The new Minister for the Third Sector, Phil Hope, got off to a good start with his constituency of voluntary organisations tonight when he urged them to campaign more strongly - without fear that it might jeopardise their grants.
He was speaking a couple of weeks into his new job at a reception on the eve of a conference on Futures for Civil Society, organised by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Carnegie UK Trust.
The Minister said that the message from the new Government, under Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was that community and voluntary organisations should not only help provide a voice for the most disadvantaged, but aim to change the policies of local and central government where necessary.
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"People should not be worried whether they should campaign or not if they receive some sort of grant, or have some sort of contract with the State in all its various forms. The reason why we give grants and contracts to people in the Third sector is to give that voice ... is to say those words ... is to have that campaigning zeal."
After Stuart Etherington introduced Phil Hope, I shot some video of the Minister's speech, which you can see above: warning - it is about 14 minutes long. You can find the campaigning quote about eight minutes in. However, the video is a bit dark and shaky, and fortunately Mr Hope was very happy to come out on to the the balcony and give me a short version below.
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Afterwards I spoke to Liz Cleverley, Performance Improvement and Information Manager at Community Matters, the national federation for community organisations.
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Liz had no doubt that encouragement for campaigning in the speech was welcome. Groups often felt inhibited when they were receiving a grant ... and local councils could feel challenged when groups spoke up.
Phil Hope once worked at NCVO, and has been a consultant in the voluntary sector - so people felt he knew what he was talking about. It also helped that he sounded as if he had written the speech himself ... or rather, didn't need to write it because it clearly came from the heart. I hope he can campaign successfully in central and local government to create the more open culture he is advocating.
Technorati Tags: nonprofit, campaigning
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