Working for a Charity/Third Sector

Newwashingmachine

Hi,

Has anyone got any experience of working (paid) for the voluntary/Charity sectors?

I've had an interview and been offered a position as an Administrator but I'm now wondering how much different it is from the private sector. I know you have to care about the organisation and I do but a lot of people have told me how you have to work unpaid overtime and basically live for the 'cause'.

My present job is really demanding but there's a kind of 'dynamic' feel to it. My present company are offering me more money to stay and there are definately chances for promotion (BTW I don't want any more responsibilities). I'm just wondering whether I'm going from the frying pan into the fire?

I'd appreciate anyone who works for a charity (especially as a secretary/administrator) to give me some ideas of what it's like?

Thanks.

kingfisherblue

I am a voluntary director and trustee of a charity. We employ, among other staff, an admin/receptionist. He works set hours, occasionally covering additional hours when the manager is on annual leave, but he gets paid for this, or has time off in lieu.

His duties include staffing the reception desk during his working hours, answering the phone, dealing with queries, taking room bookings, writing cheques (to be signed by the trustees), keeping the website up to date, dealing with invoices, filing, photocopying, setting up rooms for meetings, providing tea/coffee facilities if they have been booked, etc.

He also receives a higher wage per hour in return for key holding responsibilities and locking up.

He is not expected to work any additional hours unpaid - he is an employee, not a volunteer. Hopefully he supports the ethos of the charity, but as long as he does his job properly, that is all that matters, as that is what he is paid to do.

AP007

In the private sector there is a lot of unpaid overtime.

Jobseeeker

no i dont think thats true. charities pay competitive salaries and attract people from private sector.

im currently volunteering at a charity, the others i work with are paid workers. Of course theres the odd bit of overtime but never with emotional blackmail of do some overtime for the starving children or anything like that.

Savvy_Sue

I work in admin for a small local charity and agree wholeheartedly with what kfb says. Yes, I [STRIKE]sometimes[/STRIKE] often end up working late, but it's not required and I claim the time back later.

However, sometimes people think that there's no 'politics' when you work for a charity, because everyone is dedicated to 'the cause'. That's not necessarily the case ... You get the same mix of people in a charity as you do in any job - some you'll like, others you won't so much. Some of them will be brilliant, others will struggle with some aspects of the job - if the charity works with people, you may find many of the client-facing staff are frankly pants at anything admin related!

Mostly I get on very well with all my colleagues, but sometimes they just drive me to distraction ... but my job is to enable them to do their jobs. So if they can't work out that the error message on the printer means that it's run out of paper, even if it's blindingly obvious to me as soon as I look, well hey, it's all part of life's rich tapestry! :rotfl:

directdebiter

Once you work in the charity sector it is harder to get jobs back in the private sector. Some employers look at the CV and think that they wouldnt be able to cut it in the private sector. Am sure that is not true for every individual but that is the feeling from alot of private employers.

paulineb_2

I worked for 5 charities, in my experience there was a massive bullying culture, lots of unpaid overtime that you were never paid for, you got back in TOIL or didnt as the case may have been.

But I was someone who worked with homeless people and in addictions. Each company I worked for was worse than the last.

I loved my job, my working conditions were horrendous and thats why I changed career 4 years ago. I earn about 5 times less than I used to, but I cant put a price on how much happier I am.

It wont be the case in every charity. But Im very glad to be away from it.

PlutoinCapricorn

Each charity is different, and the size and cause are relevant too. It is impossible to generalise: some of the largest charities do pay competitive rates, very small ones cannot afford to appoint many or highly paid staff.

In my experience, it is the people who work directly on the projects and with the beneficiaries who are most likely to be dedicated to the cause; accountancy staff are much the same anywhere. The smaller the charity, the more the employees are expected to be involved.

There certainly is a lot of unpaid overtime, but Time Off In Lieu is common too.

Unfortunately, as incomes and donations drop, redundancies are becoming more common and the workload is being shared among existing staff, so pressure is increasing.

zzzLazyDaisy

As an employment lawyer, I was always very surprised that the not-for-profit sector treated its paid employees so badly. I often saw employees in tribunal who had been seriously discriminated against, unfairly dismissed, and/or had holiday pay and wages unlawfully with-held. This was not confined to a particular charity or a particular geographical area, but seemed to be endemic within the sector. The problem seemed to be that the individual branches were often run by management committees made up of people who volunteered their time, which meant that very often they believed that employment laws did not apply to them (they were not paid and therefore how could any of them be 'the employer'). Very often the charity's representative would be vocally indignant in tribunal that the employees could be so disloyal as to cause the charity to 'waste' public and donated funds in fighting these cases - this often seemed to be more important than the 'legal technicality' of an employee's rights under the legislation. These were not 'one off' or isolated cases, but something that happened with monotonous regularity.

I accept that this was some years ago, but it would certainly put me off working in the not-for-profit sector.

Personally, my own view would be that if you are happy in your current job, with good prospects, I would give this job a miss. But I also completely accept that there may be many paid employees in the not-for-profit sector who may have a good experience.

Newwashingmachine

Thanks for all your replies.

The reason I was asking is that at the moment I'm working lots of unpaid overtime, am completely overwhelmed and can't sleep at night with the amount of work I have.

My boss is aware of it and appreciates the work I do but there's no chance of extra help and I feel like I'm about to burn out.

The position I have at present has been filled before and both people left after a short time (3 months and 5 months). I've been here a year now and I can understand why they left.

I'm not lazy and am not looking for an easy ride but I want to make sure I make the right move when I go and bearing in mind my salary is only £14K per year I really don't want to be thinking about work every minute of the day.

Sounds like the charity sector might not be the place for me - I didn't realise if you worked there it was difficult to move back to the private sector and I didn't realise there was a 'bullying' culture.

A lot of the posts seem pretty negative so I'll have to have a real think about this.

Thanks.

phill99

Over my career I have worked for the private sector (including corporate), the public sector and the charity sector.

By far the worst was the charity sector. And I don't mean just a little bit worse, but by shed loads. You often find the people that work for charities are taken on because they have a dedication to that particular charity, not because they have the correct skill base. There was a culture that 'some people want to work for a charity so we don't have to pay the going rate'. The result was an organisation that loved itself but had no management ability, no vision, poorly motivated staff etc.

I ended up leaving after 18 months. Some days I would be at my desk at 6.00am, would go home at 6.00pm and then return at 7.30pm until 10.00pm. In the end I was so stressed it was making me ill and had to leave for my sanity.

Never again and I would encourage anyone thing of a charity sector career to do plenty of research.