A different way to think about money and the institutions that spend it

The lottery has spent £22 billion on social change since 1997. I remember asking the CEO at the time what he had spent it on (!) and of course he didn’t know and of course its a churlish question, and no-one can answer it about anything we spend our collective money on, but as a colleague said the NHS spends more on healthcare than the whole continent of Africa. Globalisation has provided the funds, resource allocation is the key. 

Seems odd to say in austerity times but maybe money is not the solution anymore. or not the whole solution anyway.

A common question towards the end of a grants term is “how do we sustain this”? Should we not have a strict plan for how this will not be needed anymore in 3 years time? The question on the application form about “sustainability” is laughable. But there are things we can do?

Could we not agree what voluntary orgs in principle we want to keep and make sure they’ll be alright for 2-3 years? It would mean borrowing some money or changing how we spend things. but it seems really odd we haven;t had a proper discussion on what we expect taxation to pay for, and what we expect philanthropy to pay for.  Would that mean the social mission for some was not needed anymore? Some of them. And in which case what would we do with that surplus of talent and time instead..? 

The issue of student loans (for example) is essentially an inter generational contract. We pay in during working years for early education and then for older care. If those figures don't balance then we have an issue. We currently have an issue. 

So housing is a bad example.

As is student debt. 

As is adult social care

As is anything to do with state provision. 

We don't have many good examples right now. 

The only work currently ongoing is reducing costs (via efficiencies in the current system) and reducing demand (by raising thresholds and making people more responsible for themselves)

So is the only way to change the system long term to look at the family model (or the core economy) and what it is able to provide? In Spain for example everyone lives with their family while they go to college which significantly reduces costs. And in Italy every older person lives with their family which significantly reduces costs. 

All in all there is a limited way of moving money around a system. Someone pays, it's just a matter of who and when. 

I remember suggesting to another lottery bod that we put all the lottery money tthrough a single bank account and use the endowment for something (it wouldn't remove the interest that the lottery distributors accrue either as its one step down the chain). It would mean a bit of hassle, and an intermediary account, but its surely not beyond us to move some imaginary money around. Make links between things that don't currently exist that get us beyond the 'least worse position' else end up in. I did 6 years volunteer dispute mediation where the focus was to move people from their positions to their interest. It sounds like we could do that to the rest of the economy. We have the desire, we just don't yet have the mechanisms to get beyond zero-sum. This is not an information problem, and is probably not an inclination problem. It is a logistics problem, the type of game humans are very good at solving with the right incentives. 

So maybe we need a different map of incentives in how we think about social change - as much as we need a different way to think about money and value..

And money might not be the solution, but it certainly alleviates problems. Stand in line for the foodbank and discuss it. 

That's 2014 for me..