Serving Community Enterprise

Third Sector News - Duncan Fisher: 'The charity structure does not deliver'

Charities? They're yesterday's news, according to the charity chief executive turned social entrepreneur. Tristan Donovan finds out why

Duncan Fisher already has two charities to his name. In 1994 he co-founded Action for Conservation Through Tourism, now the Travel Foundation, which funds community projects in tourist destinations. Five years later he co-founded the Fatherhood Institute, a think tank that encourages family policy to pay more attention to fathers.

Today he heads Kids in the Middle, a community interest company that helps children who are experiencing conflict in their families and is guided by a coalition of 30 children and family organisations, and the social enterprise Dad Info, which produces information leaflets for maternity services about becoming and being a father.

Fisher says his move from charities to social enterprise is deliberate. And permanent. "I'm one of many charity chief executives who have left charities for this, and I won't go back," he says.

The problem, he believes, is that the charity model is (Click here for full story)