Charity Sector Jobs

[Soccermumamir]

Hi,
I'm looking for some advice and guidance. If you work in the charity sector or know someone who does and you love it, please can you tell me what roles you do and what you needed to get there.
I am currently working within an office in education, four days a week and from January will be volunteering one day a week in a local charity shop to try and get my foot in the door. Any advice would be awesome 😊

I manage a small charity. If you’re coming from school admin you’re likely to have a broad range of transferable skills. There’s many pros to working for charities. The work is often flexible, varied and rewarding. In a small team you may find yourself helping out with the events or the charity’s activities and you’ll get a real sense that your contribution makes a difference. The cons are it’s likely to be poorly paid, fixed term contracts are common (linked to fixed period grants), sick pay is poor compared to education and you’ll often find that charities are poorly resourced. There may be no HR or finance departments. You could be performing many of the those roles! Training isn’t often great either.

Currently work for a charity that I have a real affinity with and can use all my skills and I love it. It is such a motivated and happy staff team.

Have previously worked for a charity that was brilliant as a service provider but was a terrible employer. They had the attitude that it was a privilege to work for them as what they did was so meaningful. All well and good but I had a mortgage to pay and didn't want to navigate a toxic culture just to do my job.

Treat charities with the same due diligence that you would with any other employer/role. Avoid those that use their charitable status to emotionally blackmail you into accepting below standard pay, terms and conditions.

But there are brilliant charities out there. Good luck in your search.