They don't know it all

There’s a website – www.ohnothereisnt.com – where the world of UK philanthropy offers itself up for real debate about strategies, issues, directions. Here, the really controversial issues are debated – currently, for example, the role of philanthrocapitalism. It’s a place where there are links to the really interesting stuff from the broadsheet press (such as the excellent piece by Marina Hyde in the Guardian recently (sample: Charity may begin at home, but philanthropy begins with paying tax…Even a man of Stanford's preposterous bluster would struggle to explain how enabling tax dodging has anything to do with giving a toss about other people. He and his ilk are fauxlanthropists. ). This site is very much in the spirit of open debate so fully embraced by the UK foundations. The Association of Charitable Foundations now has a section (ohnoitdoesnt.com) of its much-improved website where the public, and especially grant seekers, are encouraged to submit their views about organised philanthropy, and to debate these with each other and with the trustees and directors of the foundations – and a very lively debate it is too. What’s also very encouraging is how many of the progressive foundations have themselves opened their websites to 2-way traffic (e.g. www.ohnotheyhavent.com ); instead of just using them to provide information and guidance for potential applicants, or even allowing applications via their websites, an increasing number invite comment on their policies in an attempt to shape them with the benefit of the insights of those actually doing the hard work out there in the field. The world of philanthropy is clearly not afraid of open debate.

OK, I lied. And I’m sorry if anyone wasted time following those dummy links (the Guardian one is for real, and the article to which it links is, in my view, spot-on). But you get my point.

To be fair, Philanthropy UK – and a real link is coming up – does at least seek to cover the controversies in its quarterly newsletter but unless I've missed something, even P-UK is one-way traffic. So why isn't all that stuff above true? What kind of insecurity is it that makes UK philanthropy afraid of real debate? This isn't just a matter of responding to the zeitgeist. By saying, in effect, “we don't know it all and we value the views and ideas of others”, the field would also be doing just a little about the unequal power relationship between grant seekers and grant makers. I’m not sure whether they do this kind of thing better in the USA – I surfed a bit but with no great discoveries. Hey, we could be first!

I merely ask

As I write, the nation’s power stations are being hit by what are described, quaintly, as ‘wildcat’ strikes. These are the result of a free market in labour in Europe, which, at a time of sharply rising unemployment, has led many working people to resent jobs going to foreigners (in this instance, Italians). While the employers and those who let the contracts stoutly deny that this is about cheap labour leading to reduced costs, the widespread suspicion remains that this is exactly what it’s about. The fact that the issue arises at all leads me to wonder where the trade unions have been all these years while the world has been globalising. In the very week that the Guardian has shown us, in some detail, how big British companies play the global market so as to minimise the amount of tax they have to pay, it seems that the unions have yet to respond in like manner – to organise internationally, at the very least on a pan-European basis so as to ensure that you have to pay workers their market rate, wherever they come from and wherever they’re working. Why isn't the Italian branch of Unite bringing its people out in sympathy with those British workers in Lincoln? And what about the foundations? It’s my contention that in a very difficult economic situation, people who so far haven’t, will begin to notice these very few largely unaccountable agglomerations of wealth and to ask themselves “What’s that for then? Can’t we have some of that?” Those asking the question may be politicians, taxpayers, local authorities, or hard-pressed service providers. And how, then, will the UK foundations answer? Will they be sufficiently internationalised to make common cause with analogous organisations elsewhere in the world – and especially in the European Union? Or will they be picked off, nibbled at, and over time find their autonomy eroded? Will the combination of the ACF and the EFC be strong enough to defend them? I merely ask.