The third sector is in crisis. The pandemic has caused a change in the way we live our lives. It has drastically reduced income for third sector organisations leading to huge job losses, it has created more demand for services than ever before, and the stresses of this. It is a perfect storm for the transformation of the third sector.
There are many problems, depending on your point of view, but I think one of the deep systemic issues that lead to many other criticisms are that organisations are too focused on themselves and the sector is slow to adapt to change.
The Charity Commission's rules on what makes a charity state that, "Your organisation’s ‘purpose’ is what it is set up to achieve... to be a charity your organisation must have charitable purposes only. It cannot have some purposes that are charitable and some that are not." (Charity Commission, 2013). This tells charities that they have a legal obligation to look inwards, protect their own resources, focus on their individual mission. This is just one example (there are more) of the mindset that subtly compels organisations to prioritise their own (perceived) needs ahead of those of the sector, society or the whole world.
If the mission of all third sector organisations was to first 'make the world better'; to save the planet, tackle the inequalities in society, etc... before then attending to their individual mission, then we'd see a very different third sector.
Sector transformation doesn't need a strategy. A strategy requires a single coordinated vision and centralised control. The sector doesn't need that. It needs different thinking. So, instead of a strategy, the sector needs a stigmergy.
A stigmergy is a "mechanism of spontaneous, indirect coordination between agents or actions, where the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a subsequent action. Stigmergy enables complex, coordinated activity without any need for planning, control, communication, simultaneous presence, or even mutual awareness. The resulting self-organization is driven by a combination of positive and negative feedbacks, amplifying beneficial developments while suppressing errors" (Heylighen, 2015).
Originally a term was used in biology, and then the early 90's saw the notion applied to other self-organising systems. Soon it became a useful model in a number of fields that attempt to understand self-organisation including artificial intelligence. A stigmergy offers an understanding or how to enable a self-organising movement to create change where no single vision for that change can either be agreed or coordinated. It offers a different way to consider change from our tendency to regard change as successful when everyone has agreed, actioned and conformed to the same change. It allows us to consider our notions of change more diversely and encompassing a range of actions, opinions and attitudes, to accept that perhaps change can be different in different circumstances but still be considered successful.
How can a stigmergy be created? Easy. Accept a diverse range of voices, opinions, ethics, values. Even those that at first glance appear in conflict with others. Don't allow a single voice or opinion to dominate. Don't look to leaders to make change happen. Avoid leadership in all it's forms. Do lots of different things. Collaborate. Share. Co-create. Encourage everyone to look and listen to what is happening across the sector. Let simple, and even unconscious, 'rules' emerge from the actions and interactions people have. Let actions be seen by others, and responded to, creating feedback for the actors, and driving more action. From this others are inspired to act, to do their thing, sometimes in concert, sometimes in conflict. The positive actions, those that the sector accepts and amplifies through feedback loops gain ground whilst those attempts that fail become diminished and lost.
But...
Pandemic times have shown us that our society that prides itself on individualism (Hofstede, 2020). Every person that went to a crowded beach or didn't wear a mask in a shop did so because they live in a society that, even if it doesn't say so explicitly, values individual rights over collective responsibility.
Third sector people and organisations are no different. Individualism is ingrained in everyone one of us, every organisational strategy, every decision that each employee takes. It is how we have been trained to think. The Charity Commission's rules on what makes a charity state that, "Your organisation’s ‘purpose’ is what it is set up to achieve... to be a charity your organisation must have charitable purposes only. It cannot have some purposes that are charitable and some that are not." (Charity Commission, 2013). This tells charities that they have a legal obligation to look inwards, protect their own resources, focus on their individual mission. This is just one example (there are more) of the mindset that subtly compels organisations to prioritise their own (perceived) needs ahead of those of the sector, society or the whole world.