Working in a Charity - anyone want to compare notes?

[ageingdisgracefully]

HI all. I'm looking for some insight really, I think. I work in a Charity (quite a well-known one, with a national presence) and I'm finding things a bit..strange. I've been here two years in a paid capacity so not a newbie by any means. I do not have a background in the charity sector, having spent all of my career in education (as a teacher and manager). I took this job after a period as a sahm. I volunteered initially and offered paid work. I was temporary for almost two years and I am now permanent (whatever that means).

I have never found the work difficult and I have a solid record. I do not make errors and I am thorough and punctilious.

However, I find the organsitional culture very odd. There does not seem to be an particular leadership, or focus. For the first three months in the job, I did not interact with my manager at all. There was no training, and no direction. Everything was a bit hit and miss. It wasn't a problem for me at that point, as the work was relatively easy.

I'm now in a much more difficult job (my choice) and wfh since last March. For the first 4 months in the job, there was no training, no identification of training need, no training plan. However, we are expected to reach a standard of work which is pretty much error free without any kind of proactive input from management. Everyone is supposed to be "helpful" but in reality the "help" is hit and miss. I've basically taught myself the job out of a Handbook, and resources cobbled together from the internet. Any training I've had, I've had to practically beg for (I'm talking basic training here, not anything fancy). I try to raise these issues and any questions are met with silence.

I'm beginning to feel there's some sort of conspiracy going on which I'm not part of!. I feel like I'm running round in circles just trying to get the basics of the job done.

I feel like I'm getting the side-eye for asking perfectly reasonable questions and beginning to feel somewhat paranoid.

Is it me? Are other charities like this? The vibe of the organsiation is happy-clappy where everyone is "nice" on the surface but I'm beginning to wonder if this just a veneer.

Me? I feel invisible, patronised and disrespected.

Anyone else? Is this sort of culture just a part of working for a charity or am I just a complete misfit?

I work fir a company with charitable status and it’s exactly like this. I honestly thought I was missing something that everyone else knew like some secret in house training that I had missed. But no. It’s just chaos with everyone smiling. We have management that I call the smiling assassins. All perfectly pleasant on the surface but will throw you under the bus in a heart beat. I’m starting to really dislike working there because of the lack of direction.

Thanks so much for responding. I'm so glad it's not just me. In fact I could have written what you've said to the letter.

Smiling assassins - yes, absolutely.

I don't like the word "bullied" particularly but that's how I feel - chucked in a corner and forgotten about until something goes wrong.

How do you deal with it?

I have become much more resilient. I don’t apologise for things that aren’t my doing like I used to. I don’t think they actually care what my response is they just like throwing their authority around. So basically I do my work and try and rise above anything beyond my control. I also follow up and verbal communication with an email as I had have many conversation denials in the past. Cover your arse. I do enjoy the work though but the whole politics is getting to me.

I’ve worked for a couple of charities in Australia. The first one was very well run and really felt quite like working for a corporate albeit with a few little idiosyncrasies. Interestingly it was a secular organisation. The second one was religious and an absolute nightmare. They wanted me to write the CEO’s mission statement for the year with absolutely no brief. I was a copywriter making up what the organisation wanted to achieve in the next year! They never briefed me properly about anything and then would complain if I didn’t get it right. I mostly WFH but one day I was in the office and there were two people sitting in the next workstation discussing their Christian faith for three hours. As a professional fundraiser I was horrified that we were asking donors for money that was being wasted on salaries for people who were essentially doing nothing. I resigned because I just couldn’t keep working somewhere with no direction or objectives.

Sounds horrendous, @remaker.

My charity also has form for getting funding and pissing it up the wall. Doesn't seem to matter. No one seems to care if projects succeed or fail as long as the CEO has something he can crow about.

Lots of backslapping and self-congratulation; very little strategy or direction.

I think my strategy is going to be Cover Arse and Rise Above It.

It's not a well known cancer charity well known for coffee mornings is it ? If so you have my sympathy, they are a dreadful organisation, although I have to say training was part of the job that wasn't too bad.

@Remaker

I’ve worked for a couple of charities in Australia. The first one was very well run and really felt quite like working for a corporate albeit with a few little idiosyncrasies. Interestingly it was a secular organisation. The second one was religious and an absolute nightmare. They wanted me to write the CEO’s mission statement for the year with absolutely no brief. I was a copywriter making up what the organisation wanted to achieve in the next year! They never briefed me properly about anything and then would complain if I didn’t get it right. I mostly WFH but one day I was in the office and there were two people sitting in the next workstation discussing their Christian faith for three hours. As a professional fundraiser I was horrified that we were asking donors for money that was being wasted on salaries for people who were essentially doing nothing. I resigned because I just couldn’t keep working somewhere with no direction or objectives.

This is partly why I left my charity job - sick of seeing the waste, money wasted on expensive venues, buffet lunches provided everywhere, completely overgenerous expenses paid to employees, incompetent bullying managers, even the bloody interview was held in the poshest hotel in town. All paid for by people's legacies and coffee mornings. Makes my blood boil.

