Where does the 'Big Society' idea come from?

• Big Society: information and background
• Big Society: practical tips and advice

Part of the Coalition government’s plans for a ‘Big Society’ is to create a 5,000-strong ‘neighbourhood army’ of professional community organisers. The idea is that these people will identify local community leaders and work with communities to help them to start 'helping themselves'. The concept is based on the ideas of radical thinker and community organiser Saul Alinsky (1909-1972), whose movement trained many community organisers, including Barack Obama. Alinsky wrote two well-known books: Reveille for Radicals (1946) and Rules for Radicals (1972) and his ideas have particular relevance for people who are trying to effect change in communities and create common cause (or cohesion) among alienated or disparate communities. Read more about Saul Alinsky's ideas here.

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Big Society: information and background

• Prime Minister David Cameron's Big Society Speech - Monday 19 July 2010.
• The Big Society web page   The Big Society's crew is looking for help from individuals, groups or organisations over the next few months to shape how they can best help communities. So if you want to, you can register on the site to offer your thoughts.
• What Mr Big Society himself, Nat Wei, thinks it's all about
• FAQs about the Big Society Network   Five big questions answered by the Big Society Network.
• Enshrining the importance of social value in law   4 October: Chris White MP talks about his revolutionary bill.

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Big Society: practical tips and advice

• Big Society and volunteers   Time to bust some Big Myths. This Voluntary Sector Network blog from the Guardian discusses the language used around the concept of volunteering and addresses some of the misconceptions and fears about using volunteers to deliver services.
• Big Society Bank     This briefing from Children England is an important piece in the Big Society infrastructure jigsaw. It explains the history and thinking behind the Big Society Bank, its basic principles and how it will work. And here is a glossary of terms used in the briefing.
• Third sector accounting: advice on 'cart-before-horse' challenges   Some third sector organisations may not know if their funding will be renewed until after their accounts are due. How can this cart-before-horse challenge be dealt with. Start by putting all your cards on the table says Helena Wilkinson in this Guardian Voluntary Sector Network blog.
• Marketing: invest effort and cash in it wisely   This is an article by John Suart, a Canadian non-profit marketing and communications expert (JohnSuart.com). Figures quoted are in Canadian dollars; however, it has some useful food for thought about the importance of marketing to social enterprise organisations of all kinds.
• Big Society opportunities for small organisations   The NCVO highlights ways that voluntary and community organisations can find their place in the government's big picture.
• As the pot gets smaller so charities must be smarter   There is a lot of sage advice in this Guardian Voluntary Sector Network article if you are setting up as a social enterprise, or a charity to continue developing and managing extended services for your schools. Here's one helpful comment: 'It's about keeping [grant makers and funders] engaged, showing them the impact of your work. How have they made a difference? Having got the grant, you need to be feeding back and communicating,' says Louise Richards, director of policy and campaigns at the Institute of Fundraising. 
• Make it personalised and local   Forget impersonal emails, no more computer generated email campaigns, stop sending reams of paper by post. That's advice to charities and  voluntary sector services from Robert Halfon Conservative MP for Harlow and a Member of the Public Administration Select Committee. However, the comments below the article are interesting.
• How charities and voluntary organisations can move their IT to 'the cloud' to save money
• Should we train the 'Small Society' to help sustain some extended services?   Here’s a brilliant example of participatory budgeting in action in Walsall. Could more clusters of schools engage children in making decisions about how to spend funds pooled by their schools to give them wider learning/out-of-school-hours opportunities? Children in Walsall gained confidence through learning the attitudes and skills that make up good citizenship. They learnt to negotiate, filter and sort priorities, manage their own and their peers' expectations, be fair, speak in front of groups about their ideas, use a matrix system to think through ideas, do budgetary calculations, use voting in decision-making and work in teams. (Also in the Library under Gems and Sustainability: new ways to deliver extended services, including social enterprise models)
• Cabinet Office Business plan   Here is the Cabinet Office business plan setting out plans for building the Big Society by promoting community empowerment, opening up public services and encouraging social action. 
• Commissioning and the Big Society   Community Matters has released a guide in which the Kindle partnership urges service commissioners to work more closely with small and medium-sized community organisations.
  Here is the guide: Commissioning and the Big Society: the role of the community sector
  Another guide from Community Matters: Talking Trusts: Commissioning and the community sector

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