Building capacity: companies and black communities
June 01, 1999
In the wake of the McPherson Report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, Mark Blake and David Grayson argue that black-led voluntary organisations are central to combating discrimination and overcoming social exclusion. Here they challenge companies to get involved, calling for a twinning scheme to build the sector’s capacity.
The McPherson report has highlighted the challenges that face all of our institutions, in promoting diversity and challenging institutional racism where it may unwittingly or otherwise exist. The Report has given new impetus to efforts to promote a more inclusive society generally. It reinforces the findings of the Deakin Commission and Taskforce 2002, which both called for greater business support for the black voluntary sector.
The current UK public policy context provides a major impetus for moving forward on these issues. The government’s social policy agenda around reversing social exclusion will involve a major rethink about how social policy tackles the dynamics of a diverse, multi-cultural society.
Social exclusion
Overcoming social exclusion and deprivation are not only a major plank of government social policy, but central to its economic policy through welfare reform. The interdependence of social and economic policy is a key part of the message to the business community that tackling social exclusion and creating of a more inclusive society are in its own interests too.
Across a range of deprivation indicators – from unemployment and mental health to school exclusions and the prison population – black and minority ethnic (BME) communities are consistently over-represented. Taking just one example, unemployment in BME communities is have consistently around three times higher than the average for the white population.
More worrying in the context of the McPherson report is just how consistent this over-representation is, and has remained even since Lord Scarman’s landmark report on race relations in 1981.
Civic society
Active participation by individuals within their local community, as evidenced in the more successful regeneration initiatives, promotes a sense of ownership, empowers individuals, and can rejuvenate communities.
The relaunch of the Home Office’s Voluntary and Community Unit into the Active Community Unit (ACU), with a cross departmental brief and enhanced resources, will spearhead the development of this area of public policy.
The biggest challenge in promoting civic society will be empowering those people and communities who are the most socially marginalised; those who have not traditionally participated in community life, but have been the recipients of decisions from elsewhere. Quite clearly BME communities should be a target when promoting civic activism and the BME voluntary sector can play a major role in pushing the civic society agenda.
The BME voluntary sector
The BME voluntary sector comprises mostly small local community-based organisations, serving the particular needs of identified BME communities. Some work in sectors like health, addressing specific issues such as mental health, HIV/AIDS or sickle cell anaemia; others focus on employment and training. Some are faith-led groups or organisations responding to the needs of refugee communities.
One thing they have in common is a commitment to delivering culturally specific interventions that meet the needs of their target group. They also identify a major common influence on their actual creation and existence – namely, the inability of mainstream provision to meet adequately the needs of their communities.
The BME voluntary sector can play a major role in helping achieve policy objectives in the following areas:
as a service provider, delivering interventions that meet the particular needs of BME communities;
as an active participant in the formulation of social policy, ensuring that the needs of BME communities are consistently met in the development and implementation of policy that affects those communities;
as a promoter of best practice in delivering appropriate interventions for mainstream statutory and voluntary sector providers;
as a sector that develops and nurtures talent from the BME communities as trustees, volunteers and officers, that can increase civic activism amongst the BME communities;
as an arm of the voluntary sector contributing to the creation of the more inclusive society that the McPherson Report demands.
The business case
Why should business support the black and minority ethnic voluntary sector?
The BME voluntary sector is (and will be increasingly be recognised to be) at the heart of the war against social exclusion. Business has an interest in seeing this major plank of social and economic policy succeed, as social inclusion empowers markets.
The BME voluntary sector helps to create a more inclusive society, by increasing participation of black and minority ethnic communities, through community activism and through targeting the most marginalised individuals in our community. Companies engaged in this task will gain improved reputations, post McPherson.
Black and minority ethnic communities are increasingly becoming an important niche market, as companies at last realise their enormous spending power. Here corporate community investment can strengthen consumer commitment to brands.
Many of the talented young people that business needs in the new millennium will come from Britain’s BME communities. Business will have to tap into all spectrums of society to search out the best. The BME voluntary sector can provide an organic medium to reach these communities, promote the company and tap into these sources of talent.
Capacity building
To make an effective contribution, BME voluntary organisations need support in increasing their capacity. This has been recognised by the government which is increasing the resources made available for infrastructure support through the ACU’s funding programme.
Capacity building is about more than just increasing the size of organisations in terms of activity and turnover. Even more crucially, it means increasing their partners and supporters. Here the business sector is a vital potential supporter and partner.
Ambitious plans for a multi-million pound fund to support the black voluntary and community sector are being assembled by Amir Bhatir and others. Paul Boateng MP at the Home Office is determined to see the newly revamped ACU assist the sector.
We would like to see some action now by leading corporate citizens to pilot the idea of a business / BME twinning scheme. Specifically, (say) six to ten leading companies should now each adopt a front-line BME organisation, and so help to provide:
mentoring chief officers by business sector directors, providing support, advice and guidance on a one-to-one basis using the successful ACENVO model;
development and support for IT and finance systems – through technical advice on system development, through project development (such as Web site production and network implementation) and through training of staff (perhaps involving secondments or volunteer placements);
strategic development through organisational review, perhaps facilitated in a consultancy type role, for instance working with management committees and boards of trustees to review strategy;
marketing and fundraising plans, crucial for the success of any voluntary organisation – again volunteer placements, secondments and strategic guidance in a consultancy role could be productive, as could community / marketing partnerships, such as event or merchandising sponsorships.
Win-win partnerships
These opportunities fit exactly the findings of the Deakin Commission on the future of the Voluntary Sector (1996) and the follow-up Taskforce 2002 Report (1998), commissioned by NCVO and BITC to further Deakin’s recommendations on business-voluntary sector links. Both argued for more corporate community investment into capacity-building of the black voluntary sector.
The central vision of Taskforce 2002 was the ‘two-way street’ – that substantial and sustainable partnerships between business and the voluntary sector are those which are mutually beneficial ‘win-wins’. In reality, there are only a few such partnerships so far; and both sectors have to invest in developing win-win relationships.
Put simply, Taskforce 2002 suggested that three distinct waves can be defined for both business and voluntary organisations in their relationships with the other. For business:
wave 1 – philanthropy;
wave 2 – “mighty business doing things to the voluntary sector”, with a tendency to be arrogant and condescending;
wave 3 – recognising that business has much to gain as well as to contribute, and treating these partnerships just as professionally as any other part of the business.
For voluntary organisations:
wave 1 – cynicism / disbelief / ignorance about the idea of working with business;
wave 2 – spasmodic, cash-focussed, struggling to see what they could ask for / contribute to business;
wave 3: confident about providing / seeking business help.
Taskforce 2002 identified a series of practical steps by leading corporate citizens to encourage more win-win partnerships. These include:
sharing their experience through the supply chain, the ‘influence chain’ and the ‘neighbourhood chain’;
encouraging mentoring between the sectors;
improving access to information and communications technologies – especially for front-line community groups; and
enhanced local brokerage services to make it easier to marry those with expertise, resources and time to offer with those seeking help.
We are both enthusiastic that real progress can be made. The opportunities to make a real impact are there. Now is the time for companies will take up this challenge.
Mark Blake is chief executive of Blackliners and was a member of both the Deakin Commission and Taskforce 2002. David Grayson from BITC chaired Taskforce 2002.
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