Anyone work in the charity sector?

[witnessprotection73]

Hi

I'm after some advice please.

I work in corporate sales and earn half decent money. ( well it feels less and less decent with COL). But I’ve had enough, it’s just horrible, full of toxic people and I want to do something I’m passionate about and where I’m making a difference.

I'm currently at final stage interviews for such a job with a lovely charity & the role is perfect. However I’ll be taking a 17k pay cut. I know in this sector I can’t expect the pay to match corporate & I’m ok with that but is it possible to negotiate? I really want the role and don’t want to appear ‘grabby’ but I’ve also got bills to pay! Furthermore they want me to commute to their office 1 day a week which is fine, ( I want to), but it’s quite far & so will cost me about £200 a month!

Any constructive advice welcome.

TIA x

Oh I agree. I’ve spent ten years field based claiming expenses for travel to office and customers so I guess I’m not that used to paying out but the travel would be nearly 10% of my salary and that feels huge. I can’t afford it regardless so it would be a deal breaker!

I have worked in the charity sector for more than 20 years and love it.

But we get paid less and our pensions are less. It's just a reality.

However if you pick the right organisation with the right culture you can have an enriching career with other great benefits like flexibility and good wellbeing support and family friendly set ups.

Pick the wrong organisation and they won't have a clue what they are doing and will have as bad a culture as you will find elsewhere.

@user628468523532453 it was someone else who worked it out that way. Basically it’s about £53 per week and so in a 4 week month about £200 ish. That for 1 day of travel.

On salary negotiations nearly everyone tries to negotiate but you are unlikely to get more than an extra £3-5k (if they really want you).

Other things that you are more likely to get in negotiations are fixed amount of wfh / days in the office time and additional annual leave.

@Paintedocean good idea, I’ll have that in my toolkit too!

I work for a small charity and love it. The pace is much slower which I struggle with sometimes but the people are lovely. I love making a difference. I run projects where you get a set budget. My wage is factored into that budget so not much room for movement. I am allowed to claim my mileage after the first 10miles.
As I run my project I can run it to suit me so it is extreme flexible. I am never made to feel guilty if I need time off for kids plays etc I have a good work/life balance which makes up for my poor salary. You are reliant on new funding so you can keep your project running or move on to a new one. I learn lots of new skills as the job is very varied and they give me 15 hours per quarter to take part in any training I choose.

An alternative would be to stick with your corporate job (maybe get a slightly nicer version) and give the £17k or another chunk of money to a charity. You'd be a major donor and could be closely involved with and updated on their work.

Or be a trustee or director of a charity in your spare time. Or fundraise for one through challenges and events - can be very good professional networking.

You could also go part time then be a consultant part time helping charities with your specialty.

Just a few ideas.

One of my close family members worked in the charity sector for years - both large and small charities. It almost broke them. They were the worst employers I’ve ever known. Managers were bullies, incompetent and incapable of managing. Staff were overstretched and it got steadily worse, when funding was cut and staff were pushed to do much more with much less. Staff turnover was incredibly high. Staff weren’t replaced. Staff who had to deal with distressing, difficult situations were given no support.
I hope you don’t encounter any of this, but do be alert for poor management.

DD works for a medium sized charity and it is the best work situation she has ever had. She was allowed flexible working/ no working when we were nursing my dying mother. It is also local. The people are lovely. However, the trade off is the salary which is probably £20 k below what she would earn in the corporate sector. Not all charities are nice to work for and it depends on whether your job requires you to raise so much money a month. In the charity some people only come into the office once a month for the staff meeting.

I've worked for a few charities and it's just more complex than working for a normal company.

As pp said, less money. The cause is always there as another motivation, in a company if you screw up then it's less profit, in a charity if you screw up it's potentially causing human suffering to very vulnerable people (or animals or whatever. And I know companies cause suffering too sometimes).

The environment could be nice. But also semi-professional. A lot of people who'd stepped sideways from corporate roles. A lot of idealistic young things living off peanuts. And then a load of well connected people on the board who would waltz in as if they were a different breed.

I found it refreshing to leave and work somewhere where it was just about making money, tbh.

Ok that’s a medium sized charity. Is the project one funded by an external funder? If so it’s highly likely that the salary was agreed as part of the funding bid. They’d be unlikely to be able to flex much around that.

the one thing about charities, especially ones that size is that a lot of the income will come from restricted finding pots and they are answerable and reportable to the funders. As you will know, but often not other posters this is totally different money to donations and what people call fundraising. It’s money awarded by someone like the lottery for a specific project and requires a significant amount of reporting

@Cantbeardarknights this is useful to know. Yes the project has been funded by an external partner. I’m only hoping to negotiate covering travel expenses not trying to match my current t salary.

