Some thoughts (in no real order) following tonight’s #civilsocietyfutures event:
1) There’s an important balance to be struck between ‘empowerment’ of communities/groups & supporting good leadership. Current trend is to focus on the former, often to detriment of the latter.
1) There’s an important balance to be struck between ‘empowerment’ of communities/groups & supporting good leadership. Current trend is to focus on the former, often to detriment of the latter.
2) I very much agree with @AnnaFowlie that there is much to be optimistic and hopeful about in the sector. Yes, there are big societal challenges and operational changes at the moment, but it’s not all doom and gloom. Lots to be positive about.
3) Many of our traditional big institutions (media, political systems, charities etc) are based on very old operating models that have not/are not keeping pace with demographic, social & technological change. This can lead to a very negative prism through which they frame issues.
4) a rapid pace of change does not equal everything being bad.
5) (perhaps a bit controversially) When we talk about concepts such as “sharing power” in context of #CivilSocietyScot why do we inherently assume this is always a good thing? Representative democracies are popular governance models for some good/legitimate reasons.
6) Coproduction done well can be a fantastic, insightful and hugely valuable thing, but it is often done tokenistically and can be used as a form of cooption.
7) (and finally) The real point that stuck with me was how we think about the structures of institutions in our society (not just charities) to ensure they better reflect and build trust with/for/between those they seek to represent.
Just some thoughts. Thank you to @juliaunwin and @corrascot for the excellent and thought provoking event and to @AnnaFowlie and @scvotweet for inviting me along. #CivilSocietyScot #CivilSocietyFutures
