Visionary work on Marketing and the Future of NGO strategy
Image credit Richard Duszczak of Cartoon Studio Ltd.
Through a new Agency of the Future client relationship with the INGO Accountability Charter Company, Paul has been developing a vision for the future of international and global NGOs’ strategy and engaging world leaders from the NGO sector in implementing this vision.
The INGO Accountability Charter is an initiative of international NGOs demonstrating their commitment to transparency, accountability and effectiveness. The Charter provides the only global, cross-sectoral accountability framework for NGOs. The Charter defines principles towards which the Members report annually. This triggers organisational developments which have significantly improved the effectiveness of NGOs. Most of the leading NGOs participate in the Charter.
The focus of the engagement has been on the implications for accountability of our ever more inter-connected world in which ideas, improvements and innovation can come from anywhere and in which organisations need to work with the rest of the world and not just their own staff.
The work builds on the influential concepts Paul has developed for basing organisational strategy on the creation of strategic collaborative advantage rather than strategic competitive advantage.
These ideas have had a substantial impact on the global sectors including the co-operative movement and the NGO sector.
Paul is known for his widely reported views that whereas the NGO of the past may have been something that the public might choose to support, probably in quite passive ways such as through a donation or a standing order, for the great work that THEY do, increasingly by contrast the NGO of the future is likely to be something that people from all walks of life turn to because the NGO can help THEM to achieve something worthwhile themselves.
Through his visionary work with the INGO Charter Company, Paul has applied this approach to the future of accountability.
He argues that whereas the accountability process of the past may have revolved around reporting impacts after they have been achieved, primarily for the benefit of institutional donors, accountability in the future by contrast will be more about enabling any stakeholder, at any point in time, to play a role in identifying, selecting, evaluating and improving activity undertaken to achieve its mission.
Paul has developed this work with the INGO Charter Company to explore what it would take to influence a much broader group of stakeholders including the public to feel more excited by the idea that getting accountability right can be one of the most powerful processes for improving the world around us and making the most of the role we can all play in building the world we want to live in.
