Starting a charity

Savvy_Sue

joseph9a wrote: »

In my opinion there are 2 things i can do. the first is carry on working at my job until i retire in a job which i don't enjoy. the second is set the charity up and take a salary and push for as much funding I can each year.

There's a very obvious third option, which is to get another job which you enjoy more, either the same kind of work in a different company, or a completely different kind of job.

Without knowing what you do, it's impossible to know, but have you explored opportunities for development / training / other roles where you work now?

You might or might not enjoy fundraising as a career, which covers a variety of jobs. It's not always enjoyable: there's an element of repetition, a need for close attention to detail, and the inevitable rejection.

You'd be very lucky to get a paid job with no experience, IMO, especially one paying £20,000 pa. However, many charities would be delighted if you offered to help with fundraising, and you could learn a lot that way, in particular what sorts of fundraising suits you. In some cases that would need to be within office hours, but in a smaller charity you might well be able to do it in your spare time. It would help if you were passionate about the cause.

Be aware that charities aren't always 'nice' places to work. Sometimes the CEO is trying to get blood out of a stone, and makes quite unreasonable demands. Sometimes there's an incompetent board either doing nothing or interfering where they shouldn't.

motorguy

joseph9a wrote: »

No its just an idea at the moment. If I did decide to do it there's obviously a lot of researching and fundraising to be done first.

Why not fundraise for one of the hundreds of thousands of charities there already are? I would almost guarantee theres already a charity does what you're thinking of doing.

If you really want to help raise money, think how much you could raise by being a fundraiser rather than trying to run your own charity with all the admin, advertising, bureacracy associated with it. Also, you cant start a charity on your own - there needs to be a recognised, agreed structure to the organisation.

Also at the moment you're coming across as this being about YOU - what "legacy" YOU can have, what money YOU can get out of it.

Charities are a selfless activity - thats not whats coming across here.

kazzah

even if you set up a registered charity - the moment you start to draw a salary you then become an employee and cannot be a trustee of the charity - so in effect you will be working for the charity you set up whilst others will be making the decisions about direction of the charity, services they offer etc etc
you could quite easily find yourself working for people you don't like who make your life very difficult - or for lovely people who appreciate you - but no matter what as an employee drawing a salary you will have NO real input into the charity.

PlutoinCapricorn

Unless your name is Camila Batmanghelidjh!