has sometimes prevented collaborative working, and shows through people's stories that this doesn't have to be the case.

The guide highlights the situations in which councillors can add benefit, expedite processes and increase a projects' potential for success. Whether in taking over a public service, campaigning for change in a local area, or in active citizenship programmes, community groups have found that councillors' can provide invaluable support for change. Drawing out top tips from case studies, the guide provides practical advice for community groups who wish to involve their local councillors. Equally, councillors may find the guide useful to understand the role they can play in working with community groups in their area.

Click here to download the report.

For more information, or to order printed copies of the report contact info@urbanforum.org.uk

Charitable giving: paying for the cuts, or a pathway to the Big Society?

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Charitable giving: paying for the cuts, or a pathway to the Big Society?

Philanthropy, and in particular financial charitable giving, is "so 2010", says the Guardian's editorial last Saturday. The politics of individual giving is certainly on the agenda of late, not least because of the news of the 40 American billionaires committing to a "giving pledge" and signing-up to give half of their fortunes to charity. How much of a ‘successful trend' philanthropic giving has become is rather debatable, however. Back over in Blighty, and making slightly less of a glam splash across both the broadsheets and the tabloids, was last month's suggestion from the Minister for Civil Society that all who are "financially able" should give 1% of their income to charity. This was the first step from the coalition government to push the charitable giving aspect of the Big Society, where as part of the five cornerstones needed to deliver the Big Society, ministers have pledged to "take a range of measures to encourage charitable giving and philanthropy".

If this is one of the key methods the coalition government hope to help the voluntary sector cope with the slashing of the £13bn it spends each year on the charity sector, then they may be in for an unpleasant surprise. The latest Citizenship Survey has found that charitable giving has declined over the past five years, whilst the average donation per head has remained static. Recent research also found that donor recruitment has significantly fallen on both the street and the doorstep. And only a fortnight after Nick Hurd urged us to part with 1% of our income, research found that more than a fifth of people plan to significantly reduce the amount of money they donate regularly to charity. One-off individual giving to global disaster relief also appears to be suffering, with British public donations to the Pakistani flooding currently flowing at a slower rate than previous appeals, despite ex-PM Gordon Brown insisting this morning that there is not a giving or compassion fatigue in the UK.

So, if the government really does want charitable giving to become a part of the Big Society, what needs to change? What works and what doesn't? Innovative and attractive ways for individuals to give must be sought, as well as assurances it will indeed make a difference. Donating by text for example provides an easy and accessible way for us to give, however news that as little as four-fifths of money donated by text reaches good causes will hardly inspire the British public to give more. The government needs to ask other key questions if it is serious in encouraging us to give more in times of austerity, for example who gives and who doesn't? The Pathways through Participation project's literature review concluded that the typical charitable givers are likely to be professional, white, females more than males, over 24, religiously affiliated and living in a childless household; interestingly it also found that higher earners are more likely to give, but not proportionately.

Key to the success of the Big Society, we also need to ask how the way people give to charity impacts on and links to other forms of participatory behaviour such as public engagement and volunteering. The Pathways through Participation project is exploring how and why trends of individual participation start, continue, and connect throughout the life course. Reacting to research such as this, the government may begin to get an idea how individual giving and other forms of participation can go beyond being a ‘trend', and instead be shaped into part of a sustainable and enduring Big Society.

Eddie Cowling

12th August 2010

The Homeopathic Theory of Public Engagement

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The Homeopathic Theory of Public Engagement -

Run well, public engagement processes can be transformative for those taking part. I saw this again last summer in Kettering where Involve ran the UK leg of a global dialogue on climate change.Funded by the irreplaceable Joseph RowntreeCharitable Trust we brought together 100 people recruited to represent the demographics of the town. Our recruitment criteria explicitly excluded people with a professional connection to the climate change debate or green groups.

Many of the people who turned up seemed nervous and some explicitly questioned what value they could add to the day. It was noticeable that during the day the coffee breaks got fewer and shorter as the energy in the room increased. By the end of the day the participants were buzzing with enthusiasm and connection to the issues, many carrying on the conversation between themselves as they left and some talking about how they hoped to use what they had learnt. However, they dispersed back into their communities and I wonder if they were able to maintain that level of enthusiasm and energy as daily life took over?

No matter how complex the issues, whether they are about civil nuclear power, the impact of nanotechnology or the regulation of hybrid animal-human cells, this transformation is something we see time and again when citizens are brought together and given the space to deliberate about critical issues facing society.

