In the light of all the re-ignited publicity around the Post Office scandal, I have written to REC – the Recruitment and Employment Confederation to suggest that they run a campaign #DontRecruitForFujitsu – where they actively discourage recruitment consultancies from supplying candidates to them. Clearly, The Right Ethos would not be affected as we don’t work in this sector. But, if recruitment agencies who did and particularly those who have worked for Fujitsu previously, were to say that they #DontRecruitForFujitsu this would be a good thing.
With government contracts signed there is very little that can be done to get out of these agreements. However, if Fujitsu are undermined by being made unable to fulfil these contracts then their profits from the government can be affected.
The next stage of the campaign could go onto to be #DontWorkForFujitsu – where candidates are encouraged not to apply for jobs at Fujitsu.
And possibly current employees are stimulated to leave Fujitsu – maybe after a reasonable time period so that no more individuals take a personal and an immediate hit on their livelihoods – for example by the end of 2026.
When looking through some old memorabilia recently, I came across the memorial service booklet of Roy Jenkins. For younger listeners, Lord Jenkinswas Labour home secretary, chancellor of the exchequer, president of the European Commission, founder of the Social Democratic Party, chancellor of Oxford University, as well as being a distinguished biographer. He was a major figure in post-war 20th century British politics.
The service took place 20 years ago last week – 27th March 2003 – at Westminster Abbey. I was pleased to be able to access tickets for myself and my friend since university,Jonny Oates, who I have mentioned in previous blogs. Jonny is now a member of the House of Lords and has recently become the Chief Executive of United Against Malnutrition.
But, looking back at who was in the Abbey, 20 years ago this week is a roll-call of late 20th century politics – and I’ve added links to each of the notable people, rather than go into detail here.
Sadly out of this list only Chris Patten, the UK’s last Governor of Hong Kong and 2 of Lord Jenkin’s fellow SDP Gang of Four, Bill Rodgers and David Owen are still alive.
In 1990, started getting active and the roots of my career in the non-for-profit and campaigning sector began. I was running the Liberal Democrats group at Exeter University with Jonny Oates. He invited me up to his home in London to work on the next edition of our newsletter and make plans for what we were going to campaign on.
I had barely been to London before and was excited to stay with him as he lived on Fleet Street, as his father was the Rector of St. Bride’s Church. To be honest most of our work was done in the Punch Tavern conveniently located just outside his house.
We both went onto become Liberal Democrat Councillors in the 90s. I worked in the charity sector for organisations including Save the Children, Amnesty, PLAN International and EveryChild. Jonny had a more political career outlined in his excellent book I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
But Jonny has now moved into the non-profit campaigning and advocacy sector and has become the Chief Executive of a new campaign United Against Malnutrition and Hunger
I was delighted to be at the launch this week in Blackfriars – just 33 years and200 yards away from the Punch Tavern where developing my right ethos all began.
United Against Malnutrition and Hunger (click on this Twitter link) is a cross party campaign. Jonny Oates is Liberal Democrat Peer, Baroness Sugg, Conservative is the Co-Chair, Kate Dearden is a Labour representative on the Board.
Speakers at the launch included David Cameron and former Foreign Secretary, David Miliband who spoke online.
Leave a Comment In 1990, I started getting active and the roots of my career in the non-for-profit and campaigning sector began. I was running the Liberal Democrats group at Exeter University with Jonny Oates. He invited me up to his home in London to work on the next edition of our newsletter and make plans for what we were going to campaign on.
I had barely been to London before and was excited to stay with him as he lived on Fleet Street, as his father was the Rector of St. Bride’s Church. To be honest most of our work was done in the Punch Tavern conveniently located just outside his house.
We both went onto become Liberal Democrat Councillors in the 90s. I worked in the charity sector for organisations including Save the Children, Amnesty, PLAN International and EveryChild. Jonny had a more political career outlined in his excellent book I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
But Jonny has now finally moved into the non-profit campaigning and advocacy sector and has become the Chief Executive of a new campaign United Against Malnutrition and Hunger
I was delighted to be at the launch this week in Blackfriars – 33 years and 200 yards away from the Punch Tavern where the development of my personal right ethos all began.
United Against Malnutrition and Hunger (click on this Twitter link) is a cross party campaign. Jonny Oates
is Liberal Democrat Peer, Baroness Sugg, Conservative is the Co-Chair, Kate Dearden is a Labour representative on the Board.
Speakers at the launch included David Cameron and former Foreign Secretary, David Miliband who spoke online.
If you’re a candidate, you’re in a great position to move your career forward – there’s still loads of jobs and in fact we see people being recruited beyond their abilities.
