SPEAKER_01 0:12

You're listening to the Philanthropist podcast with Roger Davis. Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, as ever, Rodri Davis, and this week we are in conversation with Dan Corrie. Now, Dan is the Chief Executive of New Philanthropy Capital, or NPC, as they tend to call themselves these days, which is a think tank and consultancy here in the UK that works on issues around the charity sector and the ways of funding it. Dan became chief exec of NPC back in 2011, so he's been there for a decade now. And that was following a varied career where he held posts in public policy and economics, including being head of the number 10's policy unit and a senior advisor to the Prime Minister on the economy between 2007 and 2010. So I sat down a couple of weeks ago with Dan for a chat. And yeah, we had a good conversation. I should say I was in the latter stages of having COVID at the time. So just be aware of that when you're listening to it, although I don't think I sound too terrible. But yeah, we're just talking mainly around the work that MPC have been doing recently about their rethink rebuild, looking at what has potentially changed in the world of funding and civil society during the pandemic and what this might mean in terms of kind of what needs doing longer term and where some of the trends might be going longer term. And so we discussed uh lots of questions around strategy and kind of how organizations set shared strategies, particularly and sort of move away from the idea of individual organizations each doing their own things to thinking about seeing things in a systems way and how that might work in practice. Linked to that, we talked about collaboration and kind of how we get better collaboration between funders and between organizations working in civil society. Uh we talked about data, which is a sort of hot topic for many people, including MPC at the moment, how we get better data within civil society, how we get better data about funding, uh, what we can do with that data. We talked about leveling up, so the UK government's leveling up agenda, which is looking at kind of rebalancing some of the inequalities, both sort of geographic and economic around the country, talked about the role that civil society can play in that and perhaps why it wasn't currently playing as much of a role as it might be. And we also talked more broadly about the interaction between the charity sector and civil society and the government, and perhaps where some of the challenges had been on that and what we might do to strengthen that relationship and give civil society more of a voice. And so without further ado, let's get into the conversation. I'll be back at the end for a little bit of housekeeping and tidying up, but in the meantime, enjoy. Okay, great. So I'm here with Dan Corrie. Hi, Dan. Good afternoon. Uh well, great to have you on the podcast. Um, for people who don't know, Dan is the chief executive of New Philanthropy Capital, or MPC, I think as you prefer to call yourselves these days. Um, maybe the best place to start, I want to talk about some work that you're doing around the idea of kind of rethink and rebuild um and where philanthropy in civil society goes post-pandemic. Um, but maybe we should start by just getting you to say a bit in your own words about what NPC is and what you guys do.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

No, thanks, Rodri. And and and the name is is not is not much of a clue in a way, um, so it is worth uh explaining. I mean, so we we work as a uh a consultancy and a think tank, but we're a charity ourselves, and our mission is to try and improve the impact of the sector. So um that's about trying to get individual organizations improving their impact and the sector as a whole improving its impact. So a lot of what we do is directed at the sector, individual organizations. Some of it is aimed at government. Uh, some of the things they do means the sector can't have as much impact. Some of it is at the sector generally, how it uses digital or thinks about commissioning and working with commissioners and so forth. And we one side of our house works as a consultancy, uh, and so obviously charities and grant makers and philanthropists hire us. Uh, and we often do, I guess it's a lot of strategy consulting in a way. We use a lot of theory of change, we'll help them think about measurement frameworks and so on. And then, and then on the other side is the think tank work, which is if you like anything that's not commissioned by an individual uh organization, um, where we're trying to influence uh the whole sector. And we do a lot of uh, for instance, free resources for charities, smaller charities and so forth who can't come afford the consultancy. We do research projects, uh, we have events and so forth, all trying to, as I say, with that aim of trying to improve the impact that the sector has.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yeah, absolutely. And I know um you kind of tend to spark a lot of interesting conversations within the sector. Um, and and so just focusing on the work that you've been doing around rethink and rebuild, I think as the project's called. Obviously, uh, you know, a lot of people have been trying to sort of think through what has happened in civil society and and the world of charities over the course of the pandemic and how many of the changes that we've seen are short-term ones enforced by necessity and which are going to result in in longer-term shifts. And you guys have have spoken to lots of people around the sector and sort of identified five uh core areas that you're focusing on. Um and I just wanted to dig into those a bit first. Um, the the first one I thought that was really interesting is is the idea um of uh systems approaches, particularly when it comes to setting strategy. Maybe you could say a bit about what you you mean there and what it means to take a systems approach to strategy setting.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

