If only… imagining the voluntary sector otherwise

• In Event: Narrating and Naming the Voluntary Sector in the UK and US: Stories Across Time

Abstract

The voluntary sector can generate deep loyalties and fierce commitments as well as being the subject of sharp criticism. Many people have an interest in how things are done in the sector, to what end, and with what outcomes. It is a site of many hopes and dreams, animating different perspectives and narratives on its role, contribution and ways of working in contemporary society. Many people tend to like the sector, but also typically want it to be different. This paper seeks to explore this observation, with reference to key developments and debates in the sector in recent years.
Two broad shifts have been noticeable in central debates and framings of the voluntary sector in the UK in the last decade. In the mid-2010s, a set of arguments around the governance and leadership of charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises began to eclipse an earlier concern with voice and anti-austerity campaigning. Fearing the loss of trust in the wake of a series of high-profile charity scandals (over executive pay, fundraising, the collapse of Kids Company and safeguarding) coupled with highly critical commentary from the media and some politicians, many in the sector turned their attention towards internal matters of good governance and effective leadership. The idea that charities should ‘stick to their knitting’ was allied to the concern that they should get their house in order. Towards the late 2010s, however, attention arguably moves again, as concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion come to the fore within the sector and in society more broadly. The experience of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement have intensified the debate, and its implications are still playing out. A great deal of critical reflection and soul searching continues across the sector about its cultures, practices and power dynamics.
How might these important shifts be analysed and understood? Taking its cue from a field-based understanding of the voluntary sector as a dynamic and contested space, the paper aims to set out different imaginaries for what the voluntary sector is, should be and could become. It outlines and explores seven alternative but overlapping versions of what ought to matter most for individuals, groups and organisations involved in and around the sector. Each takes the form of amorphous sets of assumptions, arguments and imperatives, expressed by more or less organised alliances of actors, about how the sector works, what things need attention and what it should focus on. Should the sector, for example, be more democratic, or more enterprising, more collaborative, more impact-focused, or more focused on campaigns, social change and speaking truth to power?
The paper concludes by considering the theoretical implications of the argument. Rather than participants navigating competing institutional logics, or doing institutional work, these imaginaries function, in field-theoretic terms, as overarching conceptions of control. Together they highlight the sector as a roiling discursive space of different projects and movements for change, and as a space of hopes and dreams, if only it could be otherwise.

Author

• Rob Macmillan, Sheffield Hallam University