Perceptions of voluntary groups

Sir, – I refer to coverage of our report on the perceptions of policy makers of community and voluntary organisations (“ ‘Poverty industry’ targeted in report; Review of voluntary sector criticises vested interests and lack of scrutiny”, June 25th). The headline misrepresents the purpose, nature and findings of the report. This innovative report sought to find out what policy-makers really think of the advocacy and lobbying work done by community and voluntary organisations. We were not looking for a clap on the back. We are not naive, we know that the work we do is not always perfect.

The 33 policy-makers interviewed had nuanced and complicated views of the community and voluntary organisations. As we expected they had good and bad things to say. Your headlines suggest that the isolated views of some individuals represent the overall conclusions of the report. This is very misleading. The report tried to capture perceptions, not “review” the sector generally as you suggest.

Community and voluntary organisations carry an enormous responsibility to those they serve – the most vulnerable in Irish society. We take this responsibility very seriously. We are grateful to those policy-makers who were prepared to help us reflect on how we can better live up to it. Your readers can see for themselves the outcomes of this process at www.advocacyinitiative.ie.

Leadership means being open and honest about how you can improve. This is not always easy and it is made harder when misconstrued as an attack. It is a pity that more people do not follow the leadership of community and voluntary organisations in engaging in open frank debate about how they can do better. – Yours, etc,

READ MORE

ANNA VISSER,

Director,

The Advocacy Initiative,

North Brunswick Street,

Dublin 7.