I mean, it's a good question. I mean, we've been interested um in a kind of systems approach to all sorts of things for some years, you know, and you and you find um, you know, a lot of people, be they a charity or a philanthropist, you know, are aware that um a lot of what they do, in a sense, is picking up the pieces from a system gone wrong. Uh, you know, the need that you see children in care, people with mental health issues, people lonely or whatever. And somehow the system's training these things out. And, you know, in a sense, yes, you can fund something to help the immediate need, but really what you'd like to do is help create a system which doesn't create those sort of outcomes. Um, and I think one of the things that becomes quite clear when you start thinking about that is that um you've got to think about what this system is, how it works, and you're gonna have to work with other people. And so, seeing rather than your sort of own organization or your own philanthropy being able to crack this, you're gonna have to work with others. So you end up doing things like, particularly when you think about strategy, you do what people tend to call system maps that can look a bit complicated, to be quite honest, um, but a trying to understand how the whole system works, where the connections are, where the key places which are, if you like, sometimes called leverage points that you could try and change something. And then you try and see where your organization or your philanthropy is fitting into this and what other people are doing. And that that, I guess, is is the key thing because you know, with with big things in life, we can't, we're not gonna change them on our own. I mean, just to give an example, um, I'm I'm actually on the board of St. Mungo's, which is quite a big homelessness charity, and we and we do everything we can for people um to avoid them becoming rough sleepers and when they have been homeless to get them back into sustainable housing. But we can do a certain amount, but a lot of these people are gonna need help with mental health issues, with skills issues, with family relationship issues, with housing issues. So we have to be joined up with awful sort of a lot of other organizations if we're going to have any impact. So that kind of thinking, which is more complicated uh than just saying, you know, I'm just gonna focus on this thing, I'm just gonna do my thing as my organization, the best I can do, because we all kind of know that really can't tackle the very big thing. So that's the basic, basic idea behind it, Roger.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

And and in practice, how much does it end up being about organizations still seeing themselves as organizations, but sort of understanding their position in the wider ecosystem and what role they can play? And how much does it start to shift towards kind of breaking down some of the walls of existing organizations or even between sectors? Because it strikes me, if you're thinking about things at that systems level and kind of working across organizations and sectors to set that strategy, actually, maybe the lines that you've drawn around your organization start to become less and less relevant. Do you do you see that happening at all?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Well, I mean, you're right in a way, that's you know, that that's the sort of holy grail, that that um, you know, bigger everyone working together. I mean, we all know it's difficult. The the way that charities have to survive almost makes them compete against other charities. They're competing for funding, they're competing for to be noticed, and so on. And they find working difficult together sometimes difficult. So I think the number the one thing in the first bit you said, particularly when we work with charities, um, is to make them think of the the whole context uh that they're working in. What are what are the other players, what are other people doing, and therefore what can they do that can add value? Where maybe should they try and work with some of the organizations? And I think even if you get an organization thinking like that, that's very helpful. That's a big step. And then when they come to think what their organization should do, it will be in that context rather than kind of ignoring it, which I'm afraid happens too often. I think you can see some of those broader things. I think, particularly where you have place-based work, I think in those places where people where it's a geographical thing, people are sort of more likely to get that. And the other important thing is that funders can make some of this happen. And I mean, a kind of simple example I kind of like to use again in the homelessness area, it wasn't anything to do with some goes, but where some funders um felt that a particular geographical area um it wasn't being very effective on homelessness. And the truth was that the council was doing things, uh, some church-based groups were doing things, some smaller homelessness charities. And basically they just weren't joining up enough. And essentially what the funder did was to fund a post, uh a person, as it were, who essentially coordinated them all, collected the data, each day would work out who was who was presenting as homeless, who was the best person to take them on, whether you know somebody needed some more help that a different organization could give. Wasn't, you know, it wasn't kind of massively complicated, it wasn't massively sort of rocket science, but it it made the system work differently and more effectively. Um, and so I think in general, and and and funders can can do have a lot of power and they can do quite a lot to bring people together. But it is difficult. I mean, one's not kidding oneself. You get more of this kind of strategic philanthropy kind of changing the system in the states, or at least the bigger foundations talk about it a lot. Um, we have a bit less uh in this country, and I and we would like to encourage a bit more.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah, absolutely. I think you know it does always strike me that there probably is quite a lot of low-hanging fruit, particularly in a sort of local level or taking a place-based approach, just in terms of, as you say, joining the dots between things that are already happening, because often they are happening. It's just people don't know what everybody else is doing in that particular area. Um, so no, it's really interesting to hear that. Your mention there of the role funders can play. Um, it strikes me that there definitely is a role there and you and one can see what that is. But do you ever find or get a sense that there's still a barrier there in that there's there's a certain element of, for want of a better term, funder ego, which is, you know, that funders still like to have a sense that they can attribute the the uh the kind of the results that are being generated in terms of outcomes to their specific money or their specific intervention. And that actually to some extent that's a mindset that needs to be put to one side if you're genuinely going to work in a in a systems way.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

