Monthly Archives: December 2014

0 Relationships in Community and Marketplace

This post is a deeper  reflection on a comment  I received in a recent post about needs assessments.  A question raised was about my use of the word ‘client’ and the comment made the point we should be aiming for active citizens and not clients (who have things done to them).

Community

Whilst this post will clarify terminology, there is an underlying issue about the types of relationships we build either in real life community organisations and marketplaces or online.

I want to challenge the idea of community.  It is a word that apparently has over 100 meanings and in my experience its use is generally misleading.

For example, I avoid using “community” when I mean a geographical area, preferring “neighbourhood”.  “Community” implies relationships within a neighbourhood and in my experience these are often ideals projected onto a neighbourhood.  These days I prefer to substitute “marketplace” for community.  A thriving marketplace is evidence of a strong community.  If there is no unstructured place where people can naturally meet, then it is difficult to see how there can be community.

Community arises from the interactions in a marketplace and does not existing independently of it.

Active Citizens

So, active citizens are  equally those found behind the stalls in a marketplace and those setting out their stall by offering products, services or leadership to further a cause.  Voluntary or charitable activity happens in marketplaces, if only because the market is where they find support.

Clients

Perhaps at the other extreme, there is the client.  The client has no direct voice in the delivery of the service they receive.  Usually clients are the beneficiaries of services financed from elsewhere.  Accountability is to the funding body or donors.  Clients may provide feedback but changes to the service must be agreed with the funding body.  Services for clients usually collapse when the funding runs out because the clients are not organised.

Customers and Consumers

Another word used to describe relationships is customer.  This word has suffered from right-wing rhetoric.  First, it is a better word than consumer, which implies the role is to consume and requires no relationship.  Any business person knows the difference.  A customer is a relationship built over time, and a customer will return and make more purchases because they trust the business.  Consumers make one-off purchases and then disappear.  Whilst their money might be welcome, there is no ongoing relationship.

I purchased a suite (sofa plus armchair) about 20 years ago.  I still receive mailings by post from the business who produced it.  I have never responded but at the least it means I remember their name and might recommend them to others.  Presumably some people do respond to their mailings.  They see me as a customer after all these years.

Prospects

Another relationship important to businesses is the prospect.  These are people who have expressed interest but have not committed to a purchase.  They can support a business they like even if they never make a purchase, by spreading the word.  The aim though is to build a relationship and hope trust will lead to the prospect becoming a customer.

Customers and prospects have a say in the business.  Their needs (and wants) are important to the business and the best businesses will respond to them.  They develop new products and services in response to feedback from customers and prospects.  This is not the same as a client relationship because there is direct interaction.  Of course the business is not a democratic organisation.  The owners make their own decisions about the products and services they develop but they depend upon their customers and prospects to inform those decisions.

Consultors

Another word I use is “consultor”.  This is a particular relationship between a consultant and their customer.  Some consultants treat their customers as clients.  They will always need feedback from them but they are there to deliver expertise their customer lacks.  For non-directive consultancy, however, the starting point is the consultor has the expertise.  The role of the consultant is to help them think through their problems.  Sometimes, for example, a problem has an emotional dimension and the consultor needs someone who is not emotionally involved to help them see things in a different light.

So, some of these are roles an active citizen might choose.  They might choose to be a prospect, customer or consultor, because they need to take part in something.  They are less likely to choose the role of client or consumer, although they are roles we might take on where nothing much is at stake.

Do you use other words to describe relationships?  Let me know in the comments.

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0 A Look Inside a Needs Assessment Questionnaire

Last Thursday, I explained why needs assessments are helpful and today I shall review my needs assessment questionnaire. Check out my description of what my needs assessment involves. You will see where the questionnaire fits into the assessment. Next time I shall discuss how I deliver the assessment.

The current questionnaire is daunting. It has nine sections and aims to trigger deep thinking about the organisation. Follow completing the questionnaire with a conversation; it is not necessary to complete all the questions before the conversation. Often in conversation new ideas emerge and sections that started difficult can become easier to complete.  Some organisations may not have previously met anything like this and so may need more support.

