Birmingham Seminar Series
The Third Sector Research Centre hosts short seminars at Birmingham University to share current research by TSRC and others at the University of Birmingham.
All the seminars will be 12.00-1.30pm in Park House, University of Birmingham (See directons/map)
Registration is not required please just come along. If you have any queries, please contact Rebecca Berridge: r.berridge@tsrc.ac.uk
Upcoming seminars
Wednesday 9 May 2012, 12.00 – 13.30
The other boundary of the third sector: an exploration of hybridity and ‘informal’ groups
David Billis
Garden Room, Park House
Third Sector research remains skewed towards the (1) formal, and often most structured organisations, and (2) their interactions with the formal organisations of the other two sectors. This paper analyses the "other", largely under-researched boundary, where third sector formal organisations interact with the groups emerging from the personal world of individuals, families and friends. It argues that hybridity theory has much to offer to both theory and practice in understanding the nature of the groups found in this important intermediate territory.
David is Emeritus Reader at the LSE. In 1978 he founded the first university voluntary sector centre, in 1990 he co-founded the journal Nonprofit Management and Leadership. In 1995 he became the first non-American to be awarded the Distinguished Achievement Award from ARNOVA. His books include Organisational Design, Welfare Bureaucracies, and Organising Public and Voluntary Agencies. His most recent book is Hybrid Organizations and the Third Sector (ed.) Palgrave 2010.
Thursday 17 May 2012, 12.00 – 13.30
Social enterprise, crime, and ethics
Jon Griffith
Courtyard Room, Park House
Social enterprises are widely claimed to be a solution, simultaneously, to both economic and social problems: they do good while sustaining themselves, or, put the other way round, they contribute to economic activity while achieving social purposes; thus their distinctiveness lies in their double (or triple, or multiple) bottom line, or in their ‘hybrid’ status.
Of course, there have been other hybrids in the past, before the emergence of the current wave of social enterprises, and there are hybrids beyond the boundaries (if there are any…) of the present social enterprise field.
Hezbollah, the Provisional IRA and FARC have all shown characteristics of a similar hybridity in their policies and operations; in this seminar I suggest that hybridity may in itself be a problem, or the cause of a problem, rather than a solution, and that this perspective has implications for social enterprises generally.
Jon Griffith is a principal lecturer in the School of Law and Social Sciences at the University of East London, and a research associate at the University’s Centre for Institutional Studies; he helped develop, taught on, and eventually led the postgraduate programme in Social Enterprise: Development and Management at UEL (2001-2007), and is still scheming to replace it with something more useful…
Wednesday 27 June 2012, 12.00 – 13.30
New ways of giving? A look at ‘funding plus’ relationships
Ben Cairns and Eliza Buckley
Garden Room, Park House
In the last decade or so there has been a marked move within foundations to look beyond grants and begin to build capacity within organisations themselves. This movement relates closely to the now widespread emphasis on ‘outcomes’ and ‘effectiveness’. What effect does this dual-purpose relationship have on grant makers and grant holders? What happens when grant makers do more than give grants?
Drawing on over 100 interviews with grant makers, grant holders and third parties providing a wide range of capacity building support, this paper examines the nature of ‘funding plus’ relationships. Specifically, we aim to shed light on what happens when two distinctive transactions – capacity building relationships and funding relationships – are brought together. The paper examines different types of ‘funding plus’ relationships and looks at the benefits, challenges and implications for grant makers and grant holders.
Ben Cairns is the Director of the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR) and an Honorary Research Fellow of Birkbeck, University of London. Ben has 25 years’ experience of work in and around the voluntary sector as a volunteer, manager, trustee, trainer, writer and researcher. His current research interests include: the 'high engagement' funding practices of charitable trusts and foundations; mergers; and cross-sector partnership working.
Eliza Buckley is Senior Research and Communications Officer at IVAR. Eliza co-ordinated IVAR’s 2011 study ‘Beyond money: A study of funding plus in the UK’ and is now working on ‘Recession Watch’, a two year project that aims to generate and share learning about grant need and grant making in the context of a rapidly changing and challenging operating environment. Eliza has a background in research, policy and communications within the voluntary sector.