H E A L I N G W E L F A R E
? some thoughts on philanthropy and social enterprise
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by Vivian Hutchinson, New Zealand
vivian Hutchinson is an adviser to the Tindall Foundation,
and a trustee of The Employment Catalyst Fund.
He is also the editor of The Jobs Letter, a trustee of The
Jobs Research Trust and Community Adviser to the Mayors
Taskforce for Jobs in New Zealand.
This paper is based on his keynote speech to the inaugural
Tindall Foundation Funding Manager Workshop in Manukau
City on the 30th June 2003.
This paper can be read on the internet at
http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/vivian/healw03.htm
or can be downloaded as a PDF document (16 pages, 55 kb)
from http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/pdf/healw03.pdf
S O M E E X T R A C T S
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O N P H I L A N T H R O P Y
Philanthropy is one of the healing arts. Philanthropy is an important way
we work together to build the communities we wish to live in. It is about
how we organise our intentions and our resources to work for a common good.
It is important to realise that philanthropy is an intention before it is a
resource. We can miss this point when we concentrate on calling ourselves
"Funding Managers" ... or set up organisations that primarily define
themselves as being in the business of "grant-making". Philanthropy is an
intention, first. The derivation of the word "philanthropy" doesn't even
refer to money or to how it should be given away. It actually refers to
"the love of people".
O N H E A L I N G
In the context of social sustainability, all funding bodies and
grant-makers are today faced with the same major question. We need to ask
ourselves: Are we in the business of organising problems? Or are we in the
business of healing them? I do believe that many of our colleagues have
their heads down so far into their contracts, and survival, and the
management of all the details ... that we can all miss the point of what we
are doing here. We can be so focused on asking ourselves: Are we doing
things right? ... when perhaps we should be asking ourselves: Are we doing
the right things.
O N W E L F A R E
There is a problem here that everybody seems to know ... but we do not
seem to directly acknowledge or address it: The welfare state ? as we
currently run it [in NZ] ? is unsustainable. One of the things I have seen
happening with philanthropic foundations over the last decade is that more
and more of the problems
of an unsustainable welfare state are ending up at your door ? hoping that
you will provide the resources to keep patching things up. Sooner or
later, you are going to have to re-think what it is you are all up to here.
Sooner or later, you are going to have to consider whether you are simply
participating in an unsustainable problem. Today, as a country, we need to
go back to re-visioning what we are up to with welfare. Our social services
need to become more affordable, and more effective. And they need to have
outcomes that make sense. We need to release, again, a tide of social
innovation that
will actively explore alternatives and create sustainable options for
welfare support. And it is clear to me that philanthropic foundations can
be important players in catalysing this whole new generation of social
innovation.
O N S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y
What I have learned about social sustainability is this: when it comes to
social dis-ease, the only sustainable solution ... is also a systemic
solution. The sustainable solutions are never "business-as-usual" ? no
matter how much you restructure, re-name, or otherwise disguise and
distract from the fact that there is no real change taking place. The
sustainable solutions are about fundamental change.
O N S O C I A L E N T R E P R E N E U R S
In a very short time, the term "social entrepreneur" has been used and
abused and appropriated to mean almost anything from someone who runs a
social service agency, or a not-for-profit business ... to someone working
as a government community adviser. But I think it's a label worth fighting
for. It remains a very good description of that unique blend of skills that
needs to be better acknowledged and supported. Like business entrepreneurs,
social entrepreneurs combine creativity with pragmatic skills to bring new
ideas and services into reality. Like community activists, they show the
determination to pursue their vision relentlessly until it becomes a
reality. Social Entrepreneurs usually lead by leaping. They might leap in
terms of fundamental ideas, forcing us all to see things in a fresh way.
They might leap by combining very diverse approaches to a widely -known
problem ... into a whole new solution. They leap by creating new role
models which quickly become a "pattern of change" for the rest of us.
? from "Healing Welfare: some thoughts on philanthropy and social
enterprise"
by vivian Hutchinson
(pub 2003 The Tindall Foundation and The Jobs Research Trust)
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