Everybody owns the great ideas
I’m writing this from a hotel room in the Financial District of New York, on a damp grey morning that’s not sure if it’s the tail end of winter or the first shoots of spring emerging.
I’m lucky enough to be in one of my favourite cities in the world for a global philanthropy conference — here to mix with some of the world’s most progressive philanthropists.
What do I — a geek who’s spent the last two decades working in the plumbing of the nonprofit sector around the tools and tech of measurement, evaluation, research and learning, data, digital — have to share with this exclusive group of wealth holders?
For once, I know exactly what I need to say. And (fairly bizarrely) it’s also something that Guy Garvey — lead singer of the band Elbow — has already said in a song. And aptly enough, a song entitled New York Morning. It’s almost as though I’ve been waiting for this moment and this event to write this piece…
It’s a great song — I don’t think you’ll regret having a listen. Here’s why it matters to me.
It’s a song about the multiculturalism of New York — the many voices and people who built the city, and who inhabit it today. It’s about the value of that pluralism, and what it can achieve. And I know its lyrics weren’t written about the ownership of ideas and knowledge and insight in the social justice world — the nonprofit sector — but…
The first time I heard them, they lodged in my soul. And never unstuck.
“The first to put a simple truth in words
Binds the world in a feeling all familiar
’Cause everybody owns the great ideas
And it feels like there’s a big one round the corner”
For at least the last decade of my career in the social sector, I’ve been deeply uncomfortable with the ownership of ideas. Of knowledge. Of insight.
The first decade was all about impact measurement. Help organisations gather evidence of their impact. To learn and improve. To show they work. To hold themselves accountable. All great in theory.
But what I saw as a result was organisations amassing intellectual property. Their model. Their unique approach. Their USP. Their case for support. In a competitive funding market — their competitive advantage.
So if you have something that works, that’s your edge. So you can beat the competition.
In a universe with enough resource going into social justice to address all the challenges, maybe that works. But in our universe, with a massive mismatch between resource and demand, it can NEVER work. Even the most financially successful organisations can’t beat the maths — they can’t succeed even if they attract ALL the resources.
But as time has passed, and I’ve learned — too slowly, I know — I’ve realised that even this logical argument isn’t the right one. The important point here is that nonprofits only exist on behalf of those they aim to serve. They can’t own, they can only steward.
Everybody owns the great ideas.
If a mentoring charity finds through research there’s a minimum duration and frequency required for a mentoring relationship to bear fruit, EVERY mentor needs to know. As does every mentee.
If a philanthropist finds that they’re unearthing opportunities for impact during their landscape reviews and strategy processes, EVERY funder and charity could benefit from that insight being shared. So they can all coordinate better.
If a signposting and referrals platform finds that young people with mental health issues are looking for help to tackle the causes — perhaps to shape their lives around well-being — rather than just looking for services to address the symptoms, WE ALL need to know. And funders, charities and governments need to respond.
How can we be accountable to those we aim to serve unless we make sure that knowledge is a public good, not a private asset? Look in our legal governing documents and it says that our job is the public good — public benefit.
So everybody owns the great ideas.
You don’t. I don’t. We all do.
And that has to mean that it’s philanthropy’s job to build the conditions, the incentives, the infrastructure to make this happen.
Philanthropy is for the Commons.
There’s a lot of talk about shifting power in philanthropy. I’m all for it. And examples of meaningful shifts happening — to more participatory grant-making. To greater diversity and inclusion in philanthropy’s practices. But here’s my challenge — how do we avoid these being no more than tweaks around the edges? And even worse, tweaks that distract us from the real transformation that we urgently need?
If philanthropy really helps build the Commons, it will build the space in which nonprofits and communities can come together and take control. Can take collective ownership. Can shift the power for themselves. Can build solidarity, shared knowledge and shared purpose.
What exactly will this look like — philanthropy for the Commons? I don’t know in practice, but I want to spend the rest of my career learning what works, based on the pretty clear principles we know are right.
Assume EVERYTHING is open. Explain why it sometimes can’t be. Operate as stewards of the collective good. Incentivise solidarity. Encourage union and Unions. Not division and competition.
Know that alone we all fail.
Hope that together we all succeed. As a wise friend said, all of us are smarter than one of us.
Work out in practice how open everything can be.
Knowledge
Insight
Learning
Opportunities
Priorities
Decisions
’Cause everybody owns the great ideas
And it feels like there’s a big one round the corner