It's a good point. And I think you know, we we work with lots and lots of philanthropists and grant makers, and you have particularly on the philanthropy side, you do have to take into account uh, you know, that people want some feedback. And I mean, I, you know, I certainly, you know, we work with some very uh inspiring philanthropists who do buy a lot of this stuff, but they know partly what you said there, Rodri, about in a sense you'll never quite have attribution uh very directly. And also, of course, it will take a long time and it may not work. And even even philanthropists who basically want to fund that sign work sometimes also think a bit of their portfolio should go into something where they can see an immediate warm glow. You know, so literally they did give some money, the kids have now got some food, and they can see them getting the food, and they can see sort of an impact like that. And that you do have to have some things like that, otherwise it gets very difficult. I mean, system change almost by definition is difficult. The system has grown up the way it has, not because people are stupid or mad, but because they're facing all sorts of incentives. Um, the charities are, the public sector, different bits of the public sector are, it's why they don't all work together. Um, so it is difficult, but of course the payoffs are enormous if you can get it right. Uh, and you know, and then people have good lives rather than they have bad lives, and we try and pick up the pieces when they've fallen into difficult times. So, yeah, I mean, you know, one's got to be realistic. And, you know, again, I mean, working with lots and lots of funders over the years, you know, they come in all shapes and sizes. You know, some are very into this kind of more strategic kind of thinking, some are very uh responsive mode kind of funders. That's what they like doing, um, with not too much sort of due diligence and so forth. Um, and and I think the MPC view, you know, we'd like them all to be a bit more strategic, but but whatever kind you are, do it well. Do it, you know, you could be a bad responsive mode kind of funder, and you can be a good one and uh and think those things through. So, yeah, this this stuff's difficult. Um, but um I think a lot more people are thinking like this, particularly in the kind of place-based working. And and we would love, I mean, for instance, I mean to give another example, which is a bit depressing actually, given the spending review that we've had this week. I mean, you know, we've been arguing very strongly that the leveling up agenda, which is essentially trying to, well, it should be at least, trying to help uh more deprived uh areas, you know, should involve the social sector, that some of the funding should go to the social sector, the social sector locally should be involved in what on earth should be funded, it should join up with local philanthropy and so forth. Um, and we've not been getting a lot of answers back from government that they're up for that sort of thing. We hope now Michael Goves in touch in charge of all this and is leveling up white papers coming. We have we're told before Christmas we've got Danny Kruger, who knows the charity sector well as his P is his principal private secretary. Not his principal private secretary, he's parliamentary private secretary. But maybe we'll get some of that. Um and then and then we'll get system change in in, you know, leveling up should be about system change too.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah, absolutely. I'd I'd certainly like to to sort of circle back to talk about leveling up in in a little bit as well, in more detail. Um, it sort of brings us on to the the second area that you identified, because we've been talking a bit about um uh collaboration, because that's obviously an important part of working in a systems way. And one of the things that you identify as one of your five areas is around equitable collaboration, which I thought was really interesting. Because I think often collaboration is just presented as something that is inherently kind of obvious and good, even if not everybody always does it in the sector. But I think what you've teased out there, which is really interesting, is the idea that actually there are you know better and worse ways of doing collaboration and that they're not always that equal and that power within those collaborative collaborative relationships is not very well distributed. Um, why why is it do you think that the existing approaches that we have to to collaboration don't necessarily bring everybody to the table on an equal footing?

SPEAKER_00 16:12

No, I I mean you know, I think, you know, again, you know, you we're sort of pushing for better behaviors, but we're certainly not naive. And you know, size matters. Um, and when you get collaborations between smaller and larger organizations, which are hard even to start with, then the larger one usually kind of takes the lead. Um and you know, I think even the you know, doing doing the kind of thought experiment, just think about a collaboration where it's one of the smaller organizations that leads it, rather than the bigger one, and you kind of think, oh, that all feels kind of weird. Um, but often, you know, that's the right thing to do, particularly because the smaller organization will often be, you know, I'm generalizing here, but but it will often be a bit closer to the ground. It will um be closer to, if you like, lived experience, or it will know uh the particular area better. On the other hand, the larger organization will have kind of more capacity for kind of research, ability to advocate, um, to bring in knowledge from different places and all the rest of it. So you can get a very, you know, a very powerful collaboration there. Um it and it it but it is it is quite difficult. And and to some extent you're asking the larger organization to to not exercise its power, um, but also the smaller one to recognise, I think that you know, that there are benefits to the big ones. I mean, one of the things, Roger, that I've found in the sector frustrates me more than anything else is the sort of big charity versus small charity debate that goes on. You know, small charities on the whole think big charities are not very good or evil or somehow a little bit like private sector organizations, but with a kind of charity name. A lot of the big ones don't tend to say this publicly, talk to them privately, think a lot of the little ones aren't very good anyway, et cetera, et cetera. And this is absolutely ridiculous. Um, because you know we need both, uh, and they have pros and cons and all the rest of it. But when they work together, particularly in the kind of way I was saying, it's very, very powerful. Um, so I hope we'll see, we'll see more of that. Um, but people have got to be up for it, and both sides have to sort of play their role. And again, I would say that that funders can play some role in doing this because a lot of organizations say, you know, we'd love to collaborate um in different ways, but collaboration isn't easy. It does take some time, you know, and we don't get funded to do it, so we don't do it. And that seems a shame to me.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

And and what do you think it would take in terms of additional resources and infrastructure? You've said there, you know, funders can play a role just by making sure that they, you know, provide presumably the financial resources to allow the smaller organizations to have the time and space to do it. But but are there other things you need to put in place to help kind of manage some of those power dynamics effectively?

