For those of you that work for a cause you are passionate about, how much of a difference does it ma

Garnigo_Tarmeister

For some background I've worked in marketing for around 20 years, but I've never felt truly happy or fulfilled. I've thought about a career change a few times, but never gone through with it as I am not totally sure what I want to do.

I am now beginning to think that if I worked for a company/in an industry I am passionate about and really interested in, that this would make me much happier.

How many of you work for a company or cause you truly believe in? And do you feel more fulfilled at work as a result?

TELLIT01

I'm not in that situation, but how the organisation is run would still make a huge difference to how fulfilled I would feel.

Garnigo_Tarmeister

TELLIT01 said:

I'm not in that situation, but how the organisation is run would still make a huge difference to how fulfilled I would feel.

Can you expand a bit more on that please?

Mark_Glasses

That sounds just like my situation. I'd like to think yes but won't know until I get there. I'd imagine marketing to be like my industry i.e. full of stupid pointless jobs filled by youngsters who think they're changing the word when they're not.

Pippiny

Garnigo_Tarmeister said:

For some background I've worked in marketing for around 20 years, but I've never felt truly happy or fulfilled. I've thought about a career change a few times, but never gone through with it as I am not totally sure what I want to do.

I am now beginning to think that if I worked for a company/in an industry I am passionate about and really interested in, that this would make me much happier.

How many of you work for a company or cause you truly believe in? And do you feel more fulfilled at work as a result?

I worked for a charity a while back. It was one of my first jobs post-uni, in a field related to my degree, for a cause I felt quite passionately about. As the above poster alluded to, however, the way it was managed and the poor attitudes of some of the people working there meant that it wasn't a great place to be employed. In spite of all that I had initially respected the charity for, it wasn't enough to keep me there, or make me feel happy in the role. I haven't returned to the field I was trained in since.

Savvy_Sue

Pippiny said:

Garnigo_Tarmeister said:

For some background I've worked in marketing for around 20 years, but I've never felt truly happy or fulfilled. I've thought about a career change a few times, but never gone through with it as I am not totally sure what I want to do.

I am now beginning to think that if I worked for a company/in an industry I am passionate about and really interested in, that this would make me much happier.

How many of you work for a company or cause you truly believe in? And do you feel more fulfilled at work as a result?

I worked for a charity a while back. It was one of my first jobs post-uni, in a field related to my degree, for a cause I felt quite passionately about. As the above poster alluded to, however, the way it was managed and the poor attitudes of some of the people working there meant that it wasn't a great place to be employed. In spite of all that I had initially respected the charity for, it wasn't enough to keep me there, or make me feel happy in the role. I haven't returned to the field I was trained in since.

This: I've worked for charities / a Housing Association / Universities throughout my working life. Charities aren't always great places to work. 

Historically there's been a view that you don't need a competitive salary because you're doing it 'for the cause', but that's not going to pay the rent, is it?

Also historically there's been a view that you can 'make do' with whatever office / furniture / equipment has been donated, or can be begged or scrounged. 

And also I suspect still currently there's a view that charities don't need to comply with employment legislation: the figures for charities taken to employment tribunals make for scary reading, and I think especially small charities can be quite shocked that an employee or former employee would do this. 

I consider myself fortunate that for most of the last 20+ years the charity I worked for had a sensible treasurer who felt we'd work much better if we had decent computers, and enough of them. And they thought that while they couldn't necessarily pay at the very top of the salary range, they would at least ensure that pay was reasonably competitive. But there were moments: the opposition to union recognition was 'interesting' and required a bit of a battle. 

Other issues I have met have been

• a charity Founder who would just do whatever they wanted, without ever checking in with the treasurer, other colleagues, the trustees etc. I was a Trustee there but soon realised I'd be able to do NOTHING useful, especially as I was a mere woman. 
  
  
• sometimes colleagues get strange ideas, and try to impose their will in completely unnecessary ways, to the extent I nearly resigned because I felt my temporary line manager was making unreasonable demands - I can't tell you what a relief it was when that manager resigned, and when my new manager started, those demands were no longer made. 

amanda1024

I work in an area I (and my colleagues) feel passionate about, and I think it helps us to feel fulfilled in our jobs, in spite of frustrations with how the organisation (public sector in my case) works and some of the politics. Certainly helps me to get up in the mornings.

Wyndham

Any workplace can be 'good' or 'bad'. And often it is just one or two people who make it so. If that person is senior, it can make a massive difference.

I worked for a charity in covid. While I felt good about what I was doing, and that I could use my skills to help people who were really struggling, I also had a bad manager - and she made a huge difference to how I felt about going to (remote) work each day. When the contract came up for renewal, I'd already sorted something else out.

Don't get me wrong, I believed, and still believe, passionately, in the work of the charity. But because of one person, the atmosphere was, well, I hesitate to use the word toxic, but certainly getting that way!

stutakesphotos

I used to earn approx £36k in a role that I ended up hating. The ethos wasn't right but I was also close to be being burnt out. I resigned and took a few months out.  During that time I weighed up what was most important to me.

I now work in the voluntary sector earning £10k less and whilst that wage makes things tight, I am so much happier. I have job satisfaction like you wouldn't believe. 

SensibleSarah

I used to work in a charity role that I was very passionate about. However, the pay was very low (well below minimum wage at the time), the hours were very long and some of the people and situations I had to deal with were very challenging. So, after 3 years, it was time to move on. There is only so long you can live off beans on toast every day, live in cheap, damp and barely habitable housing and work 60+ hours a week in return for little more than fresh air. 

I later 'fell' into a marketing career, which I've done for the 15+ years since. I'm certainly not passionate about making rich people even richer, which is essentially what I do. But, since going full time freelance in the field, it feels like I have got some of the control back and while meaningful job satisfaction isn't as high as I'd sometimes like, I balance that by doing a bit of volunteering in my spare time. This works fine for me at the moment.