Here is a brief description of the nine sections of my questionnaire:

Web Presence

The consultant will want to review the organisation’s current web presence and so needs the details of everything the organisation has online. Be aware of likely issues such as the current site controlled by a previous designer. A surprisingly common problem that may need to be resolved before the client changes their site.

Personnel

This section helps picture the people involved with the organisation and the skills or experience they can offer to its online work. Most organisations need to build their capacity to maintain their web presence, and this helps assess their current capacity and potential to develop it.  Some organisations will want to develop their own site and others will need to maintain a site developed for them.

The questions cover the skills of people who are directly involved and whether there are others who might be invited to be involved with the website, eg as guest bloggers.

Marketing Plan

This section reviews  aims and objectives, hopes and fears, frustrations with performance, etc.

The aim is to encourage deeper reflection about the organisation and what it wants to do online.  Many organisations want a website and have given little thought to what they need it for and often find they do not appreciate what their site can do for them.

Development Plan

This section is about finance and the organisation’s aspirations. Many organisations focus on balancing their current accounts and this section invites them to consider what they would do if their income increased significantly beyond their current expenditure. This is an important question because it can unearth aspirations that would otherwise remain obscure. With such objectives stated, it may be possible to include them in the objectives of the organisation. They are not always so expensive and it may be possible to meet them, at least in part, with lower income.

Products and Services

Products and services are things to sell or give away. A product  can be replicated and sold to many people. Tailor services to the needs of each customer. Both products and services can be real life or online.

This section goes into a lot of detail about the information the organisation owns. Many organisations have material they can turn into products and skills they can turn into services and they are not aware of the potential of what they own. Some organisations may be sitting on a goldmine. Others may be able to generate modest income online, supplementing their work. It is important to make sure this work progresses the organisation’s wider aims. Money is a means to an end and not an end in itself.

Some organisations may want to give stuff away and do not need an income. There are pros and cons to this approach. It needs to be considered in the wider context of the organisation’s objectives.

Market

To design your web presence, you need to be as clear as possible about your market. Some organisations have a membership list and / or a list of web subscribers. These contacts will not only join purchase products and services, they will also pass on information to friends and other contacts. This is why it is important to add stimulating material to the website, as this will appeal to new contacts.

These questions cover the current contacts the organisation has as well as potential contacts they have yet to reach.

Partners

Partners are organisations who support or might support the organisation’s work. These questions cover current partners, potential partners and competitors.

Communications

These questions assess capacity to communicate with market and partners; including mailings lists, which can be stored in a variety of media and covers social media.

Equipment

This is about equipment organisations can use to develop products and services.

This summarises my current needs assessment questions. My plan is to review them in the near future. There are other systems which might have a better fit to my market. Next time I shall explain how I use these questions and alternative options for their use.

0 Third Sector Organisations in the Marketplace

Funding is a major issue for Third Sector organisations unless they have sufficient reserves to keep themselves going, increasingly problematic where there are low interest rates.

The main sources are either donations or grants. Dependency on donations puts an organisation into a particular market and I have discussed how to build a website for donations in some detail.

Grants have many advantages but also significant disadvantages. They are a significant industry in their own right, and with the recession many groups are finding it increasingly difficult to get access to continuing funding.

So, another approach is to trade and this can present problems for third sector organisations. There are three main issues found  in many third sector organisations. Successful organisations work out how to transcend these problems.

“We’re Not a Business!”

I’ve heard this several times in recent months. It may be a UK mindset because in other countries businesses and community organisations are natural allies. Many of the techniques used to generate and implement ideas, were developed by church, community and industry; sharing, developing and sharing again many familiar techniques such as brainstorming.

If you don’t think you’re a business then you don’t act like a business. So, for example, a group opposed to business may think it is competing with businesses and so, bizarrely, third sector organisations can be unnecessarily aggressive in the marketplace. This might be expressed as moral superiority but the result is they are not trusted by business people who generally work by building relationships.