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Yeah, I think I think you do. I think, like in all collaborations, you have to have to some extent uh an understanding of why you're collaborating, you have a bit of a culture thing, um, and so forth. And you have to be careful too, because sometimes these things happen, you know, let's say the chief exec of each organization, I'm just talking about two at this minute, you get on fine, and they say, Oh, yes, we're gonna do this collaboration, and the rest of the team don't quite understand why they're doing it, they haven't really don't know their opposite numbers, and so forth. And then you might get a thin collaboration, doesn't really work, works for a little bit. But you know, it means even if you just collaborated, you say, look, we're just gonna do this for a year, we're focused on this issue, uh, you know, and then we'll see what happens after that. That's that would move you, move you forward. Um, I think I think one of the things has been interesting as well. I mean, that not only have we had COVID, which has kind of influenced out a lot of our thinking uh about how the sector needs to change, but we've obviously had the whole Black Lives Matter uh issue and a lot of more thinking about how do we support smaller, sort of black-led organizations um that may not have been going for very long and so forth. And and how can larger, they don't have to be enormous charities, how can they support them? And how can funders get funding through to them and so forth? And so I hope out of that maybe we'll get some more of these kind of collaborations. I think everyone has good will to make some of that happen, but you know, it's quite a change from the way things have been in the past.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Yeah, absolutely. And and it, I mean, it always strikes me, I think, with that collaboration as an additional element when you're talking about collaborating with groups or organizations that at least in part are there to sort of bring lived experience into the picture, because that's that's obviously hugely beneficial, but it does introduce kind of additional dimensions to some of the power dynamics. And I think there are sort of ethical considerations and things like that around how you do that in a meaningful way. Yeah, I mean, one thing I I wanted to ask actually, because reading all the stuff about equitable collaboration, it kind of struck me that it's close to a lot of the discussion around the use of participatory methods and sort of participatory grant making, which is obviously not just about organizations collaborating, but about bringing in individuals or communities with lived experience. Um, and I wondered whether that was something that you were kind of picking up as a trend among the funders that you you've been speaking to.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Yeah, no, I mean it's a good point, Rodri. I mean, you know, what I hope is happening, and I think we are seeing it on the whole, is the idea that grantmakers should sort of decide uh, you know, uh what they should fund and who they fund without some idea of what the actual people with lived experience, the potential users of the service or whatever want. Uh is crazy. Now, whether the grant makers do that or they uh are making sure that the charity that they're funding has done that, um, you know, it maybe doesn't matter. But you know, in the past we have had situations where, you know, actually talking to asking the opinions of the people, uh, the service, potential service users, the people suffering, what they actually want and so forth hasn't happened. And that is crazy. And I hope that is dying out. There's obviously Then there's much stronger participatory grant making where essentially you sort of hand over the money to the people with lived experience and say, you decide how to spend it. We're kind of not going to do that. And I think in some places, with certain pots of money, that is the right thing to do. I think it's been very interesting in the sort of uh sort of attempt to try and get more money to sort of um minoritized group-led uh organizations that some funders, realizing they don't really have that knowledge, have kind of given it to an organization that's a bit closer to the action, who knows those kind of groups and so on, and let them fund. And that's getting closer to that thing. Um, but I I wouldn't say it's always the right thing to do because I mean, you know, sometimes, and I I have experience on this in uh in public services, you know, through through other bits of my career, you know, where you've had situations where a local council felt a school was completely failing, and the kids, you know, and if if you if you have a bad experience at school, that's going to be with you for life. And they wanted to make major changes to the school, and the parents would sort of campaign against it because they kind of like the status quo. Was that would it have been the right thing to do what the parents said? No, it wouldn't have been. And so so you sometimes have to think about those other issues. But the general shift to saying we must take account of what uh the people with lived experience are saying, what they want is absolutely crucial. I mean, we've you know, we we see that more as well in evaluation. Uh, when you're evaluating a uh a funding stream or whatever, you know, there's lots of metrics you use, but one of them has got to be uh, you know, how did it feel for the people um who are experiencing it? So I hope that's a that's a change. It's taken quite a long time. It seems to me when I was still working in the public sector in government, that was starting to be a kind of mantra in public services. I'm not saying it's made it that far. And when I first came into the to the charity and philanthropy sector, I didn't hear that much of that, but I'm hearing a lot more of it now. So I'm optimistic. I'm in an optimistic mood this Friday afternoon, Rodri.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Oh, good to hear it. Excellent. And and you the mention you made there of evaluation, um, I thought it was interesting because one of the other areas that you focused on is um obviously measuring impact is something that's kind of at the core of a lot of what MPC does. Um, but I think you've sort of set that in the work that you're doing in Rethink Rebuild um against the backdrop of what seems to be a bit of a shift amongst the the mindset of funders towards taking more of a kind of trust-based approach and kind of you know focusing on things like core costs rather than programmatic funding. Um, and I think that the the interesting point that you made there, I thought, was that that shift towards trust-based funding is a positive thing, but in our haste to shift towards that and to shift power down to the people who are the traditional recipients of grant uh making and philanthropic funding, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that there is also a purpose to measuring impact. I mean, what what for you is is you thinking in terms of the the best balance of those two things? I mean, how do we kind of give away sufficient power and make sure we're not forcing measurement on people and constraining them whilst also making sure we're doing enough measuring to know that what we're doing is having an effect?

