Driving sustainability in the third sector through capacity building support

In the U.K., and arguably in all Anglo-Saxon countries, there has been a drive towards marketising the third sector in order to improve its sustainability and the social impact that it can deliver. This has been argued as... [ view full abstract ]

In the U.K., and arguably in all Anglo-Saxon countries, there has been a drive towards marketising the third sector in order to improve its sustainability and the social impact that it can deliver. This has been argued as being part of a wider neoliberal policy agenda focused on new public management approaches to public service delivery, and in the UK a policy paradigm that is focused on the use of ‘voluntary, community and social enterprise’ (VCSE) organisations to fill the void in the welfare state left by the retrenching State. This policy paradigm has viewed social investment as a means of increasing the size, scope and sustainability of VCSEs, leading to policy interventions centred upon making the VCSE sector ‘investment ready’. Such interventions can however, ignore the tensions that exist at the heart of VCSEs in delivering social and economic outcomes, tensions that could be exacerbated by social investment where such investment may not be suitable. These tensions have the possibility to damage or inflict sub-optimal outcomes for VCSEs due to the misalignment between policy and practice. This paper adopts a mixed-methods research approach to explore VCSE sustainability within a UK based programme delivered through a multi-sector partnership (public, private and third sector), which aims to develop the investment readiness of the VCSE sector and increase the number of social investments. The research gathered organisational demographic data and CEO perceptions to assess investment readiness through a bespoke ‘diagnostic tool’, with data gathered from 1,155 VCSEs. This data was then triangulated with qualitative data gathered from semi-structured interviews gathered from 45 key stakeholders in the sector (VCSEs; Support Providers; Investors; Policy-makers; and experts). The data reveals that there is a significant disparity between the needs of the VCSE sector and the social investment market itself, with the vast majority of VCSE participants in this study being both ‘investment unready’ and having no strategic need for social investment. The paper argues that the focus on social investment is driven by a normative policy paradigm that is juxtaposed with practitioner needs. Furthermore, it suggests that what is actually required are overtly focused capacity-building and sustainability enhancement programmes, rather than programmes that seek to deliver this through a ‘strategic mimicry’ of policy narratives. These findings have important implications for academics, public/private/third sector practitioners, and policy-makers both in the UK and globally.