Of course, there are businesses out there that haven’t understood how relationship building is at the centre of any successful business. The community group that encounters such businesses will have its prejudices reinforced. But the rule is to build alliances wherever you can.

But it is not only that third sector organisations don’t think like businesses, they seem to be less driven than businesses. Members are not personally dependent upon making sales to pay their bills. Paid staff, whose income is from grants are resigned to moving on when the money runs out. Most volunteers have their own sources of income.

An organisation whose members have no personal financial incentive is not going to work in the marketplace. This is why the retail co-operatives were so successful; everyone could see how the co-op would be of direct financial benefit to their household.

“We’re Ethical and They’re Not!”

Yes, some businesses are not ethical and they make the news headlines. Whether they are individuals who con people or massive corporations, salting away the country’s finance in offshore accounts, we definitely hear about them.

But many businesses are ethical. For a start many people who set up businesses are driven by ethics. They may find they have to compromise their ideals but at least they’re trying. Others perhaps start out with a more pragmatic approach and then learn from experience that an ethical stance is pragmatic.

The problem in the third sector is the idea that we’re ethically superior because we’re volunteers. The cause may be ethical but the means used to support the cause are not always squeaky clean.

Occupying the moral high ground is not a good place to start. If you want to take part in the marketplace, you have to make deals and any business will want to know what’s in it for them. Successful business people get dozens of requests for help. They will be interested where there is mutual benefit. They will never do anything that does not benefit their business and especially they will not enter alliances with people who might inadvertently draw them into ill-repute.

So, a poorly run small community organisation will not get support from business because businesses will not see them as a viable concern.

“We’re the Community!”

Oh dear! I want to know who I’m talking to. You might be an organisation but I do deals with people not organisations. I know how seductive and stupid organisations can be. I’m not going to make a deal with a genuine person who might be replaced by a charlatan at the next AGM.

You might be a member of a community organisation and your officers might be drawn from the neighbourhood. Self-help is respectable but any business will want to see evidence that as a group you can manage your affairs.

If it’s not clear who is in charge and will be in charge over during the collaboration, then you will need to work harder to show you can honour the agreement. If it is a named person then the personal integrity of that person is important, just like the business owner’s integrity on the other side of the deal.

The reason the world does not owe the community self-help group a living is because the group has to prove itself. Declaring that I (or we) am (or are) going to do something is not the same as doing it!

It is much easier to do deals with real people who have a track record and are no more likely to melt down than a small business. There are alternatives, where leadership is more diffuse but also reliable, see for example Citizens’ Organising, but they still have to prove they can deliver.

Being the community is not an advantage. It is a circumstance thrust upon a group of people because they have no other choice. The social entrepreneur will show what they can make of such circumstances.

If you enjoyed this post, you can sign up to my email list at the top of the right-hand column. You will receive a weekly summary of my posts, an email sequence about community development and occasional emails about community development online.

0 Third Sector Ideologies

I’ve reviewed several common tropes in third sector thinking; its anti-capitalism, inclusion agenda and dependence on grants. One underlying theme is an emphasis on ideology.

There are many attractive ideologies in the third sector and they drive the agendas of highly effective organisations. Pragmatism might be a good way to get things done but perhaps a few ideals will keep you going during the difficult times.

The problem is not with any particular ideology so much as a tendency to build on ideologies. Where what you believe becomes more important than what you do, problems are likely to set in.

Ideology and Business

There have been news items about businesses that won’t serve gay couples because they are Christians businesses and genuinely believe it’s wrong to do so. They are allowing a particular ideology to run their business. They may represent themselves as victims of discrimination against Christians even though it is they who are discriminating.  Whilst I don’t doubt they are sincere in their beliefs they are profoundly wrong about Christianity and business.

There are many Christians who have no problem with gay couples.  Business is about building positive relationships and so using it to exercise power sits awkwardly with business objectives.  Whilst a business may be well advised to have a clear image of their target market, it is not an exclusive image.  A Christian business might target Christians as its main customers but this should never exclude them from trading with others.  How else do you find new markets?