SPEAKER_00 25:11

No, I mean, you you can imagine that's something that uh that we we talk can think about quite a lot within MPC. I mean, you know, trust-based philanthropy, basically a good thing. You know, we've we've been very encouraging of some of the trends and we've encouraged them uh during COVID, where funders have have gone for core costs, which we've always advocated for. They've been less bureaucratic, they make the decisions quicker, and so forth. We also had a slight worry, and we do with trust-based philanthropy, but if it's going to be all about trust, there's a slight danger you keep funding the people you already trust and don't go for new people. And we had a slight worry that might happen during COVID. I think it happened a little bit because people wanted to get money out the door quickly, and the natural thing is that you fund the people you already know. Um, because you don't have to do due diligence or anything like that. So that's a slight danger. But I think, you know, what's worried me about the trust-based philanthropy is that some grant makers are thinking, thank God, all that stuff that we never really liked about impact measurement and understanding the impact on what we can give all that up. We go back to the traditional thing that the somehow all-knowing grant maker just basically decides, oh yes, I think this is a good charity because I've met them and they're really nice and I like them, and so we'll give them money. And we don't have to have uh any sort of idea of is the program actually working or not. And that is to let down the beneficiaries. I mean, you could be giving money away uh uh to organizations who are doing things that are really not having much impact or could have had a lot more impact if you've given it to someone else. So you've got to you've got to keep that going. Uh, but getting that balance right, um, you know, we we certainly mpc, what we, you know, we sometimes discover when we work with funders that they're asking for all this information, all this data, all this information, they don't use any of it. They don't use it in their learning or to uh to think about their new programs. Um, you know, they're just putting a burden on the charities. And, you know, often one of the best things to do is is is you you don't say to the charity, this is what you've got to report to us on. You say, How are you, oh charity, going to know whether it's working or not? What are the things you're gonna do? And they tell you, and you and you know, you're satisfied with that. Um quite frankly, if you think what they tell you is a load of rubbish, you probably shouldn't give them any money. Um so so getting getting that that burden twisted round, I think is is very important. But also, I mean, as we were saying before, Rodri, that that that that understanding whether that program's working or not, it's got to got to include in the whole process both what you're going to evaluate and how you do it. It's got to include the people with the lived experience. Doesn't mean that you stop uh doing some of your your other kind of analysis. Um, because as I say, the many a many a program, which if you ask the people, is it working, they'll say yes. And if you do the data analysis, you'll find actually no, very few of you got jobs, for instance, as a result of this scheme that wouldn't have got jobs otherwise. Um so you do have to be careful. But but you know, I I I think we can merge these two things. But so I'm a big fan of trust-based philanthropy, but I do have a worry that some people who never liked any of the impact stuff see it as an escape route.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Yeah, no, it's it's it's interesting because it's I think it, you know, as a narrative, it um obviously understandably has caught um pace um and because there's a lot of positive about it. But it's yeah, it's interesting to sort of point out that actually there there are some some downsides or some people, you know, potentially kind of interpreting that in a way that that risks missing out on some of the benefits of of measuring things properly. Um and certainly you you know you're saying there in terms of capturing data, organizations, even when they're doing that, aren't necessarily making use of it. One of the other areas that you talk about is is shared intelligence. And a lot of that to me, um seems to me, is about data and not just the kind of capture of data within individual organizations, but about how that is shared between organizations within the charity sector and I think in other sectors. Um, what's your kind of vision for how that can be done and what the benefits would be if we were sharing intelligence in that way?

