The possible roles of an infrastructure body

There has been a lot of talk about infrastructure bodies recently, with the demise of the Directory of Social Change and the near demise of Reach Volunteering. Amongst all the sadness of the difficult times for infrastructure, there has been little talk of what infrastructure bodies are for, or how their work can be best co-ordinated or have a clear strategy. This blog looks at both these issues.

First, the role of infrastructure bodies

Create a community of practitioners.

At the heart of many infrastructure bodies is creating a community of practitioners. This means people who work in the same discipline meeting each other, swopping ideas and cross-fertilising about what works and what doesn’t. This creates a feeling of kindred spirit, shared challenges, and mutual support. CharityComms, the Charity Finance Group and the Honorary Treasurers Forum are all examples of bodies which create a practitioner community and the next role – the development of skills.

Improve the skills and expertise of their audience.

Closely intertwined with the creation of a community is improving the skills and expertise of the community. This is done through webinars, mentoring, conferences, seminars and sharing of best practice. Sometimes the skills and practice development is softly done, and in other cases it is more overt. In which case the infrastructure body may develop its work into a clearer set of standards.

Raise the floor of practitioner standards.

In areas where getting it wrong is seen as having more serious consequences or public dislike, then practitioner standards are often codified. This is what has happened with fundraising, with the Chartered Institute of Fundraising initially developing best practice standards, and the standards are now set and monitored by the Fundraising Standards Board, with sign-ups on a semi-voluntary basis.

Raise the ceiling for practitioner standards.

A more subtle approach to raising practitioners' standards is by setting out examples of what the best practitioners are doing. This is partly done by sector influencers, blogs and speeches, but also by people highlighting the benefits of higher standards. While raising the floor is often heavily encouraged, raising the ceiling is a much more aspirational area.

Incubate new ideas and new ways of working.

Some infrastructure bodies look to develop new ways of working or new approaches. This may be because of new technology such as AI, or criticism in the media such as CEO salaries, or the role of interns.

Providing services that ease the pinch points of a community.

There are some infrastructure bodies that provide a very specific service that eases the friction of being a not-for-profit; this might be recruitment (Reach Volunteering), information and best practice ideas (Directory of Social Change and Charity Excellence Programme). These bodies can either be for-profit or not-for-profit (though typically we only think of the not-for-profit ones as infrastructure bodies).

And mediating or judging on practitioner work

Once there is a set of standards for a practitioner community, then infrastructure bodies can be the process of ensuring that the members are reaching a certain standard. This is very typical with infrastructure bodies for medics like the General Medical Council, and the closest we get in the charity sector is the Fundraising Standards Board. It would be good if we did more to ensure practitioners were up to a certain standard in the sector, in areas like governance, finance or communications.

Discounts and bulk buying

Some infrastructure bodies help their members buy services or products collectively and so reduce costs. This can be done for services such as insurance for PTAs, or bulk buying for hospices. Infrastructure bodies may also get discounts for members from a variety of suppliers for services such as legal, accountancy or fundraising.

Improve the landscape by pushing for better laws and policies

A central role for many infrastructure bodies is to try and lobby for better laws or policies that impact their members. This may be lobbying central or local government, regulatory bodies, or other government agencies.

Setting out a vision for a better practitioner community and work

The best infrastructure bodies are setting out a clear idea of where they want their community to be going. How they would like it to be better in the future. This may involve any of the areas mentioned above, but the idea is that at the heart of the role of infrastructure bodies is to improve their community. This means that some kind of plan and goals are vital.

What would a strategy for charity infrastructure look like?

For me, one of the things that the current debate about infrastructure emphasises is the organic and uncoordinated nature of our infrastructure. It has grown up not through a grand plan, but from the bottom up. We have most of the infrastructure bodies in the sector because a few individuals got together at some point and said, ‘Let’s do this’. Some have done incredibly well, and others have stalled or gone under.

Identifying the common goals for improving a sector

If we want better charity and not-for-profit infrastructure, then we need a clear idea of what we want infrastructure to do. Where the limited resource is best used, what are the pinch points in making the charity sector more effective, and how can we use infrastructure to make the sector more effective and have more impact? We also need to identify the big goals in driving the sector forward, and where infrastructure needs to be better or different is needed for that.

Identifying the infrastructure gaps

One of the biggest failings of our current approach to infrastructure is that we don’t have the infrastructure we need, but the infrastructure is based on the organic creation of bodies, driven by the energy of a few individuals. In some cases these bodies overlap, and in others we have big gaps. For example, we have no infrastructure bodies that look at the delivery of charity services, philanthropy or HR, but two that support Foundations.

If we want infrastructure to be of maximum value, we need a strategy; we need to identify the need and value of infrastructure, and work out how we use the finite resources that are spent on infrastructure to best effect.