Britain’s Prime Minister has cause for a small (nice cup of tea, rather than pop the champagne cork) celebration today, now that his Big Society idea has had its first positive headlines in quite some time, with the long-awaited launch of the £600 million Big Society Capital (BSC) social investment fund. BSC has cost the […]
Tag: Big Society Network
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No More Labradors Please
Want to raise a lot of money from the public? The answer, according to Sir Stuart Etherington the chief of Britain’s voluntary sector trade body, the NCVO, speaking at a conference in London on Thursday morning, is to set up a charity featuring “a Labrador driving a life boat”. Most giving, he argued, is not […]
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The Spring of Generosity
“People say we are overstating the importance of technology in giving. I say, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” British charity tech guru Steve Bridger was in bullish form this Thursday morning, September 29th, at the Gulbenkian Foundation in London’s trendy Hoxton Square, just around the corner from the British tech hub known as ‘silicon roundabout’. […]
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Saving the Big Society
Lately, the Big Society has seemed in danger of early consignment to the dustbin of history. Though it is David Cameron’s big political idea, the Big Society did not excite the voters at last year’s general election and has wobbled alarmingly between unpopularity and ridicule in recent weeks, as the British prime minister’s plans for […]
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Big Society, Big Idea?
If government isn’t the answer to all society’s ills, how can citizens take control and find real solutions to problems as diverse as loneliness and youth crime? Well, the Big Society Network that launched in London on Thursday thinks it has the answer – half public awareness campaign, half social networking site, half thinktank, half old-fashioned mutual society, […]