Marcus Coetzee

The principle of diversity has been on my mind recently – of beliefs, views and skills that emerge from different demographics, political allegiances, neurological types and behavioural traits.

As one might expect, the subject of diversity lends itself to various interpretations, often with opposing views like those I encounter online and in discussions. It is notable how hard it is to reach any consensus on why diversity actually matters, as debates tend to break down into polarised positions.

I prefer a more nuanced and contextual approach to thinking about diversity at the levels of countries, organisations, teams, families and relationships. This article proposes the conditions where diversity is an asset to any system, organisation or team, and describes what tends to happen if these conditions are not met.

Organisations need good governance to stay on track and fulfil their purpose. Good governance involves a group of people, such as a board of directors or trustees, providing strategic oversight and ensuring that an organisation makes sensible strategic decisions and operates ethically. Such governance structures function effectively when they consist of the right people having the right conversations. These are the two key ingredients for successful governance.

In this context, the “right people” means capable individuals with a diversity of knowledge, experience, and mental models. The “right conversations” include a willingness to invest time and effort in thoroughly exploring the matter at hand with fellow directors.

Organisations should therefore be mindful and intentional about the types of people they wish to recruit for their boards, the types of conversations they want to encourage, and the type of governance culture that would be a strategic asset.

This article pulls together some ideas that have been floating around my mind for a few decades and also tackles the relationship between thought diversity and demographic diversity.

Here are some thoughts about upstream versus downstream problems, especially in the context of the social, economic and environmental challenges that charities and governments face.

Upstream problems are the root causes and conditions that slowly emerge and eventually lead to the more visible, urgent problems that appear downstream. These often form part of a vicious cycle where the deeper causes are obscured by the fallout they produce.

By contrast, downstream problems are more tangible. They are loud, visible and easier to rally around. This makes them politically and practically more attractive to address, even when it’s too late to avoid the damage. The austerity measures in the UK have made this tension between upstream and downstream activities even more apparent.

It is a chilly but rare clear day in Scotland as I sit down to write this reflection at one of my favourite cafés in Paisley. I’m entering my fourth year in the UK after emigrating from South Africa. I continue to make steady but slow progress in overcoming various challenges.

There is value in writing and sharing after-action reviews. Writing these reflections (and journaling most days) helps me to orient myself and reflect on how I must do things differently in the future. They might even help others to anticipate and avoid my mistakes.

While I had no big breakthroughs this year, I laid a good foundation for 2025.

My clients and colleagues have been complaining about how difficult fundraising has recently become in the UK for charities, social enterprises and community groups. They observe that there seems to be less funding available and much more competition for it. The overall mood of the UK third sector seems subdued.

Unfortunately, this situation is very familiar to me. It’s almost déjà vu. It reminds me of the situation facing the South African non-profit sector since the early 2000s. I know the endgame – how this can turn out since I’ve spent over two decades helping these organisations overcome these challenges.

Here are 10 trends I observed about how the third sector in South Africa adapted to the decline in funding. This may contain insights for UK charities.

This article describes the various challenges I overcame during my first, second and third years of living in Scotland after emigrating from South Africa in 2021.

After three years of making a concerted effort to integrate into Scottish culture and contribute to the country, I’m starting to feel increasingly at home.

This article will help people who have recently moved countries to gain perspective on how long it takes to integrate and the likely challenges they will encounter. People tend to feel reassured when they realise they’re on a journey and how others have also struggled. 

There is some debate about the job market in the third sector in the UK. It concerns whether organisations like charities and social enterprises struggle to find qualified staff because of a shortage of skilled job seekers. My article explores the different perspectives in this debate and offers advice for organisations struggling to recruit staff. This advice is based on my experience of looking for work in the UK.

This article describes my system for managing tasks and information. This system evolved over the past two and a half decades as I’ve consumed books, podcasts and blog posts on productivity, task management and personal knowledge management.

This system has enabled me to stay relatively sane as I’ve managed up to 20 simultaneous consulting projects across multiple continents.

It is a snowy day in Scotland as I write the first paragraphs of this reflection in December 2023. I’m entering my third year in the UK after emigrating from South Africa. I have continued to make steady progress on several fronts amidst a host of challenges.

I believe in the value of writing and sharing after-action reviews. You can read my previous end-of-year reflections from previous years which show how my career has evolved. Writing my reflections (and journaling daily) helps me to orient myself and reflect on how I must do things differently in the future. My reflections might even help others to learn from my experiences and avoid my mistakes.

Community wealth building (CWB) is a philosophy and approach to local economic development that is packaged into a coherent and marketable model. CWB is gaining traction in the UK.

CWB aims to promote economic activity and investment in local areas and enable equitable economic growth. It opposes the idea of extractive economics where wealth is taken out of communities by national and multinational corporations. It rather promotes generative economics and embraces concepts like localism and new municipalism. This involves prioritising local matters and increasing the autonomy of local municipalities or councils.

The Scottish Government has embraced this concept and is busy embedding it in policy.

This article introduces CWB and reflects on its value and limitations. It will be interesting to anyone involved in sustaining and growing a local economy. I wrote it to contribute to the discussion about CWB.