NC for this because if linked to some of my other posts it could be outing.
Some of the responses on here are so disheartening. Multiple posts saying charities are greedy, wasteful and suggesting that staff at charities should be paid less than they would in the same job but in a for profit company. Why? Their rent/mortgage/bills etc are the same as everyone else’s. Their work is as hard. And significantly - their work is important.
I work for a small, specialist, charity but one that there is a reasonable chance you will have heard of because (and yes I am boasting because I am proud of it) we are really good at what we do and we make a significant difference not only to our service users, but the wider general public. I have seen people speak of our work, admiringly, on MN. We are far smaller than most people realise and oddly enough, I think fewer people donate to us because they assume we must have lots of money given our relatively high profile.
I earn 3 times less than if I did the same job in a for profit company. I know that, because I am often headhunted by them. I am good at what I do and I work very long hours. The only reason I can afford to work for my (amazing) charity is because I am old enough that I don’t have massive uni debts and my husband is a high earner. Of the handful of other people at my charity, most are in a similar position. Frankly, it shouldn’t be like this.
Our charity is massively struggling to recruit. We want the best people because the work is specialist and important. It is work that has to be started in the private sector so that is where we advertise jobs - or sometimes just call some of the people we know since we are in the same field. Many have said they want to come to us because of what we do - but they can’t afford to take the drop in salary. They have mortgages, nursery bills, student debt, need to build their pensions etc etc.
We are asking them to do the same job, for around half the money (they are more junior than me). So I understand why they say no, but what I can’t understand is the attitude of people on this thread who think that these people should offer their work for less than they can be paid elsewhere if they choose to use their skills in a charity. Why?
We also need staff to do the support work, secretarial work, admin etc. Again we can’t pay market rates. We can’t recruit so we are doing it ourselves which is frankly a waste of our skills and means we can help fewer people. Again it seems that multiple people on this thread think it’s only right that people working in a charity should be paid less. Again, why?
I genuinely worry that in a few years time we will have to close purely because we cannot find the staff because we cannot pay them enough. And it’s depressing that this is in part because people think those working in charities should be paid less and so don’t donate even when they can. And if I was able to share on here what we do/who we are, you’d likely realise that there is every chance you or someone you know will be worse off (not financially!) without us being around. And I bet that’s true of many other charities too.
Sorry for the essay, but this thread really wound me up.