And processes like these can be really valuable. For example, we evaluated a series of dialogues about nanotechnology. Scientists who took part talked about how the perspectives of the public participants had changed the course of their research. Engagement processes similar to these that are deeply connected to the policy process, such as recent ones co-funded by Sciencewise on geoengineeringand synthetic biology, for example, will help guide research investment decisions by Research Councils. This research will, in turn, impact on downstream research applications directly affecting future consumers and citizens.

However, as we highlight in our recent pamphlet Talking for a Change, there is a class of issues, including climate change and the impact of changing demographics, which require a very different form of public engagement. Both are issues which are incredibly complex. They require evidence from drastically different disciplines including climate science, biodiversity, economics, politics and communications. They are issues that are inter-temporal in nature; decisions taken now will only impact decades into the future. They impact on, and require action at, the local, national and global levels. Above all this class of issue requires citizens to take action, possibly through radical change in behaviour, and it requires them to consent to significant changes to government policy, whether in terms of the tax base or investments in one form of transport over another.

In other words we need to scale up the impact of the engagement. The Democratic Society has recently posted a blog on this very topic, raising similar questions in relation to the debate about immigration. It is a live issue for many areas of public policy.

We know that homeopathy doesn’t work; the notion of a totally dilute solution prompting the body to cure cancer lacks any known mechanism for action.

The same is true for public engagement. So we really must find ways of scaling up engagement beyond bringing 100 randomly selected people into the room, energising and enthusing them before sending them changed back into society. We have no theory for how this will change the terms of the political debate and cause the mass behaviour change that is needed. The problem is not with our diluted citizens, it is with our theory of how public engagement will change society.

Simon Burall, 12th August 2010

Image by widdowquinn

Twenty for Twenty

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0100

20 essays exploring the future of the public and not-for-profit sectors over the next ten years

In a remarkable anthology of essays DHA Communications has brought together leading figures from the third sector to set out their vision of civil society in ten years' time. Questions posed and answered include, how will charities have responded to the recession - and can scrutiny of the financial sector by civil society groups make sure it doesn't happen again? Can we reverse the trend of declining participation in politics? Will new roles for trade unions have emerged?

Simon Burall, Director of Involve, argues that we need a different - more distributed and participatory - way of doing democracy to challenge the large number of critically important, yet hugely complex issues that global society is currently facing. Other contributions of interest include Josie Emberton looking at how people are driving real-life solutions for society through the form of social ventures, and Stuart Wilks-Heeg arguing that participatory democracy is essential to the reinvigoration of democracy in everyday life, and as such must be considered and developed.

At a time of great uncertainty, these leading commentators predict big changes in the relationship between the third sector and government - and suggest how civil society can not only weather the economic storm, but emerge reinvigorated.

Coalition's first crowdsourcing attempt fails to alter Whitehall line

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Involve's Director Simon Burall commented on the government's current crowdsourcing consultation processes in the Guardian online this week. His response highlighted the need for government dialogue with the public to be a two-way conversation that will meaningfully impact on policy. Published on the 2 August, the article focused on the lack of influence that the 9,500 suggestions made to the ‘Programme for Government' agenda have had on policy-making across government. See the following articles to read more.

The Guardian: Coalition's first crowdsourcing attempt fails to alter Whitehall line

The Mail: Coalition's internet 'consultation' sham as ministers reject every suggestion

The Telegraph: Coalition 'crowdsourcing' attempts 'a failure'

How much disagreement is good for deliberation?

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Several well respected US academics working in the dialogue field have this month published a paper that asks How Much Disagreement is Good for Democratic Deliberation?

The paper poses as its central question:

"are we the kind of creatures who will respond positively (by tolerating, listening and adjusting in this way) when we engage in deliberation with those who hold with diverse views and who disagree with us? Or, do we recoil from disagreement, entrenching our positions, resenting those who challenge them, perhaps lose confidence in our own positions, and suffer in silence?"

Using data from the CaliforniaSpeaks deliberation on healthcare reform, the paper produces a statistical model of deliberative quality against levels of disagreement.

As deliberation becomes increasingly mainstream, so too will research into what works and what doesn't. The Sciencewise bulletin highlighted last month several active projects in the UK which seek to measure the quality of deliberation online and offline.

As the quality of deliberative research improves, it is likely that policy makers will increasingly trust deliberation as a method for developing policy. To understand how deliberation can be used as a tool for public dialogue visit Sciencewise's guide: ‘What is dialogue?'