After 19 years as Plaza Publishing producing titles like Charity Finance, Governance, Fundraising and Civil Society IT, the company announced it would rebrand as Civil Society Media at The Charity Awards 2009 presentation dinner, a major sector event which it organises in June each year. It then merged all its previously separate websites into a single new website www.civilsociety.co.uk which was launched in November 2009. Within six months, an election has been and gone and the rebrand has been adopted by the new administration!
Civil Society Media’s chief executive, Daniel Phelan (pictured), explains: “There has always been a clearly identifiable space between government and commerce which is occupied by all kinds of non-profit-distributing organisations, such as charities, associations, trades unions, professional institutes, societies, NGOs and social enterprises. These kinds of organisations have grown massively over the years so they are major employers and contributors to the economy in their own rights. Even more importantly, they are seen as the key to delivering solutions to social problems that government and commerce struggle to achieve and as a fundamental delivery channel for the Conservative’s Big Society idea.”
Phelan continues; “The way this space has been described over the years has always been problematical, relying on negative terminology like non-profit or not-for-profit, or seemingly third in line, third rate or third class. The term ‘civil society’ is positive and constructive, and is in use throughout the world.”
With the renamed ministry at the centre of the drive to deliver the Conservative’s concept of a Big Society, the new Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd, said in his first speech in the role that terminology like ‘third sector’ would be expunged from government communications and policies ‘because the boss really doesn’t like it’.
This has presumably caused some consternation at Haymarket which publishes Third Sector, the news and jobs weekly for this market. Third Sector’s editor Stephen Cook’s recent blog claims the term civil society “creates a raft of inconsistency and contradiction” although he continues by admitting that “the term might slowly become adopted and catch on”.
Meanwhile, says Daniel Phelan, news editors in the sector have started receiving releases littered with the term civil society and devoid of any mention of third sector as those reliant on government funding or favour quickly adopt the newly preferred terminology.