I guess I’ll just have to tactfully broach the subject and see how it plays out!

@NoCloudsAllowed god no! Then I’d be really unhappy as I currently and poor!

I work in a back office role for a medium sized charity. In my workplace, you'd possibly be able to negotiate salary but only within the bands advertised, e.g. scale points 40-42, you'd be able negotiate up to 42 but they wouldn't offer scale point 43.

I'm based around 300 miles from what should be my base. When I started they agreed to officially have me based at my local office. I have to travel further a few times a month. If my original base was listed as my base then I'd have to pay for it.

I haven't read all the replies, but it depends on the charity . I work in fundraising , currently no line management but will have soon. Earn 55k a year , in a charity with an income of 20 million. Mine is a big income generating role. Super flexible I get paid for 5 days , but work 3 . And the rest of the hours I do when suits :). 35 days AL , great people lovely place . I've worked in 5, different charities 1 I would absolutely not recommend ( this was the smallest) and would put me off the sector for life if I hadn't worked elsewhere. Overall i love it , I love that my job has real purpose and the people I work with are genuinely lovely.

All other charities (including one of the biggest ones in UK) have always been amazing places to work . DM if you want to know more or mention the charity by name.

On the negotiation, I've negotiated my last couple of jobs . I think it depends on your experience, with how much you can negotiate.

I worked at a lovely charity for a long time, really enjoyed it, but I’ve moved to corporate sales now and really enjoy that too, plus I can afford to live! A charity will never be able to afford me again now I’ve had a taste of a decent salary…

I work for a local branch of a large national charity. Pay is rubbish and I think for that reason some people seem to think they can do very little work. We do get a few perks like a few extra holiday days and free parking, some flexibility. We struggle to recruit so often don't seem to get the best people for the job, just whoever we can and contracts are short term. I do love my job though, have worked for charities for the past 20 years.

I've always been able to negotiate a bit (sort of in the 5k range) but have been income generating so have a bit more clout. Also I'm a donor these days and if someone came back and said they could only get the staff member for £X we'd always give permission to move budget around. So it wouldn't be a no- there's always movement in budgets.

I have had some of the best, dynamic, stretching roles of my life in charities. And also one of the worst jobs! It's like any other workplace. I'm very cause driven so have stayed in one part of the 3rd sector, but you get to know where is good, who's having budget issues, who's bad to work for. You spend at least 35 hours a week somewhere, I want to feel like I'm getting out of bed for something. So if you think you'll be happier and you can make the numbers work, do it.

I work for a large national charity (think of a few and you'll probably have it) there is room for negotiation for starting a little higher up the scale for exceptional candidates. However as another poster pointed out, it's not the done thing to haggle over salary. We do get moved up the pay scale yearly but this hasn't been the case in recent years and we all accept it, because if we push it we know there's only so much money to go around, so cuts will be inevitable, which impacts us and impacts on the families we support.

I work in the charity sector and have ended up in a head of sales role. I often wonder about moving to corporate, for a few years to make more money for a while and build a pension. Would charity sales track record translate to corporate world?

I've always worked for charities on projects funded by external funders. Pay is shit, there are zero perks, you still get miserable/toxic people and you're always being told you're at risk of redundancy due to funding cuts.

Honestly don't bother for that kind of pay cut! Unless you're physically helping elderly people at lunch clubs or replanting the rainforest, head offices of charities are just depressing!

I've worked for charities for 30 years. From very small to very large and in between. Like any sector people will vary but on the whole I've had lovely colleagues - many have become friends and I still volunteer for a couple of my previous employers. I've also found working hours/practices to be very flexible and there's usually a relaxed and informal atmosphere.

As PP have said the funding bid for the project is likely to have included a set amount for the project staffing and so there may not be much room for manoeuvre. However I managed to negotiate a higher starting salary for one job to offset travel costs because I needed to travel to a specific location once a month and it was a long way from where I lived. I think you might need to accept though that they may not be able to offer a higher salary.

In response to @closingdownsale I've worked at the head office of two large national charities and neither was depressing. I don't think you can generalise.

@witnessprotection73 I work in the charity sector, my first role for a non-profit. I negotiated a higher salary than advertised as I was confident I could meet and exceed the role requirements and make a significant difference (I'm experienced in my field, am late 40s.)
I WFH permanently, FT in a 35hr a week role. It's well paid for a non-profit but slightly lower than my previous public sector-ish role.
Job satisfaction, autonomy, working in a small, hardworking and effective team, for an org that's growing and making a difference are significant perks. Good luck with your decision!