Sounds standard for the Third Sector.
I’ve recently started a new role within the Charity I already worked for.
It’s a specialist role.
No training, no pointers, no explanation of the referral system.
Just a lot of figuring it out along the way. Unfortunately it’s multiagency and involves lots of meetings with other agencies to do the job, so all the figuring it out happens over teams meetings .
IME the sector also seem to get little pots of funding for particular projects and then struggle to implement admin and referrals systems and dump it on whoever is unlucky enough to be recruited to the role of doing the actual job.
I sometimes find myself wondering if the government grants propping up some charities wouldn’t be better spent on the statutory services.

It doesn't have to be like this! I'm a leader (whatever one of those is) in the sector. There is a need for a fair degree of self direction in lots of roles but the lack of support you all have is appalling. My charity is fairly small and I have to do everything but I always make time for my team even when I am overwhelmed. But I guess I do that because I've had management like youre describing. Ffs, we're supposed to be making the world a better place.

I wonder if I used to work for the same charity OP. It was my second job after uni and I only had a years experience before that so was still very “new” to the working world.
It was honestly baffling to me. No structure, no training, everyone zipped out the door at 5pm, my boss used to work from home a lot but wouldn’t take his laptop, just replied to emails on his phone The computer systems were archaic and getting anything done internally took months. But management was practically gleeful about their achievements and would frequently pat themselves on the back (while claiming back time they’d spent answering a few emails on a train ride as TOIL)

I was in corporate partnerships and won some pretty big partners very quickly which you think would lead to some form of promotion or appraisal. Nope, I asked after a year for a tiny pay rise and was told absolutely not (despite the fact my boss had worked there two years and never made them a penny) Of course once I found a new job and resigned they offered me the world to stay.

I also very quickly lost faith in what the charity did and it was difficult to raise money (being paid a pittance) when you don’t have faith in the cause. They were very fixated on the amazing work they did but when I actually spoke to the practitioners they weren’t ever able to tell me any success stories and the programs they were supposed to be running were always empty as the criteria to actually help anyone was so strict and bizarre. It was the oddest place I’ve ever worked and I’d never go back to another charity

Sorry clearly I still have a lot of bad feeling about that job

I've worked in several charities and what you describe is absolutely not the case in my experience.

I do work in fundraising and as such am a member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising - this means I have signed up to certain standards and am very proactive about my CPD. There are lots of rules I have to follow to be ethical, transparent and importantly to look after our donors. It helps that in a fundraising team we are all similarly motivated.

Do you have any policies about support and supervision? Or 1:1s? Or even grievance?

If they are pissing funding up the wall that's clearly something that should be whistleblown.

Honestly every penny is so hard won. That makes me want to cry.

Mixed response! Some of these points absolutely resonate, particularly the lack of direction. I'm completely baffled by it. I don't mind earning a pittance as long as I have faith in the cause of the organisation - we do some really good stuff to be fair - but I've lost any faith I DID have and I do not believe the organisation to be particulary effective on the whole. much of the work is about compliance so at the moment I'm struggling to find any added value in the work I'm doing.

It's not the "coffee morning" charity!

FWIW we have a union in place now, after something of a struggle (ironic, considering the purpose of the organisation) so we're using the Union to make some improvements to how the organisation functions. We also have grievance procedures etc in place but no-one seems to use them. Staff seem strangely compliant on the whole. I feel like I'm part of some weird cult.....people moan informally but do not invoke the procedures.

Very bizarre and odd.

would your organisation name begin with a C and the union begin with a U - if so I know exactly which charity you are talking about and whereabouts you are.

If not, then just ignore me.

I don't work for a charity but did apply for two charity jobs recently (as I wasn't working). Got offered both jobs, turned them both down.

First job seemed exactly as you described, no clear structure, quite a small charity. Second job, a much larger well known charity but job sounded stressful and glassdoor reviews were all about bad management.

So I've accepted a public sector job now. Lower paid but more security and structure. Also unionised!

This sounds about right. I work for a large charity with lots of layers of management but very little strategy or direction. We have always had a wfh culture but some staff literally do zero work and others over work with senior leaders doing nothing to tackle over / under performance. Theres a 'as long as the work gets done it doesn't matter who does it' policy. Which means the conscientious staff just get on and do it all and burn out.

Strategy comes from the bottom up and then repackaged and tweeted about and as company strategy. One junior staff member on £25k basically saved a £1m national project by coming up with innovative ways to deliver it and working her arse off and the senior leader who did nothing more than sign the contract took all credit and got a big thanks in the monthly update staff get sent. The senior leader is on £90k

There are overqualified and very experienced staff on the same salary and in the same role as staff who don't have as much as a degree (but are related to senior managers).

I have worked in a few charities and poor management is endemic. We have just had a senior manager start (in December) who is exactly the same as the last person in the role who lasted a year. Talks in buzzwords with no real interest in the cause or strategic mindset.

All the good work which is tweeted about and written about in sector based media is done by those on the lowest salaries. There are about 5 more layers of management between them and the CEO passing the good news stories up and pretending it was their idea.

Maybe I need to move out of the charity sector!!

