Charities Must Focus on Shared Identity Tris Lumley - The Guardian
go to original April 16, 2013

In the nine years I've spent learning my way around the charity sector, one of the starkest things that's struck me is the immense value placed on uniqueness. But there can be a cost to this focus on the cult of the individual.

In the nine years I've spent learning my way around the charity sector, one of the starkest things that's struck me is the immense value placed on uniqueness.

Every charity can wax lyrical about the ways in which its approach is different from anything else that's out there: a mentoring charity that emphasises the depth and length of its relationships; a community anchor organisation that focuses on a completely holistic and tailored approach; or an older people's charity that differentiates itself through its use of older volunteers to deliver activities in the community.

In the charity sector, individuality is a core principle. And this seems intuitively right; the individuality each charity brings sets it apart from other organisations, be it other charities, or the public and private sectors. It's certainly an attractive ideology, that resonates with the personal, human nature of charities' work, their focus on values, and their primacy of understanding and relating to individual service users, customers and beneficiaries.

But there can be a cost to this focus on the cult of the individual – where charities that could be stronger through united, coherent groups, are fragmented.

Read the rest at The Guardian

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