Defining the indefinable - Annie Gunner Logan brings out the sex and intelligence in third sector infrastructure
When the TFN editor told me that this issue would focus on third sector infrastructure I thought well now, there’s a theme I can warm to, given that the bulk of my working life is spent leading (she says modestly) a key part of it.
Just one thing: I’m not sure that infrastructure is the right term to describe the function of my outfit, and others like it. It implies that our primary purpose is to supply the basic facilities that enable the sector to operate, which isn’t quite how my organisational mission is framed.
Locally, the key sector bodies are known as interfaces. I confess I’ve never liked this term because to my mind it’s so very passive, denoting nothing more than the point at which different parts of a system meet and interact, without any particular agency of its own.
But what our respective members prize most highly about their infrastructure bodies – and indeed what they judge us by – is our ability to focus on their own concerns and interests
Annie Gunner Logan
Besides which, I seem to recall that the handle of TSI didn’t come from within the sector; it was imposed from outside by those with an agenda for rationalisation, standardisation and (whisper it) order. All things that our sector has, with very good reason in my view, resisted with considerable spirit.
Added to that, I have my own idiosyncratic issues with the term that relate more to my obsession with pop music than to any dispassionate critical analysis. Anyone remember early nineties band The Shamen? Almost a one-hit wonder with the edgy but radio-friendly “Ebeneezer Goode”, they managed nonetheless to sneak out a follow-up – the enigmatically titled “LSI” – before disappearing into obscurity. LSI, I am here to tell you, stood for Love, Sex, Intelligence. Even now, every time I hear TSI, I wonder what the T might stand for...
Some prefer to call us intermediaries which, to the casual observer, sounds like an amalgam of intercede and remedial, which is about right. It ascribes to us a more energetic role than simply acting as a meeting point, but it also implies a neutrality which has not been immediately detectable in any sector body that I’ve ever had anything to do with.
Ultimately, the problem I have with all these terms is that they define our role principally in relation to others, whereas I believe our key function is to support the sector itself, and to do so at the sector’s own behest. I recognise, of course, that a lot of us do what we do with public funding, and that funding is provided at least in part to help meet the age-old challenge of herding cats when the public sector wants to engage.
But what our respective members prize most highly about their infrastructure bodies – and indeed what they judge us by – is our ability to focus on their own concerns and interests, not anyone else’s; to fight their corner, if that is what’s required; and to provide a bit of cover when the unpleasant stuff falls on them from above.
So, having warned you about the pop references already, I’m going to plump for the term umbrella (ella, ella) group. Best expressed, I think, in titles like federation, alliance, coalition and suchlike. If you don’t like it, at least come and say so to my interface.
Annie Gunner Logan has been working in and around the Scottish voluntary sector for longer than she cares to remember. Currently director of CCPS (Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland) with various non-exec roles thrown in.
