I have worked in housing and homelessness for the last thirty years. During that time, I have had the privilege of leading three charities and of serving as a Director of a large national ‘name’.
Throughout all these years I have worked with thousands of colleagues, and the overwhelming majority of them have been driven either by faith and/or a desire to help people facing greater challenges than themselves.
Thinking of ourselves
But can I say, hand on heart, that all the myriad services I have worked with have been effective? Here my confidence starts to waver.
Despite all those wonderful and inspiring people, there are deep-rooted systemic challenges in our society, and these can mean that highly effective services remain the exception rather than the norm. Resources are, of course, an issue: the lack of affordable housing, the absence of well-paid jobs, and not enough public investment.
But another barrier is closer to home. And that is the charitable ego. This is the tendency of organisations to think of themselves first, ahead of the beneficiaries they were created to serve. Of course, there is very rarely any deliberate efforts to jeopardise the life chances of vulnerable people. But the tendency for individuals and organisations to serve themselves is a key limit to the help that people receive from them.
Charitable ego rarely looks like arrogance, and much more often it hides behind good intentions. In my experience it shows up in five ways:
1.Brand Before Beneficiary
Every organisation has something to protect: its reputation, its brand, its contracts, its patch. Left unchecked, that instinct starts to shape what we do. Especially amongst the big charities, there are examples of activities being carried out not because they work, but because they promote the brand and increase income – without thought to how that money might best be spent to reduce homelessness.
We know it costs money to fundraise, and that is legitimate. But when visibility and brand recognition becomes the goal rather than the means, we are protecting ourselves rather than serving others.
2. Surviving for survival’s sake
Closely related is the drive simply to keep going. Too many charities make decisions driven by their desire to exist, rather than deliver a specific outcome. More concern is put into ensuring a safe surplus than into the difference the organisation has made to homelessness over the year.
Financial sustainability matters, but an organisation’s survival is only worth pursuing if it is changing lives. It is better to close-down or merge with another charity than simply keep going for the sake of it.
3. The logo doesn’t matter
The vast majority of homelessness work is now delivered by organisations winning contracts through formal procurement processes carried out by local authorities. Competitive procurement processes intrinsically means that organisations do not collaborate and pool resources: indeed, charities benefit when another underperforms.
But when a neighbouring charity’s failure becomes our opportunity, something has gone badly wrong. The people we serve don’t care whose logo is on the door; they need services that work together for them.
4. Measuring the wrong things
The tendering process to win contracts is in itself is often structured in a way that means there is no aspiration or intent to end homelessness. We are defeated before we even start – and yet we bid anyway, rarely challenging the terms. It is easier to accept a contract as written than to tell a commissioner it will not make a real difference; easier to keep running a service that isn’t working than to close it; easier to preserve the status quo than to consider a merger or hand over to someone better placed.
Organisational ego makes these tensions harder to manage. If we see success in terms of headcount or turnover, then we are measuring the wrong things. We need to measure transformation and change.
5. Excluding those we were formed to serve
Most tellingly of all, ego shows up in what we provide and how we limit it. Many homeless people, and those fleeing domestic violence, are placed in hostels or temporary accommodation with no choice in where they live – all too often substandard or overcrowded, with shared bathrooms and facilities – yet they are paying higher rents than if they were renting privately.
Meanwhile many social housing providers, many originally founded on a Christian ethos, put checks and barriers in place that screen out the very people they were set up to house. Organisations tend to turn into what funds them: and they easily turn into clones of the statutory services they were originally formed to be distinctly different from.
Humility First
The solutions are complex and require committed, brave and impactful leadership. But at their very core they require a spirit and intent that puts the outcome and the beneficiary first, and the needs of the organisation and our own comfort second.
Managing charitable ego requires a deep level of humility – the humility that God’s grace teaches us and Jesus embodied. This what can inspire us when we make decisions and develop strategy.
It means thinking through how we can best meet the needs of those who don’t have accommodation tonight and giving those less fortunate than ourselves the best possible opportunity to live meaningful and fulfilling lives.
Ed Tytherleigh has worked in housing and homelessness for 30 years and now leads the consultancy Nonprofit Impact.
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