The market is essentially inclusive and so an ideologically driven business will be on a hiding to nothing. Ultimately, you have a market and you meet its needs. That’s what businesses are for.  You can specialise in a particular market without discriminating but businesses must be open to all if they wish to grow.  The same applies to third sector organisations.

Third Sector and Ideology

Sublimated power is the core issue where ideologies are at play. The world has to be made to be as your ideology suggests it should be. Participation in a third sector organisation allows people to find a space to exercise power without testing their ideas in the real world.  We’ve all seen the good idea tied to the whim of a single charismatic person, unable to allow their organisation to make its own way.  Exercising this kind of power is no good for the individual or their organisation.

The need to collaborate in business means ideological considerations become something of a luxury. This can of course lead to other issues. It does not mean businesses can do anything they like; a lack of any ethical scruples can be destructive. One way to do this is through regulation, where governments decide the bottom line. That way regulation is something people can vote for. It may be onerous for some businesses but at least they can make their case.

0 How Do Localised Economies Work?

It’s almost impossible to answer the question: how do localised economies work? Real-life businesses trading, prove what works.  We discover what works by doing it and what works in one place may fail in another.

However it is worth making a few observations.

Three Dimensions

Localised economies operate in three dimensions: grassroots, online and politically through regulation.

Grassroots

The act of trading has always been a grassroots activity. You make yourself known to your market and provide goods and services to that market. The big advantage of local trading is that it is easier to build trust. However, not all businesses can survive solely by trading locally.

Many small businesses provide specialist products and services to larger businesses and in this sense the economy is one system. There is always both a localised economy and a larger globalised economy. The problem is where the power lies. Clearly the big companies are going to dominate financial arrangements with smaller businesses.

Regulation

The traditional approach is through regulation. Everyone complains about regulation and most political parties are sceptical about it. I think we need to appreciate what regulation does for the economy. Here are two advantages to regulation:

1. Regulation protects the consumer. The retail co-operative movement started partly in response to food adulteration. Food needs to be properly labelled and contain what it claims to contain. Big companies fight to stop regulation that would oblige them to place health warnings on packaging for example. Restrictions on the retail of tobacco and alcohol are other examples. And how else are countries going to cut their carbon footprint?
2. Regulation protects small businesses from exploitation by big businesses. I suppose this is the concept of the level playing field. Legislation protects a small business entering into a contractual arrangement with a powerful business. This applies to consumers as much as it applies to business arrangements. Also businesses can voluntarily enter into arrangements regulated through legislation. Co-operatives protect their assets when they are regulated through legislation. The demutualisation of building societies during the 1980s demonstrates the inadequacies of the current regulations. The marketplace has its share of sharks and small businesses and consumers need protection.

Collaboration Online

The other way local economies mitigate the aggressive behaviour of large businesses is through collaboration online. Mostly businesses go online to extend their market. This might be by local publicity, so encouraging more people to visit their shop. But it can be by selling online, whether it is products or services. Opening up to a national or global market might help some small businesses finance their local operations. But even where they don’t aim to trade locally, the finance they earn can be spent locally.

There are other ways local businesses can collaborate online:

The retail co-ops were successful because they targeted the disadvantaged new working classes. They were a highly effective self-help and inspired many experiments carried out by those who had little to lose.  Ideas were it seems, communicated from place to place with little mediation.

A Role for Community Development?

The problem for many small businesses is time. They need to devote their working hours to their business and collaboration becomes a luxury they can’t afford unless there are clear financial benefits. An alternative would be for some sort of mediation, that helps businesses to build their local economy. Perhaps this is a role for community development workers, although traditionally few have taken on this challenge.  I suppose this is working with the wealthy whilst community development tends to be targeted at disadvantaged communities. But how effective has this traditional approach been?

Now that the days of large-scale grants are behind us, how can we look again at what local economies can offer?