Cannibalism and Competition in Civil Society Organizations
The Future of Associations in Today’s Society (Part 2 of 3)
Leaving the traditional ideal associations with their core values of democracy and voluntariness behind, new forms of organization in Civil Society have emerged: the Non-Governmental Organization with its professional management and marketing and grassroots initiatives and booster clubs with differentiated, narrow scope and purpose. But do they make the cut?
TLDR: NGOs offer flexible plug-in engagement combined with professional management and brand marketing. Their members get to be part of the NGO’s global impact, but lose any participation in decision-making of the organization. Grassroots initiatives have short-term, specific goals and terminate when their purpose is fulfilled. They align with ideal associations when their purpose is taken into an long-term-aimed booster club. These new forms of civil society organizations endanger the role of associations in our society and their popularity comes at a cost. Associations have to adapt and change to regain fit to the needs of our changing society.
This is the second part of a mini-series, I am writing alongside my research in organizational innovation within German Civil Society at the Technical University of Munich. In this second part, I’ll have a look into what other forms of Civil society organizations then associations have emerged in Germany over time. I discuss what issues of associations they fix at which costs.
Part 1: Changing Engagement of a Changing Society (read here)
Part 2: Cannibalism and Competition in Civil Society Organizations (this post)
Part 3: The Community Canvas — How to build Community in today’s Society
As discussed in the first part of this mini-series, ideal associations in Germany do have two core values: Voluntariness and Democracy. These values emerge in the two governing bodies of associations: The board, consisting of members voluntary engaging more than others, and the general members’ meeting that ensure democratic decision making. As also mentioned before, these values imply a dilemma: Either associations are stuck in amateurishness for relying on voluntary engaged leadership, or they loose their democracy while professionalizing and hence oligarchizing management.
Two forms of organization in Civil Society seem to avoid these dilemma and are successful with their practice: NGOs and grassroots initiatives.
Non-Governmental Organizations
Some organizations of the Nonprofit Sector have been working internationally for over a decade, e.g. Red Cross or Anti-Slavery organizations. After the Second World War, many international and national advocacy organizations in the fields of human rights, humanitarian aid, anti-war and social justice emerged in Europe and North-America and took professionalism to a whole new level. These NGOs describe the purpose of their activities as to “perform a variety of service and humanitarian functions, bring citizen concerns to Governments, advocate and monitor policies and encourage political participation through provision of information” (Executive Committee of NGOs, 2002). NGOs gained momentum during the environmental and peace movements of the 1970s and additionally spread in the fields of environment, freedom of speech, animal rights, development, disease control, and anti-corruption. At the end of the Cold War and collapse of the block confrontation in 1990, new NGOs mushroomed all over the world (Union of International Associations, 2017). Prominent examples today are Greenpeace, Oxfam, Peta and Amnesty International. They are mostly professionally organized with effective management staffs, have commercial characteristics and rely on donations as their major source of financing. The German offices of NGOs are mostly based on associations as their legal form, but are still not really member-based: They are built upon large numbers of so called sustaining members, who often engage on different levels, but are not included in strategy, decision making or operations. Sustaining members can participate via so-called plug-in engagements very flexibly in whatever projects they like without having to commit to additional responsibilities or taking on a function. This flexibility does come at the cost of losing the democratic right to be a part of decision-making: Decisions are made by professional managers situated in the NGOs’ headquarters. This is like buying preferred stock: You get to be part of the project, but you won’t be asked for your personal opinion and have no word in what is on the agenda.
Grassroots Initiatives and Booster Clubs
Grassroots initiatives emerge to solve a specific problem, e.g. the clamor for a greener city center or a protest against a new federal law. These initiatives differentiate in two major points from traditional associations:
- they focus on a very narrow, specific purpose
- they have a limited time of existence, until participants resign or accomplish their goals
Unlike grassroots initiatives, booster clubs have a much longer history. These clubs date back to industrial era initiatives supporting educational and charitable organizations. These grassroots initiatives may eventually become booster clubs when their narrow purpose is supported in an institution in the long run.
Cannibals of Complements?
NGOs clearly undermine the values of association while targeting the same engaged citizens. Therefore NGOs are a strong competition for the participation in an association in Germany. The trade-off is very clear: Members exchange flexibility and global impact for their participation in decision making.
