Two things 1)Hourly rates 2)working for a charity -anyone here do this?

[NorbertDentressangle]

There is the chance, in the future, that I may be offered a job for a charity.

At the moment its all a bit vague as the post doesn't exist yet but there were 2 things I wanted to ask people about as I feel a bit out of touch with the world of salaries and work ( just had 6 years out with DC).

What sort of hourly rates of pay do jobs offer these days and , if you work for a charity, are you likely to be paid less than for a different organisation?

I can't go into details about the job but it is vaguely in the area of fundraising and they are keen to tailor it to suit a parent ie. within school hours etc

Impossible to say anything about hourly rates without knowing what the job is. Would it not be salaried anyway?

I've worked for a few charities, and yes salaries were lower than both private and public sector jobs, but imo absolutely worth the drop. Private sector is too big and variable to compare really, from City firms to tiny businesses struggling to make a profit and paying very low, but when looking at similar jobs in similar sized organisations private sector tends to pay more ime.

Depends very much on the charity though. Some pay reasonably high and others really poorly. One of the larger ones I worked for paid at the top-ish end of the going rates.

Thanks flowery.

Yes I totally feel the same about the drop in salary being worth it -I just didn't know if I was being a bit naive or blinded by the fact that someone has seen my potential during my volunteering and wants me!

I worked for public sector before in a totally thankless role and don't want to return to that. This potential charity job would be giving me the opportunity for a change of career direction.

Its a local charity rather than a national one BTW

Local charity will probably be less. It's a balance isn't it, between accepting that charity work pays less, and being taken advantage of. If you've been a volunteer that may be more likely, as there may be a feeling that as you have been working for free, you don't need a 'proper' salary, or will accept less than the going rate.

There are several recruitment websites dedicated to voluntary sector so you can keep an eye on those for similar jobs to get an idea of what's fair. Just google 'voluntary sector recruitment' and plenty will come up.

There are charity jobs advertised in things like the Guardian. If it is a fairly senior job it may be possible to get comparison jobs by looking at jobs online on the Guardian site. If it is a low level job then minimum wage legislation and all the other employment legislation still applies.

What I would say, is dont be afraid to push for a proper wage. People at the top end of the charity sector get paid wages very comparable with public sector. Indeed, wages at the top end of charity and public sector exceed private sector in some cases.

I volunteer for a charity right now and they cut costs by making a manager redundant a few months back. They then asked me to do it for nothing. I am leaving the charity tomorrow as that is not fair. They are advertising the job as an unpaid position now - even though it has strict and quite onerous legal responsibilities attached to it.

Working for a charity is the same as any job, a trade off between, pay conditions and enjoyment of the job. I suggest you benchmark it aganst the alternatives on offer and negotiate a proper fair salary against those comparable alternatives.

Thanks flowery -I'll google those later.

BeenBeta - no its not a senior job. It does have responsibilities but it also has the bonus of the school-friendly hours, more annual leave than I've previously had, good team to work with etc so the smaller wage than the public/private sector equivalent is balanced out by that a bit IYSWIM.

That's shocking about the manager where you volunteer BTW!

My manager is going to keep me up-dated and informed of the developments as the post is approved, job description drawn-up etc so I should hopefully get some input.

Norbert - yes negotiating other non monetary benefits is a good way of dealing with this. Mostly charities are short of money so they are happier to give away things that do not cost them money but might be valuable to you.

I suppose the only other thing I would say is 'could they get anyone else?' for the wage they are offering.

I am off to an interview for another quasi public/charity sector job next week and flexibility is definitley a plus factor for me too. I mainly really do it for the social aspect but the new job I am going for does pay albeit a lot less than I used to be paid.

I haven't worked for 10 years so earning a wage is a novelty. I might have to wear a suit too!

My experience of work in a small part of the charity sector is that hourly rates vary from about £10 to about £25 an hour for admin work. Hope that's useful.

Bramshott -£25ph for admin

BeenBeta -re:'could they get anyone else?' yes, they probably could as jobs with hours like they're proposing are like gold dust round here TBH. No suit required though (except maybe for big meetings - I'm not a suit person at all)

Good luck with the interview next week BTW

I agree with flowery... IMHO it's about half the salary and (usually) double the job satisfaction. But it then just means that you have to really want to work there!