Summary
What is the 'halo effect' when it comes to NGOs, and why does it matter?
Here's a rough definition of ‘the halo effectj. The term comes out of the psychological academic literature: if the first impression of a person or an entity is positive for a person, this tends to stick with people. This tends to be the case for NGOs: NGOs are assumed to be ‘good’; thus they are glorified.
And why can this be problematic? Because when NGOs are assumed to be 'good' (i.e. morally, ethically good), they don't see their own 'shadow'. Moreover, that may make them justify questionable means for an end. They may also feel morally superior -- which has all kinds of potentially unhealthy consequences, some of which I observe regularly as well. And it can lead to moral naivete.
How can NGOs as a sector, individual organizations and as staff/leadership best keep alert to the dangerous downsides of this halo effect?
In this podcast episode, I discuss with Isabel De Bruin Cardoso, development practitioner, consultant, and PhD researcher, why and how NGOs as supposedly morally good organizations can behave badly - and why the two may be connected.
Isabel’s Bio:
We discussed:
Quotes
“In the field of safeguarding, it can be difficult to operationalize worthy concepts such as 'respect': what does this actually look like, behaviorally?”
“Normalizing having conversations about safeguarding is a significant form of role modeling”
Resources:
Visualization of Isabel's main arguments about the Halo Effect
Isabel’s publications on Research Gate
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