The really capable candidates are not around for long – the savvy recruiters are snapping them up. There is loads of advice on being flexible, remote working etc. But the key thing to recruiting the best candidates are getting your recruitment processes right. I see many internal recruitment processes which are hopeless and people lose candidates by not thinking ahead and planning.
Hopefully, you have HR and recruitment staff who are proactive and take an entrepreneurial approach to finding staff – and don’t just have a tick box attitude of “that’s the way we always do things”
Winter 2023 -launch your recruitment searches – ready, steady -Go!
Take a look at how many jobs are out there with similar titles to the one you’re recruiting for. Possibly more than at any time in the past 20 years – particularly in your job title has the word manager or officer included within it.
Here’s what you need to do:
Remove barriers – if you use a Recruitment Portal – then suspend it. At the best of times these are not candidate focussed, they are for your organisation. And if you don’t use the recruitment portal properly then you probably have it because someone brought it thinking it was going to revolutionise recruitment at a massive cost and you’re lumbered with it.
If a candidate needs to go through the hell of a recruitment portal as opposed to just sending an email, guess which one they will do.
If you do need the information “Portalised” for some reason, get a member of staff or an intern to do it once you’ve received the application.
Drop the Application Form – a CV and a detailed supporting statement will do. Application forms put candidates off from applying. A CV has most of the information. Prescribe what you want on a supporting statement e.g., “please address these 7 points with 2-3 paragraphs of your tangible experience”
Get someone to review your applications on a daily basis. Can be a well briefed junior member of staff – then fast track strong candidates to the recruiting manager daily. Send an email saying we particularly welcome your application and we will be back in touch soon. Perhaps a 5-minute online call or a phone call the next day to show that you are interested and keeping them warm in the process.
Interview as soon as possible – the smallest gap possible between deadline and interview. No later than the following week.
Do you really need a second interview? Ok, schedule it for the day after the first interview.
Interview decision making process – ideally you should schedule this in for the next possible moment as the last interviewee is walking out of the building. Make sure everyone is available and make a decision. And make it. Know what the offer is salary and ideal start date and make the offer.
Would you like The Right Ethos to design your recruitment process to maximise the candidates that you could be attracting to your organisation? We’ll provide you with a precise timetable and do all the thinking for you to prepare the optimal recruitment process.
At the recent Conservative Party Conference, Greenpeace’s Rebecca Newsom, Head of Politics & Political Campaigner Ami McCarthy gained significant amount of media attention interrupting the Prime Minister’s speech and being removed from the conference hall.
We asked readers of this enewsletter what they thought of the protest, here are some of the views:
“Has it affected wider public opinion in the way Greenpeace wanted? Hard to tell inside the echo chamber – I think it has raised the questions of who voted for these changes AND has got climate back into an agenda so I think it was positive
Has it pulled together their opponents where they were looking fractured? Unsure
I like the ‘who voted for this’ tag line and we should all use it across all of our campaign sectors”
Rhi Hughes, Community Engagement Manager, South West London Law Centres
… the Greenpeace protest was good for all concerned. It was a very simple message they could expand on subsequently and it was done is an entirely peaceful and polite manner by respectable people. It was also, crucially, on an issue which divides opinion across the political spectrum. For the Conservatives it gave them something to rally together against but it was clear that their issue was not with the message, just with the fact there was disruption.
One person in the hall messaged me to ask if I knew if the party had manufactured this and my response was no because if you were manufacturing a protest to galvanise your supporters, you’d choose a more divisive issue and you’d make more of a fuss doing it, for example, some pro-Russian protests.
Clearly this was a one-off and I would never recommend heckling and shouting as it invariably backfires when people don’t see people treating each other with respect, but the way they did this was exemplary and an effective way of highlighting their cause. Credit goes to the protesters, audience, security and the PM for the way this was handled as all came out of it looking better.
Gareth Knight, Political & Campaigns Consultant, van der Knight
Rhi’s point of “who voted for this” being reused across the campaign sectors would be limited as campaigns with charitable status could be getting involved with party political issues which they’re prohibited to do.
Gareth’s overall analysis was that Greenpeace did well out of it but also their target – the Conservative Government – also did, questions the overall value.
A former Greenpeace employee, first reaction was critical of the action feeling that it actually helped the Prime Minister more by having a visual enemy to focus on. But later felt that the action was worthwhile.
SMT does extensive campaigner training. Free training series underway that folks can sign up for through here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalCampaignSupport And there’s an info session coming up in a couple of weeks about extensive training. Registration starts then. https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwrc-ytqTIoGNE75FkzN-RTvn-YXhgHEPgJ Also SMT will shortly be announcing a call for collaboration with subsidized campaigning coaching support for organizing networks. We’ll explain that in the session above.