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Yes, I mean, I think, and there's a lot of reasons for it, that the sector is pretty data thin for all sorts of reasons, nobody's fault particularly. So within within the sector, I mean, just an example, you know, charities, for instance, have no benchmarking data to know whether they're doing things, you know, at a at a higher cost per unit than other organizations, as an example. Uh, we have a real dearth of data that we share about where need is, where the money is already going. And therefore, you know, if you're a funder, where can you add some value? And but we found, I mean, this is encouraging, you know, when when COVID happened, one of the things we thought we could do with the sector, we did various things, uh, particularly aimed at funders who were coming to us as saying, I want to help, what should I do? And we published various things. But one of the things we did was basically put uh a lot of data together. Most of it was drawn from official sources, um, but some that was coming from charities. Um, and we just put it together and we put it out there so that people could have a look and see, you know, where did it the need seemed to be, where, as far as one could work out, was the funding already going and where who was being missed out. And there was an appetite for that. And I think I'm a great believer that the more information you have, the better decisions people will make, as long as they can, you know, they don't get submerged by it. So I I think all that kind of thing uh is tremendously helpful. And similarly, we don't have, it's quite hard to know how the sector's doing. Um, you know, we know that uh that the best data we have is the is the data that charity commission have that we all have to give as charities to the chat to the charity commission. But you know, uh NCVO do their very best with it in their almanac, but that's usually several years out of date by the time it comes out. Uh and there's only a limited amount of information you can get out of that. Uh, I think it would be very powerful if we knew more. So then, for instance, you know, we could have regular um updates on, you know, I don't know, how are how are charities doing in the southwest? How many have have grown in the last few years, what what kind of uh, you know, has it been more of early years ones than older people ones? And that would influence what charities did, it would influence what funders did, you'd get better resource allocation, all that kind of thing. And just the last thing, Rogi, I'm on a big splurge here when you get me on data. Um, government data. Government has tons of data, we, you know, administrative data in particular about us. Um, and that money, that that sorry, that data, you know, can be used by the sector in many ways. I mean, we've we've um pushed very hard on allowing that data to be used to help charities measure their impact in a very sort of cheap and easy way. And the Justice Data Lab, run by the Ministry of Justice, has been used by lots of charities who work in prisons to try and reduce free offending, to understand whether their programs are working or not. And we've been, we're in in current conversations with DWP about an employment data lab, and we've tried with health as well. And basically what that's doing is it's trying to let the sector, and not only the sector, other people too, have access to this longitudinal data, in other words, data over time, which allows you to know whether your program did mean those the children you work with were more likely to get better jobs or not likely to re-offend, or your working with them meant that they didn't turn up at the GP or AE so often and all the rest of it. And that's that's absolutely crucial for all of us. And it's frustrating that that data is all there, but we can't get access to it. So I think you know, we there's so much, and I think all of this data would help our sector be more impactful, which is what MPC is all about, of course.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

Yeah, absolutely. And it always strikes me with one of the odd things about philanthropy is I mean, because it's a one end it's all about kind of individuals and their decisions about where to give, and there it's sort of there's this kind of inherently irrational element to it. But then at a macro level, particularly for your policymaker, you sort of want it to be a relatively good means of redistributing resources, you know, between causes and geographic areas, and those two things don't match up. Actually, just the provision of information that that allowed people to see where those mismatches were might do some of the job of allowing them to kind of smooth out their own giving and allocate resources more effectively without having to force them, which I think is always the problem from the point of view of policymakers.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

No, I totally agree, Roger. And one of the things, you know, we're you know, we're a bit involved in in kicking off, and the founder is on our board, Fran Perrin, but 360 giving uh has been, you know, breakthrough, I think. Um, and you know, and I think it's encouraging that so many uh independent funders are putting their data there. Uh, you know, and that that has opened up uh a world of transparency uh and information sharing. So that's one example. And and I remember when Fran was starting that off and she wasn't quite sure would people sign up to it, et cetera, et cetera. Now she's quite a forceful personality, and I'm sure that's one reason it all happened. But you know, actually, you know, it just shows if you do push and you put a bit of resource into it, some of these things can happen.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yeah, absolutely. Um and and certainly in terms of um that sort of information about the the distribution on the on the geographic side, I mean, it brings us back, I think, to the what we were touched on earlier around leveling up because it, you know, part that's obviously a big government agenda, and part of that is about kind of making sure that money is allocated more fairly to areas that have sort of historically missed out on those. I want to come on to the you know what the role of uh philanthropy or the charity sector could be in levelling up. But do you think actually there's there's some sort of need to think about the the idea of whether we need to level up within the sector itself? Because it's obviously the sector has its own issues when it comes to uh kind of not being very equitably distributed geographically or in terms of where money goes in terms of causes. Is that something we need to address if we're going to make a case for for the sector being an important part of wider leveling up efforts?

SPEAKER_00 34:53

I think we do, I think we do, Rodri. And you know, um I gave a speech a couple of years ago on to the where are England's charities. And I mean, that was using charity commission data and trying to see where, you know, where is the the more charities per head of population? And it won't surprise you that they turned out to be to be less charities in more deprived areas. I mean, it's not a massive surprise um in a way, but I don't think we should just sort of say, well, you know, that's the way of the world. I think um I think the sector can do things about it. I think philanthropists and grant makers should at least look at where they're funding. And if if most of their money is is going into areas that are relatively prosperous already, they should at least think about that. And I think the 360 giving data really helps us look at that. I've argued that bigger charities should have a look and see where their footprint is if they've got uh branches all over the place and you know, say, hang on, are we uh are we got presence in some of these more difficult places? Um they then have some difficult issues because often the bigger charities, their local branches, will have grown up because there were volunteers or people who do fundraising. And they, you know, they're not necessarily in all the areas you'd want. So they've got to think, are they prepared to cross-subsidise a bit to get some of these things going? So I think you can see that. I've I was involved, I was a member of the charity tax commission uh a couple of years ago. And although I don't think I convinced my fellow members of the commission about it, I was playing around with how about gift aid being a bit more generous in more deprived areas if you go to more deprived areas and less generous if you were giving to the leafy streets uh and so forth. Um and then, of course, then there's government uh in terms of its giving out of its its money. And you know, I personally would have um in allocations to local authorities, to schools and so forth, um, I would have a much higher uh weighting on deprivation than we have at the moment. Um so there's lots of things that can be done. Um whether the leveling up agenda now is the is the answer, I don't know. I mean, the analysis we've done um and and and published, uh and we've been looking at what happened in the budget this week, you know, first of all suggests that the the map of, if you like, deprived areas and where the levelling up money is going are not the same. Um there's the the criteria for where the money goes has been designed in ways which gives a slightly weird spread of areas. And then, of course, at the moment, the levelling up money, coming back to our first theme in a way, is slightly about kind of tarting up the high streets and maybe giving you a new station or something, which is all very well and good, but it's not going to be sort of system-changing for those areas which need uh more sort of long-term funding about skills and education. But we've argued very strongly as well about supporting civil society, because that's a key kind of thing in building social capital as well as dealing with issues of homelessness and drug addiction and so forth, which which blight a lot of the sort of left-behind areas.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Yeah, absolutely. And in terms of that, I just wanted to pick up on it because I mean you made the point there that a lot of the focus in levelling up is on physical infrastructure at the moment. And though you've sort of um said at MPC that actually we need to think about you know the role of social infrastructure, some of which I guess is about the role of charities and and civil society organizations in the sort of wider social fabric. But as you mentioned there, there might actually be elements that are about new bits of infrastructure aimed at civil society itself. Do you have any sense of kind of what what those might be? Are they things that we've already got that we need more of, or are they sort of genuinely new things that are required?

