IPPR North published a report today on the contribution business makes to the local third sector based on the longstanding Third Sector Trends study.  The report, written by Professor Tony Chapman (St Chad’s College, Durham University) and Jack Hunter (IPPR North),  shows that:

• Businesses in the North of England make a “significant contribution” of £1.9bn to charities and other voluntary organisations.
• Nearly 70% of third sector organisations in the North receive some form of financial support from business.
• But the voluntary sector prefers businesses’ cash over their in-kind support.

IPPR North’s Jack Hunter said:

“Business in the North make a significant and valued contribution to the third sector, but businesses need to get much smarter in how they support charitable activity. One-off volunteering events might be easy to arrange and encourage teambuilding, but they tend to have limited value on the ground – instead charities get the most benefit from a long-term and sustained relationship with businesses.”

And as Tony Chapman said:

“Many charity and business leaders may be surprised by the volume of financial and in-kind support given on social issues such as poverty. If the contribution of business remains largely invisible, then less of it will happen than could be the case. This research opens the door for more debate on where business can make a difference at the local level.”

The report can be downloaded at this address: https://www.ippr.org/publication/third-sector-and-business

The Friends of Pelaw Wood, assisted by Durham University students, are a voluntary group working with Durham County Council in the care of Pelaw Wood on the northern bank of the River Wear.

In the heart of the Wood is Silverlink Bridge, a steel footbridge built in 1938, with a span of almost 200ft over the Pelaw Beck.  The northern abutment of the bridge, leading to Gilesgate, is onto land with former industrial use – a soft drinks factory had for many years used the site as a tip for unwanted bottles, some of which are now highly-prized and valuable.

The consequent illicit bottle-mining into the bank at high level, apart from constituting a danger to children, has led to a number of trees becoming destabilised, particularly those in close proximity to the bridge.

Attempts by Police, Council and volunteers to prevent the mining have largely failed, due to a significant section of the land having no registered ownership.

For safety of the bridge and general public it became imperative that the unregistered land be clearly delineated and that subsequently it should become vested in Durham County Council and managed by the Friends of Pelaw Wood, under the Council’s supervision.

Ian Zass-Ogilvie, a Research Fellow of Policy & Practice, is carrying this project forward on behalf of the local community.

Saving Silverlink Bridge in Durham

Sharing the responsibility: defining how public sector organisations can work effectively with the third sector. A seminar organised by the Institute for Local Governance, to be held at Teikyo University, Elvet Hill, Durham, 9th March 2018, 9.00 – 12.30

In 2015, a group of academics and senior officers in local authorities and health authorities got together to start talking about how to work more effectively with the third sector. The idea was to begin a learning journey which drew on debate and discussion about the existing evidence and draws some new insights from consultation with 40 organisations within the third sector.

The outcome of this programme of work, which was funded by the ESRC, is a new discussion paper on the 10 key findings and recommendations from the programme of work. As the report is launched on 9th March, the Institute for Local Governance is hosting a seminar to present the recommendations and to give people an opportunity to debate their value and potential impact.

Participants are invited from across a range of organisations including health organisations, local authorities, charitable foundations and third sector organisations across North East England.

The seminar will be chaired by Professor Paul Keane, Chairman, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.

The seminar will open with a brief presentation on the key findings from the work by Professors Tony Chapman and Fred Robinson, St Chad’s College, Durham University, Professor John Mawson, Director, Institute for Local Governance, and Dr Jonathan Wistow, Department of Sociology, Durham University.

Following the presentation, there will be clearly focused table debates on the principal recommendations facilitated by partners from local authorities, health organisations, charitable foundations and third sector infrastructure organisations. To close the session, there will be a panel of key stakeholders to discuss key questions raised in the table debate.

Agreed panellists include Harriet Stranks, Lloyds Bank Foundation; Rob Williamson, Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland; Gillian Peel, Age UK North Yorkshire and Darlington; Sally Young, Newcastle CVS; Kirsten Francis, Northumberland County Council; and, Gordon Elliott, Durham County Council.

Attendees at the seminar will be provided with a pre-publication copy of the report to prepare for the event, together with a shorter briefing paper on the 10 key findings and recommendations.