Just accepted a charity job and feeling a bit queasy reading these....😳

@goteam

This sounds about right. I work for a large charity with lots of layers of management but very little strategy or direction. We have always had a wfh culture but some staff literally do zero work and others over work with senior leaders doing nothing to tackle over / under performance. Theres a 'as long as the work gets done it doesn't matter who does it' policy. Which means the conscientious staff just get on and do it all and burn out.

Strategy comes from the bottom up and then repackaged and tweeted about and as company strategy. One junior staff member on £25k basically saved a £1m national project by coming up with innovative ways to deliver it and working her arse off and the senior leader who did nothing more than sign the contract took all credit and got a big thanks in the monthly update staff get sent. The senior leader is on £90k

There are overqualified and very experienced staff on the same salary and in the same role as staff who don't have as much as a degree (but are related to senior managers).

I have worked in a few charities and poor management is endemic. We have just had a senior manager start (in December) who is exactly the same as the last person in the role who lasted a year. Talks in buzzwords with no real interest in the cause or strategic mindset.

All the good work which is tweeted about and written about in sector based media is done by those on the lowest salaries. There are about 5 more layers of management between them and the CEO passing the good news stories up and pretending it was their idea.

Maybe I need to move out of the charity sector!!

The one I worked for went on and on about the mental health of their employees, they had rooms where you could take time out and eat a bit of chocolate, special chat lines if you were struggling with mental health, they made a huge thing of it whilst systematically destroying the employees mental health with their bullying and humiliating managers. The Glass doors reviews speak for themselves about the way their employees were treated.

@kerosene20 don't be disheartened. These are the examples of poor practice, not the examples of good practice which DO exist. If you want to chat, DM me.

What strikes me as I read these though is that this is the same behaviour you get in corporate/mainstream business and this is widely known to exist but not the same in all businesses. How much of our disappointment is our expectation that charity should be different because its charity and therefore better? How much is outrage at wasted funds? How much is endemic and because of poor investment in training means that bad practice perpetuates? And how do we fix it?

@Babyroobs we are getting a few of those look after your mental health in lockdown about how they know many of us have kids at home etc followed by invites for several back to back 2 hour meetings. Meetings which only really need to be an email.

I won't even start on the bullying but also anyone who speaks out about other's underperformance gets accused of bullying.

I work for a charity and have experience prior in the private sector. This job is by far the most chaotic, micro managed and strangest role I have ever had. There is lots of middle management, little promotion and career progression. Most if not all previous experience and professional qualifications are ignored.

I stay because I'm passionate about the core purpose and it suits my work life balance. However, if I ever want to progress and not burn out I will have to leave.

I work for a small national charity and this isn't my expierence at all, although I have heard similar stories to what you describe .

I have a great line manager and very supportive team around me. It's not without issues but generally we understand where we fit and what we need to do to achieve our aims and drive things forward.

Things to move very slowly sometimes though and that can be very frustrating, and there's some dead weight in the team but they'll never be managed out which does cause tensions.

Recently we've done a lot of work of systems and processes and making sure we are delivering impact for public money.

Name change for this... I've worked for a few charities, big and small. Some much better run than others. What they all have in common is that they are run by people who want to change the world. Whereas companies are run by people who know about business. What this means is that the business side of charities - finance, technology etc - is the most neglected side of the organisation. The CEO will probably be from a policy or campaigning background. Leadership in the business support functions is often weak, and you're left to learn on the job. Sometimes this means a lot of autonomy and quick career progression at junior levels if you're bright, but the trade-off might be that you reach a plateau and realise you're completely feral and unqualified for anything else, and have nobody to learn from. Actual professional training is scarce, but there's often lots of nicey-nice training about soft skills etc. The culture can be very nicey-nice, which can be, well, nice, but also frustrating as direction is lacking, and people can get away with being quite useless. There's often very little focus on profitability.

@Invisimamma the dead weight is soul destroying in small teams though. We literally have someone who has lost us business, shows up to one zoom a week and does 5% of the work (evidenced by outputs) of their equivalents and doesnt answer their phone. They also boast about clocking off at 3 each day despite working full time which means others have to work late. This is just accepted and in small teams it affects everybody else. Its not ok and is never addressed as there is a 'be kind' mentality where you can't complain and HR are useless.

@goteam you're right it can be toxic, it entirely depends on the team and the nature of the work. I suppose I haven't been directly affected as our workloads are fairly self-contained so their laziness and ineptitude doesn't really spill over onto me. I don't have responsibility to pick of the pieces and we don't cover each other's work in that way (which has it's own problems for sure). I work part-time though and I know I work just as hard and have just as many objectives as my fulltime colleagues which grinds my gears but I don't think that's exclusive to the third sector either.

My personal bug bear is people who don't follow policy lines and go off an do entirely their own thing, don't follow brand or comms guidelines, make us look bloody inept and unprofessional and are never called up on it.

I don't work for a charity but have the general impression these days that many big charities are poorly run, as you describe. Free money coming in, huge salaries to those at the top, no one to answer to. That's why I and many others prefer to give to small local charities nowadays.