The way I see it, mission drift is good if it's planned and right for your audience. All organisations need to stay relevant. Your audience, and their needs, will change over time, so your organisation has to too. But if you start doing things 'just because it feels right' without any insight to back that up, or without a structured plan, that's where things go off brand and fall apart.
I've seen several charities, co-ops, and building societies start off as all-volunteer, unpaid groups, who grow and take on staff.
And as those founding volunteers age, the original democratic processes and local branch structure come into conflict with the paid employees. The result is 'demutualisation': the charity becomes a for-profit by stealth. A couple of good examples are the Automobile Association and BUPA (British United Provident Association - a health plan).
Its hard to say whether this is a disaster or not: the organisation itself survives as a sort of parasite that devours its host. Would it have survived otherwise? Well, the Nationwide Building society remains a mutual, and has grown just as fast, so its hard to say.
Based on my experience of working in charities over the last 20 years, I would say that there are many examples where incremental mission drift has actually helped an organisation to become more impactful and to deliver wider public benefit as a result.
One example from when I was working in the sight loss sector is that of 4Sight Vision Support, previously known as West Sussex Association For The Blind (WSAB).
When it was founded in 1921, WSAB only provided support and assistance to people who had no sight at all. It wasn't until almost 40 years after the organisation was founded that it began to help people who were partially sighted.
By making that small but important change from their original constitution, the charity has able to expand the number of people it supports each year, making it more relevant and responsive to the community of people that it serves.
No doubt there are many other such similar and positive examples in the voluntary sector of where mission drift has been beneficial, and my guess (and it is only a guess), is that those far outweigh the instances where mission drift has had profoundly negative outcomes.
The way I see it, mission drift is good if it's planned and right for your audience. All organisations need to stay relevant. Your audience, and their needs, will change over time, so your organisation has to too. But if you start doing things 'just because it feels right' without any insight to back that up, or without a structured plan, that's where things go off brand and fall apart.
I've seen several charities, co-ops, and building societies start off as all-volunteer, unpaid groups, who grow and take on staff.
And as those founding volunteers age, the original democratic processes and local branch structure come into conflict with the paid employees. The result is 'demutualisation': the charity becomes a for-profit by stealth. A couple of good examples are the Automobile Association and BUPA (British United Provident Association - a health plan).
Its hard to say whether this is a disaster or not: the organisation itself survives as a sort of parasite that devours its host. Would it have survived otherwise? Well, the Nationwide Building society remains a mutual, and has grown just as fast, so its hard to say.
Based on my experience of working in charities over the last 20 years, I would say that there are many examples where incremental mission drift has actually helped an organisation to become more impactful and to deliver wider public benefit as a result.
One example from when I was working in the sight loss sector is that of 4Sight Vision Support, previously known as West Sussex Association For The Blind (WSAB).
When it was founded in 1921, WSAB only provided support and assistance to people who had no sight at all. It wasn't until almost 40 years after the organisation was founded that it began to help people who were partially sighted.
By making that small but important change from their original constitution, the charity has able to expand the number of people it supports each year, making it more relevant and responsive to the community of people that it serves.
No doubt there are many other such similar and positive examples in the voluntary sector of where mission drift has been beneficial, and my guess (and it is only a guess), is that those far outweigh the instances where mission drift has had profoundly negative outcomes.
How about Universities, Nik?
And building societies and mutual assurance providers?
I'm measuring them by overall assets, not numbers: there are vast numbers of local charities like the one you mention.
You'll know that the RNIB and Guide Dogs hold massive assets in the bank, and are virtually unaccountable to any 'membership'.