The Sheila McKechnie Foundation (SMK) is running a Campaign Carousel – a series of 3 hour online workshops that include the essential building blocks to drive social change. This blog by Kathleen Christie, SMK’s course director, gives you a good flavour of what it’s all about. SMK also runs bespoke campaign training sessions for organisations which are run by SMK Associates.
The annual Campaigning Forum event , currently scheduled for Sep. 27-29 in Oxford – see http://fairsay.com/ecf2021?s=ecfs (details will be updated soon now that the UK covid situation is getting clearer)
Duane: I have run an digital campaigning course online for the last decade – it needs updating but the principles haven’t changed
I developed an in-house campaigning (not digital campaigning) course for internal use at a large animal welfare group and it is available worldwide to their thousands of staff. I also have a campaigning planning course online that also needs updating
More Onion
At more onion we offer in-person (when possible) and online standard and tailored trainings for campaigners. We can cover all aspects of mobilisation from writing emails to supporter recruitment. You may find this case study interesting of a training programme we delivered for the fantastic team at Possible. We also partner with Sheila McKechnie Foundation to deliver their Digital Campaigning workshop which is next running on 13 May.
Climate Outreach
Depending on what you’re campaigning, this might not be applicable. However, Climate Outreach has some great resources available which will have transferable suggestions across various topics including farming.
Also, Climate Literacy Project is a great for campaigners too that provides an awareness of the carbon dioxide costs and impacts of everyday activities, and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions, on an individual, community and organisational basis
89Up
89up we’re rebooting our training this year, after a pause last year. Our first session will be on Engaging Influencers in June (date tbc). If anyone is interested, send us an email and we’ll let you know details in due course: ruth.emblin-james@89up.org
Campaign Bootcamp
We run a variety of training, from our flagship Bootcamp residential programmes, to local community training events.
Our MA Media, Campaigning and Social Change at the University of Westminster, listed on Tom’s and on Natasha’s lists, is alive and well! After a year delivering online, we’re planning for blended delivery in 21/22, starting September 2021. The course includes working on live social justice issues and students can tailor their work round the issues that interest them. As well as the full MA, we also offer a shorter Post Grad Certificate option which comprises the three core modules of the MA. It’s a cost effective way to explore campaigning in depth, if you’re looking for more than a one or two day training course. Plus, scholarships applications
Independent consultant and CEO of the International Federation of Musculoskeletal Research Societies.
Generally are organisations getting better at campaigning since you began your career? If so, what’s changed?
Organisations are getting better at articulating their message, communicating with and effectively mobilising their key audience, and thinking about impact. There is also much more joined-up, partnership working, which I think is very positive. More organisations are also increasingly realising the importance of effective campaigning to achieve their core purpose, even if they don’t necessarily see themselves as a “campaigning” organisation, because achieving large-scale, lasting change almost invariably involves a degree of campaigning and influencing.
In a broader sense, digital communications and social media have clearly changed the landscape enormously, hugely increasing reach and opportunities for engagement, while at the same time shifting power away from organisations and more towards networks. More people are now taking their own campaigning initiatives, and in some cases building a following, but often these activities coalesce around big themes, such as climate change, #MeToo or the Black Lives Matter protests. How change is effected today is less driven by organisations and more by the sometimes almost spontaneous emergence of global movements around big themes, which in some ways is very exciting.
Which campaigner inspires you most?
I’m a big fan of Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook and mentor to Mark Zuckerberg who has in recent years become an active and vocal critic of Facebook’s business model and that of other social platform giants, particularly in terms of how it has enabled and is enabling the spread of hate and disinformation. This is the “flip side” of the power of digital, and it represents one of the biggest challenges of our time, which no campaigning organisation can afford to ignore. By championing the cause of reform and accountability, trailblazers like Roger open a path for others to follow, and are creating a genuine movement for a different way of doing things.
Apart from your current organisation which other organisations that campaign do you admire and why?
I’m going to say the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, where I was Interim CEO for a year. The FSRH represents a clinical specialty and provides training and education for health professionals, but its focus is firmly and genuinely on the people whom this specialty is there to serve. In particular, it has campaigned extensively to improve women’s sexual and reproductive health, not just from a health perspective, but from an empowerment and human rights perspective, which is very important and very powerful. They’re a great example of an organisation really understanding its core purpose, looking at the bigger picture and positioning itself within that. And that is key to achieving lasting impact.
What three attributes make a good campaigner?
Firstly, wanting to make a difference. That’s the starting point.
