North East Third Sector Research Group Annual Digest

Introduction

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The North East Third Sector Research Group (NETSRG) was established in 2013, with the aim of increasing the engagement of Third Sector professionals with academic literature (such as peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and conference papers) on topics of relevance to the sector. The group is underpinned by the premise that an abundance of research is produced by academics, which could be of benefit to the Third Sector, but is rarely accessed and translated into practice due to a range of barriers. The group was set up in a voluntary capacity by Keith Nicholson with support from Adele Irving and is made up of around 50 members.

About the Contributors

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Details of contributors to this issue.

Outputs Reviewed: Volunteering

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Bartels, K. P., Cozzi, G., & Mantovan, N. (2013). "The Big Society," Public Expenditure, and Volunteering. Public Administration Review, 73(2), 340-351.

Haski-Leventhal, D., Meijs, L. C., & Hustinx, L. (2010). The third-party model: Enhancing volunteering through governments, corporations and educational institutes. Journal of Social Policy, 39(01), 139-158.

Handy, F., & Mook, L. (2010). Volunteering and volunteers: Benefit–cost analyses. Research on Social Work Practice, 1049731510386625.

Academic Commentary: 'Toward Deeper Understandings of Volunteering Practice'

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Volunteering is on the rise. Sure, it has been around for over a century. And over the past decades, overall levels of voluntary activity have remained relatively stable in the UK. But what has been changing is the attention for volunteering and its centrality to the governance of Western societies (see, for example Bryer, 2014). We are witnessing increasing ambitions and expectations about how much people should volunteer and what voluntary organisations should achieve.

Third Sector Commentary: 'Improving and Proving Volunteering, from a Practitioner's Perspective'

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This review looks at the wide and deep subject of volunteering. A subject close to my heart and a one which Third Sector organizations of any size will have an interest in. The three papers discussed varied in style, geographical coverage and focus, however, help us develop our understanding of volunteering. Reading these works made me reflect on the typologies of organisations I come across in my journey around the Third Sector, from tiny to small, small to medium, medium to large, and a final superlative size. These typologies could be explored further in the context of volunteering and presented many different perspectives on issues of volunteering.

Outputs Reviewed: Individual Giving and Philanthropy

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Wiepking, P., & Breeze, B. (2012). Feeling poor, acting stingy: The effect of money perceptions on charitable giving. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 17(1), 13-24.

Pharoah, C. (2011). Private giving and philanthropy–their place in the Big Society. People, Place & Policy Online, 5(2), 65-75.

Andreoni, J., Rao, J. M., & Trachtman, H. (2011). Avoiding the ask: a field experiment on altruism, empathy, and charitable giving (No. w17648). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Academic Commentary: 'Individual Giving and Philanthropy'

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"We as human beings live in a very imprecise world. A world where our perceptions of reality are far more important than actual reality."

This quote connects the three papers discussed in this section, each of which highlights how what we think we know about philanthropy, and our commonplace perceptions of how charitable giving works, turns out to be not quite right. And yet those ‘perceptions of reality’ have a huge amount of influence on policy making as well as on our views of both donors and fundraisers.

Third Sector Commentary: 'Individual Giving and Philanthropy'

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The NETSRG creates the opportunity for academics and charitable practitioners to discuss academic research. It bridges the two sectors effectively and is a welcome addition. When approaching an academic paper I ask the following three questions:

 What does the paper tell me?

 What is the practical application of the research?

 Is the research that underpins it robust?

Whilst my emphasis is on the second question, far too often this is the leanest section of the work. This year we considered three papers on philanthropy.

Acknowledgements

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This inaugural Digest Review is the culmination of the efforts of a group of people working to increase levels of engagement between academia and the Third Sector. Those who have submitted formal contributions have spent time and effort developing thoughtful and honest reflections and for that, we are truly thankful. There are a number of Third Sector professionals and academics who are involved in the North East Third Sector Research Group on an ongoing basis and without that valuable support, the group would not exist. Thank you to everyone involved in the group, as well as this publication. What makes this publication unique is that all of the contributions, editing and design has been done on a voluntary basis.

Particular thanks must go to Ellen Cole and the team at Northumbria University Library for helping with the technical aspects of copyright notice, attribution and registration.

Outputs Reviewed: Neo-Liberalism

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Churchill, H. (2013). Retrenchment and restructuring: family support and children's services reform under the coalition. Journal of Children's Services, 8()3, 209-222

Jackson Rodger, J. (2013). “New capitalism”, colonisation and the neo-philanthropic turn in social policy: Applying Luhmann's systems theory to the Big Society project. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 33(11/12), 725-741.

Kim, S. (2013). Voluntary Organizations as New Street-level Bureaucrats: Frontline Struggles of Community Organizations against Bureaucratization in a South Korean Welfare-to-Work Partnership. Social Policy & Administration, 47(5), 565-585.

Academic Commentary: 'Understanding the Changing Role of the Third Sector in the Era of Austerity'

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Perhaps the most enduring issue surrounding third sector engagement with government directed social policy initiatives is the preservation of organisational autonomy: how can voluntary organisations avoid becoming state outposts, providing cheap services for the state without abandoning the principle of caritas (the Latin term which encompasses the notions of altruism, caring and social solidarity) which influenced their foundation and shapes their practice? These three pieces, in their different ways, relate to this central question.

Third Sector Commentary: 'A view on neo-liberalism of the sector'

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As a participant in NETSRG, I verbally presented a review of the article by Kim (2013) focusing on voluntary and community sector (VCS) participation in the Self-Sufficiency Programme (SSP), the South Korean equivalent of Welfare to Work. Here I present a written expansion of that verbal review, solely in relation to this article, as opposed to all three articles that made up the session on neo-liberalisation. Before offering my thoughts on Kim’s work, I wish to explain it as my article of choice.

About the Editors

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Details of this issue's editorial staff.

Outputs Reviewed: Change Management

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Crawford, L., & Nahmias, A. H. (2010). Competencies for managing change. International Journal of Project Management, 28(4), 405-412.

Bennett, H. (2012). Pricing out Third Sector Organisations: The unequal outcome of the Freud Report. UK Social Policy Association, http://www. social-policy. org. uk/lincoln2012/HayleyBennett% 20P3. pdf accessed, 12(12), 12.

Macmillan, R., Taylor, R., Arvidson, M., Soteri-Proctor, A., & Teasdale, S. (2013). The third sector in unsettled times: a field guide.

Academic Commentary: 'Permanently Changing? Operationalising Research into Organisational Change in the Third Sector'

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Organisations are never static; they are changing all the time. Unsurprisingly, actors in ‘third sector organisations’ (the diverse array of organisations that do not fit into the ideal type constructs of market or state organisations) experience and implement change in many different ways. On the one hand, there are numerous types of third sector organisations operating in different policy streams, locations, and contexts. On the other, third sector organisations engage in a variety of activities; some may deliver public service contracts, whilst others focus on traditional civil society and volunteer based activities. Many more may sit somewhere in between (Billis, 2010).

Third Sector Commentary: 'Change in the Third Sector'

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“All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born”

Of all the quotes on the subject of change, it’s arguably W.B.Yeats’ refrain that is best known. And for the Third Sector over the past five years, the line is certainly apt. For many charities and voluntary organisations, funding cut-backs, redundancies and closures have often, indeed, been terrible. But there has also been beauty in the way that these groups have adapted and shifted to the changed environment.

It was this mixture of changed circumstances and flexible responses that the NETSRG wished to discuss at its July 2014 meeting.