I'm always fascinated to hear people's stories of how they came to work in the third sector. Within the small team of fundraisers I work in my colleagues have past-lives as diverse as Corporate Lawyer and Vicar!
I've worked as a fundraiser since I graduated in 2008 so you might think I'm a career charity professional, but even I had a bit of a strange journey to the sector. When I was 17 my best friend and I started a youth theatre group at our local theatre so when it was time to go to university I decided I wanted to study drama and ended up going to a full blown drama school (yes, it was a bit like being one of the kids from Fame). Because our timetable was so sporadic I had some pretty crazy casual jobs during uni, including dressing up as banana to hand out leaflets.
Looking back some of the things I most enjoyed doing with my theatre group were the project management and event management elements, including organising a series of different fundraisers when the theatre was threatened with closure. Coming from a small town and a working class family no one ever suggested to me that a career in fundraising, or the charity sector as a whole, could be a great fit for my skills and interests. I ended up doing a fundraising internship in my final term at university, primarily to get events management experience, and everything fell in to place. Having been involved in Girlguiding my whole life I was passionate about community action, I just never realised that it could be a career.
I was very interested to read about this research recently that found that (of 1,132 14-15 year olds surveyed) 28.5 per cent of boys and 15 per cent of girls think charity is the most boring sector to work in. The survey also found that only 3.2 per cent wanted to work in the charity sector, fourth from the bottom of the 24 options. Whilst I am not entirely convinced that this survey really reflects the whole picture it does bring up some interesting points, especially in the article when the gentleman from the research organisation suggests that children associate charity with charity shops.
If charities are going to grow and be sustainable in the future I think it is vitally important that we are recruiting top talent in to the sector. What a shame it will be if passionate young people don't realise how great it is to work for a charity. I think sector bodies such as the IoF should be thinking about how they can promote the sector as a career prospect to young people, but we all have a part to play as well.
Next time you go to give a talk in an assembly or to a youth group about your cause why not take a minute to explain about the people in your organisation and about the variety of exciting worthwhile jobs they do - even if the children don't choose to work in the sector increasing public awareness of how charities work could be really valuable. Who knows, maybe the next generation of charity professionals won't be asked if they get paid to do their job quite as much as we do!
I'd love to hear your stories of how you came to work in the sector. Until next time