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Well, I'm you know, I'm a big fan of kind of local capacity, um, you know, uh because you know, particularly in an area where you have lots of smaller charities, they do need some kind of organization to um bring them together, to kind of represent them to the local authority to health, all the rest of it. As we know, that funding, you know, a lot of that disappeared in the years of austerity. Uh local authorities who funded it sort of stopped doing it. Um the charities themselves couldn't kind of do it anymore. And that I think is uh it's been a problem. Um, and I think it's uh it's a false economy because it means that you know, one of the big assets you have in an area will be your civil society, your charities, your community groups, faith groups, all the rest of it. And if you're not harnessing them, um, you know, and it doesn't cost too much to harness them more, uh, you're missing something. I mean, it doesn't mean that you know charities do what charities do, and they can be difficult to work with. Um, they don't all agree with each other. Um uh and so it's not always the easiest thing. But I think it's it's it's been a crazy um uh you know absence of uh kind of using the sector. And I still think government doesn't think about that enough. But also, I mean, you know, personally, I would like to see the leveling up money that given much more, first of all, I decide it more on deprivation. Secondly, I would tend just to give it to those areas. I might argue, tell them that they need to have some kind of framework that involves not only the local authority but some of the other groups together, and let them decide what their area needs, because you know, we all know, even in civil society, you know, what some places need is not the same as what another place needs. And the idea that you can decide that in some competition run from Whitehall, which is essentially what's happening in the leveling up at the moment, uh, strikes me as daft and it will lead to uh a waste of a lot of the resources. So I hope, you know, as I say, we've got a new man in charge of the whole leveling up agenda in Michael Gove, he's usually pretty imaginative sort of guy. We've got some quite good, got good um uh, you know, junior ministers and and and assistants around in there. We've got Andy Haldane who's helping out, who's um done quite a lot of speeches about the sector in in recent times. So, you know, fingers crossed, maybe we'll we'll see a different approach, which which understands um, you know, that if you're really going to get leveling up that means something in the long term, you've got to build your social capital, your civil society as well as mending, you know, tarting up the high stream.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Yeah, absolutely. And and you certainly I agree there's sort of reason to be to continue to be you know optimistic and and sort of pragmatic about these things. I guess in uh it brings me on to a thought about the the sort of wider question of the relationship between government and civil society and the sector here in the UK, which is, you know, in the time even that I've been working in this, um, you know, it fluctuates, but in general, there's always a sense that people, people on the sector side wish that the government kind of understood them better and did more for them, and probably on the other side a frustration that the sector seemed so disparate and kind of speaking with a thousand different voices. Having come from working, you know, both in government and in opposition yourself, what's your take on that situation? I mean, do you how much responsibility do you think there is on politicians and policymakers to kind of make more effort to understand philanthropy and civil society? And how much should there be on the sector to kind of explain itself better?

