#NotJustNCVO
A recent report highlighted a culture of bullying at the National Council of Voluntary Organisations, with ‘staff members from marginalised groups experiencing “overt oppression” across all levels’. You can read more about it in the Third Sector article here. While it is awful this ever happened, it is good that this behaviour has finally been called out, and hopefully it will lead to positive change.
What this news story has also done, is encourage people who have experienced bullying and oppressive behaviour in other organisations to speak out, with the hashtag #NotJustNCVO trending on Twitter.
Food for thought
I’m fortunate that I’ve not personally experienced bullying directed towards me at the charities where I’ve worked, but I have friends who have.
This recent news and the conversations that have followed has got me wondering whether bullying and abusive behaviour is a bigger problem in the third sector than other industries, or if this is a more widespread problem through workplaces in general.
Whichever it is, it’s not acceptable and work needs to be done to address it. So what are the causes?
Perhaps I’m an optimist, but I tend to believe in the inherent good in people. I find it hard to understand why people would resort to bullying others unless they have some personal issues or history that have skewed their sense of what is acceptable behaviour. I’m not excusing the bullies - and they need to take responsibility for their own actions - but I’m trying to understand why they act the way they do.
I can’t believe that the charity industry is riddled with sociopaths or psychopaths. At least, no more than you would expect to find it in other industries. Instead, I feel there must be something in the culture at some charities that brings the worst out in people. This suggests to me that there are structural issues that need to be addressed?
Possible causes
Consider the following - which may, in my opinion, be contributing factors to this problem:
A lot of charities are founded by people who are passionate about a particular cause. In time, they may grow to the point where they are now too large to be effectively managed by the founder.
Trustees tend to be people who want to do something good for society, so volunteer their time. If a charity is struggling to find trustees, there is a chance that people are appointed who are willing to give their time, but who don’t necessarily have the skills required. There are certainly some organisations where trustees may enjoy being involved when everything is going well, but can be reluctant to step in when there are problems to address.
It is often the case that funders (be it the public, statutory bodies, or charitable trusts and foundations) want as much of their support as possible to be directed to the front-line activities of the charity (and not ‘greedy CEO salaries’). This, combined with the financial struggles many charities face, means there is often very little funding to support the ‘back office’.
I think this last point may be the most significant driver of charity workplace bullying. Tight financial resources results in:
A squeeze on recruitment leading to too few people doing too much work, causing stress and tensions in the workplace;
Lower salaries, preventing the best candidates for leadership positions from being recruited;
Insufficient funding to support HR, staff training and development, and training trustees to be effective governors of the charity;
A fear of scandals that may jeopardise future funding, causing people in positions of responsibility to turn a blind eye to poor behaviour.
Combined, I think these factors can result in toxic workplace environments that bring the worst out of people, within organisations that are lacking either the expertise or the willingness to fix the problem. Instead, the bullied have to either stick it out, or move on - and that’s not fair.
How to fix this
The solution? Money will help, if used appropriately.
I understand the motivation behind the obsession with limiting overheads and maximising funds put towards charitable activities, but it can have unintended consequences. It can lead to the problems outlined above, and I think in some cases it can lead to inefficient use of funds, with excess resources devoted to areas of an organisation’s work where they’re not needed, just to make the percentages look better in the year-end accounts.
The measure of a charity’s effectiveness shouldn’t be the ratio between money spent on overheads, and money spent on programmes and services. Unfortunately there are no clear, tidy alternatives that I’m aware of. ‘Social return on investment’ would be a good measure, but is so difficult to determine that it is hard for all but the largest of charities to report on.
If charities felt they had ‘permission’ (from funders and society as a whole) to invest properly in their people, then I wouldn’t mind betting they would do better work - which would offer better value for money.
Happy managers have happy teams. Happy fundraisers raise more money. Happy programme staff deliver better programmes. And better programmes means more positive social change.
Put a name to it
What I’ve written above addresses some of the circumstances in which people can behave badly (on the potentially flawed basis that people are inherently good), and the environments that can allow that behaviour to continue. However, it is also important to consider the issues of representation and the lack of diversity in the sector - especially because so much of the bullying highlighted by #NotJustNCVO is racist, sexist, homophobic, or disablist.
It’s a fact that white men are over-represented within the upper levels of the sector.
Now, that fact does not automatically mean that discriminatory behaviour is a given: “White men are all bigoted so the organisations they lead will be bigoted”.
Rather, what this lack of diversity can mean is that bigoted behaviour and bullying is not noticed or dealt with because the people at the top don’t recognise it for what it is. It’s beyond their frame of reference as it is not something they have personally experienced. In a sector that is so skewed towards one viewpoint, it is easy for discrimination to fly under managers’ and trustees’ radars.
That does not make it acceptable or excusable. Until such time as boards and leadership teams have more diverse viewpoints, people in positions of power need to actively work to broaden their perspectives.
I recognise that as a white, straight, British male I have blindspots. As much as I try to expand my point of view, there will always be things I won’t notice. No doubt I am demonstrating some of these blindspots in what I’m writing! What is important, in my (limited) opinion, is that I recognise I don’t know everything, work to educate myself, and do something when there is a problem to address.
Diverse boards and leadership teams will go a long way to helping resolve discriminatory bullying. What is more important is for charities to show willingness to address bullying (or other harmful practices and behaviours) and do something about it - even at the risk of reputational or financial damage.
I commend everyone who has come forward to speak out about this problem, but this shouldn’t be where #NotJustNCVO ends.
The problem has been identified and given a name. It now needs to be addressed by everyone within the charity sector (including funders) to make sure that the necessary change happens, even when it hurts.
As Sophia Moreau said in response to the first version of this article*:
“It isn’t just a matter of more diversity resolving discriminatory bullying. […] #NotJustNCVO is about the prevalence of discrimination and harassment in a sector that’s too uncomfortable to even give problems their names.”
Continue the conversation
These are just my feelings on this issue. If you think I’ve got this wrong, or am way off the mark, please let me know (hello@jonathansbean.com) as I think honest, open discussion about these problems is an important step towards resolving them.
And if you’re experiencing bullying in the workplace - third sector or otherwise - I hope you feel there is someone you can talk to: A sympathetic boss, someone in HR, a union rep, an employment lawyer, or a good friend.
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[*Please note, I have updated the original text of this article to reflect a point made to me by Sophia Moreau (@mssmoreau) on Twitter, that I completely agree with:
“Thank you for sharing this. However, there's an absence of discussion of demographics and discrimination.
Just 3% of charity management is BME. 92% of trustees are white. 38% are women. Less than 2.9% of trustees are women of colour. No stats on disability.”]