Thank you for taking part in this consultation.

The Sheila McKechnie Foundation (SMK) was set up in 2005 in memory of Dame Sheila McKechnie, one of the most fearless campaigners of her generation. SMK's work includes:

- Providing training, coaching and consultancy to help people and organisations develop the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to campaign effectively.

- Being a voice for campaigners by advocating for the needs and benefits of campaigning, and protecting the space to campaign.

- Bringing campaigners together and celebrating success through our networks, events and annual SMK Campaigner Awards.  

We have created this consultation both to guide our internal thinking and planning, and to inform our public commentary and policy work. There are two key areas that we’d like to hear views on:

1. What can SMK and others do to ensure that the environment for campaigning is protected and positive?

2. How can SMK and others ensure that campaigners and campaigning organisations have the right support, advice and training?

It should take you around 15 minutes to respond to the consultation. The data you give us will be treated anonymously, but there is an option at the end for you to give us your email address so that we can contact you in the future and share the results with you. We also enter you in for a prize draw, the winner will receive a £50 John Lewis voucher and will be chosen at random in August.

Finally, throughout this paper we use the term ‘campaigning’, which means different things to different people. For the purposes of this consultation we see campaigning as any activity designed to create change - whether to policy, law, attitudes or behaviours. For the purposes of this consultation, we are also exploring attitudes to campaigning by organisations in the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors (VCSE). The VCSE sector, is sometimes referred to as 'the Third Sector', ‘Social Purpose Sector or ‘Civil Society’. This sector traditionally consists of groups that are one or more of the following:

- Charities – either through registration with the Charity Commission or the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator or as  charities whose income is too low to become registered charities.
- Non-profit-making, including not-for-profit community enterprises.
- Informal, unregistered, groups consisting of volunteers that act collectively to provide a service to their local community or a specific group in need.

Thank you for taking part.

Sue Tibballs

Chief Executive of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation

http://www.smk.org.uk/