SPEAKER_00 41:47

I mean, I I I think you know that there's there's there's kind of blame on both sides. I mean, I do think it's a shame that the current government um and and for a while after the big society thing kind of slightly imploded in the early years of David Cameron, there's there's not been it's not been sort of hostile. There's a bit of that in more recent times to do with sort of the culture wars and stuff. Um, but it's not been massively close. And I think that's a shame. I mean, I think in the years I worked in government, for instance, Gordon Brownman, who's prime minister, had the Council on Social Action, which David Robinson, big figure in the charity sector, chaired. And there were things like that going on. And I worked in various departments, like education, and we work quite closely with quite a lot of the charities. Even when I worked on sort of trade policy in the department of trade and industry, we talked to a lot of the NGOs. And I think a lot of that went, I think it's a shame because there's tons of knowledge in the sector about what's going on on the ground, and and governments and Whitehall officials, everyone should want to be absorbing that all the time. I mean, so I think, and I I gave a speech at our annual conference a couple of weeks ago, and the bits that got reported, not surprisingly, is where I had a bit of a go at government and said, look, you know, we're here, we can, you know, we'll always be independent and so forth. And we're going to say what we think, but you know, we can it help with some of your agendas, and instead you're sort of, you know, you've given you tucked us away in DCMS, the wrong department. You've given them some minister, quite a nice guy, but he's got sport and tourism to do as well. Um, the Office of Civil Society's gone. Um, uh, you know, you don't really take us very seriously, and you attack us on culture wars and and all the rest of it. And that's it, it, you know, you're overdoing it. But on the other side, the sector has got to understand the political reality of uh of governments. And also we can't just say, we're civil society, you should listen to us. We've got to show we are in touch with the grassroots. We do have evidence for what we say, we're not just a bunch of moaners, um um, you know, but we should be involved in the conversations. And and I think so, I think it's a bit on on both sides, and I you know, I hope that will change. Um, but you know, if you want to be sort of you know depressed. About it. I mean, I was slightly surprised. I mean, I was involved in times uh over kind of budget speeches and some and so forth. Sometimes, you know, you'd look at a draft budget speech and you'd say, Oh, you know, who isn't going to like that? And you think, oh, they that's that lot, they're not even mentioned. You think, well, you just put a sentence in to mention them, and then they'll be quite happy. We could have had just a sentence in that budget speech, which is a very long speech, but just said, and of course, we recognize what civil society did during COVID. That's why we gave them 750 million. I know that a lot in the sector think that wasn't enough, but you know, you could have said that, and we we look forward to working with them in the future. That's all you needed just to recognise we existed and we got nothing. And I think that is that just kind of shows that that there's no one even politically um even thinking oh we ought to say something nice about the sector. So that that's a bit disappointing. I I mean, I hope things will change, and as I say, there's you know, there's been some changes in personnel, and that that may be good news.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Yeah, absolutely. I think and it, you know, the reality, as you say, is that it uh to some extent there is obviously quite a large dependence on personnel on both sides as well. I think you know there's been a lot of turnover of personnel um on the political side, but also within the sector. A lot of the sort of long-standing figures, particularly in the infrastructure bodies, have moved on. Um and you know, there's sort of a period of transition and flux like that, obviously requires people kind of rebuilding relationships. So it'll be interesting to see what the what the future brings. Um listen, Dan, it's been great to have a chance to to chat to you on the podcast. Before I let you go, um I just wanted to give you an opportunity if there's anything particular you want to flag up that MPC's got coming up. Um, I'll obviously put links uh in the show notes to the Rethink Rebuild work and and uh the website where people can find more information. But if there's anything specific you want to flag up, yeah, no, um no, no, thanks, Rodri.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

And I a lot of the the things we've talked about, we've got sort of strands of work sort of following them up. I mean, I think the other interesting thing, we've always tried to sort of push ahead on philanthropy itself. And I've a few years ago we published um uh quite an influential paper which was called 10 innovations in philanthropy, trying to kind of look ahead to how philanthropy was going to change and and looking back on it, it wasn't too bad, but it also created some big discussions. We've got a kind of new program that's called Open Philanthropy that in some ways is is picking up quite a lot of what we've talked about and trying to say how can philanthropy can become more open and sharing and transparent and working together and so forth. And I think that's gonna be a really exciting bit of work. We've actually uh appointed someone to to kind of lead on that who starts in the new year. Um, and I think that's gonna that's that's an exciting program. So, you know, there's always tons of stuff happening at MPC, you know, get get on our mailing list, et cetera, et cetera, if you want to know. Um, but that's a particularly uh interesting program uh coming up.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Great. Well, I'll make sure I put some information where people can find that as well. Um just remains to say uh thanks ever so much for coming on the podcast. Great to have the chance to chat. Um and I'm sure you know at some point in the future I might try and get you on and we can kind of catch up on where these discussions have have gone to. Lovely, lovely, Roger.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

I've I've enjoyed it. Thanks for having me. Great.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

Okay, great. Well, my thanks again to Dan for coming on the podcast. Uh, it was great to have a chance to talk to him. I'll put links in the show notes to places where you can find a bit more information about some of the things that he was mentioning that NPC had been doing and some things that I've written about similar topics. If you want to find out more, do check out the website for the podcast, which is philanthropisms.com. You can find all the previous episodes there and an email where you can get hold of me. If you do want to do that and give some ideas for things that we could talk about on future episodes of the podcast or people that maybe I could talk to and interview, drop us a line at that email address. You can follow me on social media in various different guises at Rogery underscore h underscore Davis on Twitter, also at Philiteracy if you want more sort of stuff on the theory and history of philanthropy, and also there's a Twitter handle for the podcast itself, which I'm sure you can find. Other than that, just like, subscribe, tell all your friends about it, um, do spread the word to people that you think might be interested in listening to the podcast, and I will see you next time. Bye.