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Philanthrocapitalist Manifesto calls for radical policy changes
By Kaye Wiggins, Third Sector Online, 25 January 2010
Office of the Third Sector should be scrapped, says document by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green
The Office of the Third Sector should be scrapped and replaced with an Office of Social Innovation, according to a new ‘manifesto' on philanthropy launched last night.
The document, called the Philanthrocapitalist Manifesto, was written by Matthew Bishop, the US business editor of The Economist, and former civil servant Michael Green.
It claims the OTS has "been captured by the vested interests of the sector and has failed to challenge conventional wisdoms or engage with philanthropy in a meaningful way".
The document calls for a number of radical changes, including:
- A proportion of government spending should be reserved for match funding partnerships with philanthropists, and all government departments should have to identify policy areas in which they could involve philanthropists
- The Confederation of British Industry should make it the norm for British businesses to give 1 per cent of their profits to charity and encourage businesses to aim to treble payroll giving over the next three years
- The Charity Commission should be responsible for reporting on the efficiency and effectiveness of the sector every year and for improving the performance of the sector
Green told Third Sector that the ideas in the manifesto resulted from research among philanthropists, social entrepreneurs and people working in the voluntary sector.
He said the manifesto was designed to be controversial and to start a debate among the political parties about a new model of relations between government and the third sector.
An Office of the Third Sector spokesman said: "Our work in driving forward social investment, volunteering and, of course, philanthropy, while pushing organisations to modernise and work together, is the opposite to an organisation ‘captured by vested interests'.
"The fact that the US Office of Social Innovation is so interested in our model – despite the significantly different models of civic society in the UK and the US – makes the authors' comments confusing."
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All Comments Make a comment
matt scott, 26 January 2010, 19:13
This is extremely timely - I won't comment on the scrapping of the OTS because I suspect it would be necessary to reinvent it, but as director of the Community Sector Coalition, I welcome the manifesto - the majority of community groups have not faired well in the current feeding frenzy around contracts, so the point about the vested interestes of the sector is spot on, so thank you for saying it \(Matt Scott)
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Rob Macmillan, 26 January 2010, 21:22
"Green told Third Sector that the ideas in the manifesto resulted from research among philanthropists, social entrepreneurs and people working in the voluntary sector".
Is this research available for us to see? Please publish it. I'd be interested to know, as with any research: what was asked and why, who was asked and why, what they said, and how this was analysed etc.
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Jay Kennedy, 27 January 2010, 10:01
Business to give more - absolutely agree; the overall percentage of pre-tax profits given to charity has been declining in recent years, fewer and fewer top companies reach the 1% mark
Charity Commission to report on efficiency and effectiveness of 'the sector'? Total and utter nonsense!
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Kaye Wiggins, 27 January 2010, 14:30
Good point, Rob. The research was done for Green and Bishop's book, and the new manifesto simply highlights the main points they make in it. As far as I'm aware, they haven't published the research that they did for the book.
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