When Cameron came into office he spoke about replacing the term "third sector" with the alternative term "civil society". "Third sector" refers only to not-for-profit organisations and "civil society" refers to all non-state organisations, both commercial and non-commercial. Cameron's verbal preference seemed to be all about creating a big moral distinction between state (bad) and non-state (good)
in place of the big moral distinction between services that are offered for profit and those that are offered by not-for-profit organisations.
That has helped to generate a climate where commercial organisations can be invited to run all sorts of services that were formerly in the not-for-profit arena, and even a climate where commercial organisations are invited into the heart of the process of state regulation of commercial activity: the regulation of the junk food industry and of alcohol sale, for example.
In that climate, what is the impact of a commercial organisation like Mumsnet taking on a campaigning role of the sort associated with the not-for-profit sector? As a limited company, without any of the special features that charities, social enterprises and community interest companies have, how can it ensure that its campaigning activities have the right kind of independence from its profit-seeking requirement? Clearly there is good will at MN, but is that enough?
Taking the example of the Let Girls be Girls campaign, that helped to push the government towards a new inquiry into sexualising commercial pressures on children, but it seems also to have functioned as a lossleader that must have helped to draw huge interest in MN from potential advertisers (certainly advertising on MN seems to have grown massively in the post-election period following all the political attention on MN and its consequent high-profile campaigning). And quite damagingly, the inquiry concluded that the emphasis in relation to commercial sexualising pressures should be on commercial self-regulation: I can't help thinking that a retailers' campaign spearheaded by an advertising industry company (Mumsnet) functions quite nicely as a device for retailers to brush off state regulation by saying "leave it to us."
And the whole "Family Friendly" programme seems to blur campaigning and profit-seeking activities: an MN family friendly award seems to act as part of a company's decision to have advertising on MN, and I think the family-safe broadband initiative has gained MN free promotion when the internet is accessed via McDonalds wifi?
Is there something potentially quite dangerous, in this climate where the commercial sector is already encroaching so heavily on the state, about allowing a commercial organisation to encroach heavily into the arena of popular protest and lobbying? Do you ever consider refounding some of your activities in formal not-for-profit structures -- a social enterprise or a charity or whatever?