Subsidiarity theory and the role of charities in society

Admin on 18/04/2020

Subsidiarity theory holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level that is consistent with their resolution. This theory underpins the role of charities in society.

It says that charities are best placed to deal with issues such as food poverty by providing food banks because they can respond locally to specific needs, whereas government would respond nationally which wouldn’t be as effective.

In this way, the charity sector could be seen to be implicitly supporting the state in not dealing with the underlying causes of the issues at a systematic level.

Philosophically then, charities could be seen to be stuck between individualism of doing what helps people vs. collectivism of doing what changes the system.

In reality, the charity sector is very good at balancing this conflict by delivering services and campaigning for change. There are numerous examples of charities bringing about changes in policy whilst supporting people in need.

Charity serves an important role in society, not only by helping people in need, but also in bringing about progressive change. Charity is not a response to the failings of a society, it is an integral part of a society’s success.

“An active, questioning charity sector is one of the guarantees of democracy… Government and democracy without voluntary exertion and voluntary idealism loses its soul.”

Lord Longford, reporting to the Nathan Committee.

The impact of emerging technology on charities

Admin on 12/04/2020

Manifesto’s ‘The Future Charity‘ report includes an interesting graph about the impact of technology on the charity sector.

The technology considered to have the most impact is ‘alternative payments’, which doesn’t seem like a technology on the scale of Machine Learning or Internet of Things. Maybe its a result of knowledge about the tech and/or how close and direct the impact feels.

But, perhaps the most important thing to consider is that none of these technologies exist in isolation, it isn’t like one is going to impact charities more or less, because actually all of them are going to change society, which changes the lives of charity beneficiaries.

So the question isn’t how autonomous vehicles are going to affect charities, but how autonomous vehicles are going to put lots of already low paid people out of work, and so how are charities going to help those people?

Technology is often promoted as a democratising force; just look at how the printing press gave knowledge to everyone, but the application of technology isn’t neutral. In an unequal society it is used to increase inequality.

So, if we’re thinking about how emerging technology affects charities, the really big question is, what does a world with all these technologies look like? Only then can we begin to think about charity’s roles in that world.

Cause-agnostic Charity

Admin on 06/04/2020

A charity that doesn’t start with or centre itself around a cause? How could that be? Is it even legally possible under Charity Commission regulations?

What would it do? Anything it wanted to make the world a better place. Think Jukesie’s Squads-as-a-service, able to point a diverse range of charitable skills and expertise at any issue, from fundraising to service delivery.

Perhaps it might mean throwing away the competitive market orientated notion of charities competing for scare resources where one of the checks a new charity has to do is to make sure another charity isn’t already doing what you want to do (not whether they are actually being effective), but this wouldn’t be a problem for a cause-agnostic charity.

Then, rather than the moral question of whether a charity should being trying to make itself unnecessary, and what the implications of that might be for the people that work for that charity, the question for all cause-agnostic charities is, what’s the biggest, worst, most urgent problem facing our world, society, community, town, village.