In grassroots initiatives the situation is not that clear: As these initiatives do not undermine the core values of traditional associations, they do aim for non-perpetual and short-term goals. This is not the case if their purpose is continued in a booster club. For these reasons, booster clubs including preceding initiatives are also considered as ideal associations.
Other Competitors for Associations
Hybrid organizations are a younger phenomenon in civil society. They are called hybrid because they mix up organizational features found in organizations in the state, market and nonprofit sector. Examples for hybrid organizations are social businesses which favor reinvestment of profit into their social purpose initiatives. Hybrid organizations are often organized as limited liability companies or commercial association and enjoy German public benefit status. More on hybrid organization is found in Hustinx (2014).
Additionally, other private corporations and local governments entered the market for free-time activities more intensively: Fitness-studios and discos offer commercialized free time activity and municipalities have worked to professionalize tourist information, culture and city festivals. The greater competition from professionalized NGOs, as well as the advanced supply of free time activities on the internet without geographic restrictions put the sustainability of voluntary associations into question.
The extreme growth of associations in the last years has also led to great competition among them. New areas of interest displace traditional fields of civil engagement. Alscher et al. (2013) found out that in traditional areas of interest membership is dropping while newer environmental associations are gaining more and more members.
Do Associations stand a chance?
Associations must change and adapt strategies to match changing needs of the Germans that are willing to engage. How can associations harness the power of growing engagement? Is following grassroots trends by differentiating purpose, or mimicking NGOs and hybrids by professionalizing and oligarchizing the only solution? Which organizational measures must be employed to match our changing society and to find a distinct way for traditional ideal associations to be successful? My research results on this question, the Community Framework, will be presented in part 3 of this mini-series.
Written by Fabian Ahrens, responsible for Operations at Unaty. This post first appeared on Unaty’s Homepage, where we regularly share our thoughts on civic society, our community, software startups and how they can interact. Unaty’s Platform helps communities around the globe to reach and engage members.
Sources:
- Alscher, M., Dathe, D., Priller, E., & Speth, R. (2009). Bericht zur Lage und zu den Perspektiven des bürgerschaftlichen Engagements in Deutschland.
- Alscher, M., Droß, P. J., Priller, E., & Schmeißer, C. (2013). Vereine an den Grenzen der Belastbarkeit. WZBrief Zivilengagement
- Union of International Associations, (2017). Yearbook of International Organizations, 54th Print Edition, 2017–2018. Leiden: Brill. Retrieved from https://uia.org/yearbook.
- Executive Committee of Non-Governmental Organizations (2002). Definition of NGOs (UN NGO Relations) Retrieved from http://www.ngo.org/ngoinfo/define.html
- Frantz, C. (2007). NGOs als transnationale Interessenvertreter und Agenda Setter. In O. Jarren, D. Lachenmeier, & A. Steiner (Eds.), Entgrenzte Demokratie? Herausforderungen für die politische Interessenvermittlung (pp. 104–136). Baden-Baden: Nomos
- Frantz, C., & Martens, K. (2006). Nichtregierungsorganisationen (NGOs). Berlin: Springer.
- Hustinx, L. (2014). Volunteering in a Hybrid Institutional and Organizational Environment: an Emerging Research Agenda. In M. Freise & T. Hallmann (Eds.), Modernizing Democracy (pp. 99–110). Heidelberg: Springer.
- Röbke, T. (2014b). Engagement braucht Leadership — Stärkung von Vereinen und ihren Vorständen als Zukunfts. Retrieved from http://www.bosch‑stiftung.de/sites/default/files/publications/pdf_import/Engagement_braucht_Leadership.pdf
- Simonson, J., Vogel, C., & Tesch-Römer, C. (2017). Freiwilliges Engagement in Deutschland: Der Deutsche Freiwilligensurveys 2014. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
- Zimmer, A. (2014). Auslaufmodell Verein? Vom Veralten eines gesellschaftlichen Strukturmoments. Gewinnung, Qualifizierung und Entwicklung ehrenamtlicher Vereinsvorstände, 25–32. Retrieved from http://www.b‑b‑e.de/fileadmin/inhalte/PDF/publikationen/Vereinsvorstaende_BBE_2014.pdf
I am happy to share all my sources and research with interested readers, simply contact me via ahrens@unaty.de .
