One Year Later: five Lessons Learned from Redundant Charities
“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.” – Victor Hugo
It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year since Redundant Charities: Escaping the Cycle of Dependence was released. This past year has been a transformative journey, not just for me, but for those who engaged with the book. As I reflect on this milestone, I’d like to share five key lessons I’ve learned since publishing my first book a year ago. Each lesson has shaped my understanding of the non-profit landscape and the conversations we need to have moving forward. And along the way, there have been things I’ve changed my mind about and shaped my future thinking of how we can do the work of doing good better.
Getting the first stack of books that were pre-ordered ready to go out.
1. The Sector Craves critical discussion
One of the most encouraging realisations I’ve had in the past year is that the non-profit world is eager for discussions about how to do good work better. It’s been refreshing to see so many people ready to challenge the status quo.
In the book, I discuss how common it is for people working within charities to understand the limitations of the traditional charity model. My goal with writing this book was to go beyond simply complaining, to coming up with viable alternatives. Thankfully, I’m not the only one. It’s refreshing to see so many people ready to engage in meaningful conversations about reforming outdated practices.
Great feedback like this has been encouraging.
Of course, this desire for change also comes with challenges. Many organisations are set in their ways and resist new ideas out of fear or uncertainty. This leads me to my next lesson.
2. Resistance to Change Persists
Despite the enthusiasm from many people, there have also been pockets of resistance. From the odd negative review from someone who clearly feels threatened to surprising responses as per below.
Midway through the year I contacted someone to help me organise an event in another part of Australia. This is someone who I’ve collaborated with previously that I would consider a friend. It took a while for this person to come back to me, but when they eventually declined, their reasoning was that there were aspects of the book that they didn’t agree with, so they didn’t feel comfortable promoting the book in an event.
My response was that disagreements are excellent. I would be more than happy for this person to stand up in front of me and an audience and explain all of the reason why my assertions in the book were wrong, then to give me a right of reply, then to respond in turn. After all, it’s only through discussion and debate that we advance our thinking. I never heard back.
3. Minds Are Opening
On a brighter note, for every person who feels threatened by the book's message, there’s another whose perspective has changed. Hearing from people who have experienced "aha" moments has been incredibly rewarding.
I’ve been invited to speak to boards of charities, and have spoken to people who have been in and around the charity sector for 50+ years who found the book, in their words - refreshing. This is the best kind of feedback - to have shifted the mind of a charity veteran - and one of the key reasons why I wrote the book.
The amazing Anna Sheppard MCing the Redundant Charities book launch in June, 2024
4. Audiobooks: A Double-Edged Sword
Creating an audiobook version of Redundant Charities was always something that I was keen on, as it meant that it could reach a wider audience to engage in the content of the book. It makes the content accessible to busy parents, individuals with learning difficulties, and those who simply prefer auditory learning over traditional reading.
However, the process of creating the audiobook was hugely time and energy intensive. For starters, because I was working day to day on Umbo, and couldn’t afford to take off too much time, so had to jam about 8 hours of continual speaking into one day of annual leave. It’s fair to say that by the end of it, even having a lucid conversation with my Uber driver was a challenge.
Thankfully, I had the help of Paul Day, who had never put an audiobook together but was keen to give it a shot. Without Paul, it’s fair to say that the audiobook would never have seen the light of day. A reminder that you can grab it right HERE.
With Paul Day in the studio in Melbourne.
5. there’s more than one conclusion to this book
The first half of Redundant Charities speaks to the limitations of the charity model, and why so many charities struggle to get off the hamster wheel of dependence. The second half then proposes that for charities to get off this hamster wheel, they need clear end dates and exit strategies.
After a full year of thinking about it, I now realise there are a number of alternative solutions to the problems presented in the first half. While I think the criticisms and analyses in the first half are still relevant, I realise that making charities redundant isn’t the only solution; other options, like Universal Basic Income (UBI), could be explored in a future book.
My current argument is that once you create a charity, you have a entire set of structures that require maintenance. You’re not incentivised to ever solve the problem you’re working on, but instead keep it at bay. While promising to shut the charity down is a logical antidote, what if the charity didn’t exist in the first place? Imagine if everyone had enough money to pay for the services that they need - this is a potential solution through something like Uniiversal Basic Income.
It would cut out an entire sector dedicated to providing services for the betterment of people. Instead, we could just have people helping themselves. Rather than redundant charities, it could be the end of charities.
At one of a number of talks discussing principles in the book.
In conclusion, the first year of the Redundant Charities has been eye opening, not just in terms of the response from readers, but also my own response. When I published this book, I never intended it to be a definitive guide on how to make charities better - that’s a book that would be longer than War and Peace!
The purpose of the book was simply to stimulate a conversation about how we can do things better. Without this conversation, we can’t hope to progress in this sector or as a species.
The promising thing has been that this conversation has been productive already. Let’s keep talking about how we can do the work of doing good better. And who knows, maybe there’s another book that goes even further in me at some point in the future…
In the heart of philanthropy, at Paul Ramsay Foundation, in Sydney