Secondly, the ability to read the “lay of the land”, understand what it takes to make change happen, and spot opportunities to do so. If one door is shut, don’t just keep banging on it – look for another entrance.
Thirdly, communication: so much of getting others to care about what you care about, and to take action around it, is about having a clear and strong narrative, and the ability to paint a compelling vision of what you are trying to achieve – and of how each person’s actions can help achieve that.
But there is a fourth attribute, which involves effective partnership working – with your colleagues, with partner organisations, with external stakeholders. It’s about more than teamwork: it involves flexibility, and the ability to make common cause with your allies. As the saying goes, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.
What’s the most rewarding or exciting campaign you’ve worked on and why?
The Hardest Hit campaign on disability benefits, which brought together many different organisations across the health & care and disability sectors and saw the biggest-ever protest against cuts to disability benefits in May 2011. We had a huge rally in London, which Sally Bercow even joined unexpectedly. I instigated the campaign, got the key organisations behind it and led on the initial planning. I also secured a giant postcard specifically drawn for the campaign by Gerald Scarfe. Although disabled people have sadly continued to bear the brunt of successive Conservative governments’ economic policies, it set a really strong marker and brought the entire community together in an unprecedented way.
How do you feel campaigns will change over the next five years?
While it’s early to say what the legacy of the pandemic on campaigning will be, I believe campaigns will increasingly be more integrated, in the sense that they will bring together more people with a broader range of expertise, working together for a shared aim and under a shared banner. Organisationally, this should lead to campaigning being less siloed within an organisation, with campaigners also thinking about sustainability, and everyone else also seeing themselves as having an integral role in external impact.
They will also be less centrally-driven and top-down. More organisations are not just involving their beneficiaries more directly in campaigns work but also increasingly being led by them, and by their grassroots. I think there will be less “campaigns” and more “movement”.
What advice would you give someone starting their career in campaigning today?
There are many ways to achieve change. But all of them involve people working together.
With the current crisis, finding jobs in the charity and not-for-profit sector that suit your needs is now harder than ever. Therefore, we can trawl all the major, and also the minor, job websites to ensure you don’t miss opportunities to further your career.
Please email us to let us know the following 5 bits of information.
Level of job
Salaries in brackets cover around 75% of the jobs with these titles
Assistant (£18-26k)
Officer (£28-34k)
Manager (£35-48k)
Head (£45-60k)
Director (£50-75k)
Chief Executive (£60-150k)
Choose 1 or more levels
Minimum salary
State a minimum level in pounds
Job Function
Communications
Public Affairs
Campaigns
Advocacy
Policy
Parliamentary
Digital & Social Media
PR, Press & Media
Marketing
Chief Executive
Trustees
Fundraising (we will be in touch to talk specifically)
Finance
IT
Human Resources
Please choose 1 or more. If you can’t find a function you are looking for let us know and we will advise.
In response to the Black Lives Matters words “Stand with us when words are not enough” – The Right Ethos has introduced a policy of affirmative action to increase the opportunities for BAME candidates and to support the charity sector to fulfil their desire to reflect society more accurately.
The Rooney Rule is a policy that was introduced in the USA which requires American Football league teams to interview BAME candidates for head coaching and senior football operation jobs.
The Right Ethos is now to applying it to all the candidate shortlists that we present our clients.
This is a commitment and a formalisation of what we have always strived to achieve. However, for The Right Ethos, it will at the very least act as a “safety check” to make sure that it consistently applies to all of our work. We intend it to ensure that organisationally we are more aware and we properly consider the issue of inequality. And this is only intended as a starting point. We are looking to learn best practice and work with others to improve our actions.
We are grateful for #CharitySoWhite for helping support our Free Career Coaching for Young Working Class people I started this scheme in January 2020 as I came from a working class background – initially living on the Bettws council estate in Newport and receiving free school dinners during the steelworkers strike in 1980. It is for any working-class people, not only those from a BAME background. However, disproportionally black and ethnic minority people are working class and this has been reflected in the young people who we have given free coaching to so far, the majority of them are black or from an ethnic minority.
The Right Ethos has also this month signed the pledge to Show The Salary – the campaign to address pay gaps and inequity in the charity sector. It is frustrating when clients want to say “competitive salary” instead of a figure or a range. It helps no-one and if it is a factor in inequality then it needs to stop.
In March, just before the lockdown, I took up my invitation from the Carnegie Trust to attend the launch of their report Race Inequality in the Workforce at the House of Commons.
It’s clear that 2020 will go down as a significant year in so many ways. The Right Ethos is committed to ensuring that we plays our part in making lives fairer and equal so that everybody benefits.
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