How charities create change

Charities are too ‘respectable’ to win change, by Janey Starling, is a really interesting article about the role charities play in creating change in society through campaigning and political influencing.

Campaigning might not be the best means for charities to create change anymore.

I’ve written before about how charities are stuck in the ‘squeezed middle’ between social movements and socially responsible businesses, meaning they need to justify their place in the for-good landscape. Perhaps the place of charities in the political landscape is changing too.

Starling talks about how charities should re-establish their place in the political landscape by confrontation, but charities don’t decide the rules of that game, they can only choose or not choose to play the game. Confrontation of the political system might not lead to a change in that system. Why would it? Has it ever?

So, how can charities create change? Perhaps by intervening in other systems.