The seminar is now fully booked

The Institute for Local Governance is a North East Research and Knowledge Exchange Partnership established in 2009 comprising the North East region’s Universities, Local Authorities, Police and Fire and Rescue Services.

Further information about the content of the event can be obtained by contacting:- tony.chapman@durham.ac.uk or john.mawson@durham.ac.uk.

Professor Kanji Tanimoto from Waseda University, Tokyo, spoke on the topic of ‘The Institutionalization of Corporate Social Responsibility Management in Japan’.

The seminar will  took place on Thursday 18th January from  2.00 – 3.30 p.m.  in Williams Library, St Chad’s College, Durham University, 18 North Bailey, Durham DH1 3RH.

The seminar discussed how pressures for corporate attention to CSR have been increased in Japan for the past decade and a half. Many Japanese companies have introduced CSR management system following leading companies and conformed to institutional isomorphic pressures.

However it is not an easy task to incorporate CSR into management processes in actuality. This study explores a gap between ‘expected CSR management ‘ and ‘actual conventional management’ by giving an examples from a study  of Toshiba.

Professor Tanimoto stayed at St Chad’s College, Durham on a two week research visit as a Visiting Professorial Fellow in January 2018.

Kanji Tanimoto is Professor in Business and Society at the School of Commerce, Waseda University, Japan.  He is Founder and President of an academy: Japan Forum of Business and Society, which is the first academic society in this field in Japan. He is an editorial member of several journals. He serves on the program committee of the International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility at Humboldt University.

His research interests include the relationship between business and society, corporate social responsibility, social business and social innovation. He has published numerous books and papers.His personal website is: http://tanimoto-office.jp and email address: k.tanimoto@tanimoto-office.jp

A new report is published today (Friday 1st December, 2017) from the Third Sector Trends Study which will show that thousands of charities help address poverty across the North of England.

The report, Tackling Poverty in the North: the role of third sector organisations, is based on a survey of 3,500 charities across the North East, North West and Yorkshire and Humber to capture their contribution in the region.

As a national charitable organisation which seeks to tackle poverty, Joseph Rowntree Foundation commissioned this short report to assess the extent to which Third Sector organisations contribute towards solving poverty in the North of England.

Author of the report, Professor Tony Chapman, commented:

“Many charities which aim to tackle poverty in the north of England are working hard to influence local public sector organisations in order bring more resources to bear on growing demand for services. But many are struggling to keep up, 26% of such charities are drawing upon their reserves to meet demand compared with just 16% of general charities.”

It is estimated that 5,000 Third Sector Organisations (TSOs) directly tackle the issue of poverty in the North of England and a further 3,200 TSOs address associated issues surrounding poverty.

The report shows TSOs tackling poverty are supported by 160,200 volunteers in the North of England who provide 11.5 million hours of work each year. The ‘replacement’ value of this contribution is between £83m (at national minimum wage) or £140m (at 80% of the average regional wage).

The number of volunteers is rising faster for charities tackling poverty than general charities – suggesting that this issue is highest on the priority list amongst members of the general public.

Over 45,000 people are employed by 3,900 TSOs directly addressing the issue of poverty in the North of England. The salary value of this work is between £912m and £1.1bn.TSOs which address the issue of poverty are generally optimistic that they will be able to raise sufficient income to meet the challenges of the future: 44% expect that their income will rise over the next two years compared with 32% of general charities.

However, there is also widespread pessimism about future levels of funding from public sector sources: 50% of TSOs tackling poverty think that statutory income will fall over the next two years compared with 46% of general charities.

The issue of poverty is rising on the political agenda. This research shows that TSOs which directly address the issue of poverty are the most likely to ‘strongly agree’ that they are attempting to influence local public-sector policy makers (50%) compared with 29% of general charities.

The Third Sector Trends survey was designed to examine how TSOs fare over time in the context of change. The findings presented in this report are based on a robust research methodology which has evolved over the last eight years to produce comparable time-series data.

The report can be downloaded here:Tackling Poverty in the North – Third Sector Trends.