Career transition experiences – from corporate events to charity fundraising

Louise Spearman used to work in corporate events and publishing, but she recently started working for an international development charity as a fundraiser. In addition, she is also part-time with another small charity she started out volunteering with during her transition. She talked to us about her experiences.

What inspired your change to the charity sector?

To be honest, I've always wanted to work in the charity sector - I've just never been able to get there until now. I tried really hard when I came out of uni, but at that point in time I just needed a job and fell into something else. But deep down my heart was in the charity sector - I feel like when I retire, I want to have made a difference to the world. As long as I've got enough money to get by, I want to make sure my work impacts the world in some way. When I was 16 I spent a month working a school in Malawi, and then since then I volunteered on programmes in Peru, Nepal, Guatemala. I’ve taken part in national and international fundraising events, like the Sierra Leone Marathon for Street Child and the London Marathon. I'm most passionate when I'm volunteering or fundraising, so it was clear it was the sector that I should be working in.

Then, I was working in the events industry and last year we obviously took a bad hit, so like a lot of other people I went on furlough. I realised I’d been given the time to finally make the change, so I used it to get loads of experience, do lots of volunteering and try and make the move. Luckily it paid off.

How did you go about your transition, and what did you find difficult?

I found that it's very hard to make a career change like this unless you've got the time to invest in it - it’s really hard when you’re working full-time. I basically worked 40 hours a week on my career change while I was on furlough. That would involve stuff like attending webinars about the sector and about career transition [including an EP Foundation webinar – you can register for our next one on July 1st, ‘a recruiter’s perspective’]. I got every kind of book about the charity sector and fundraising I could get my hands on. I was networking like mad, which wasn’t something I’d been comfortable with before, but I realised I had no choice. I cleared out my LinkedIn and I connected with people in the charity sector, career advisers and fundraisers, and asked as many of them for conversations as possible.

Definitely the webinars really helped in terms of breaking up the reading, getting information direct from people with experience. But also it was a way to meet other people in the same boat as me and have that support network, because it's a really hard place to be - initially you just get nothing but knock-backs. Realistically you can get knocked-back until you get your job, and that can be a long time, with more bad days than good days. What was hard was often being told that I needed work experience in the sector – it’s like when you come out of uni or are after you first job in a way. I remember I was being told after interview that I had the skills, all the passion, but there was just somebody with sector experience that I didn't have - in a way they were saying to me ‘you can't improve, there's nothing more you can do’. You're just up against it, and that was very tough. But you just have to keep going if you really want to do it.

What role did your volunteering play in your transition?

So it depended on what kind of volunteering I was doing - some of it was hands-on, like the Felix Project where I was in a depot, but another I asked if I could try out helping them with corporate fundraising. Volunteering is essential for several reasons. Firstly, just to give you a break from job applications. Applying for jobs day in, day out is hard – even if you’re applying for jobs in a different sector I'd actually say to do some volunteering, just to give yourself a break and some meaning to your life. But for me, it was also giving me other experience in the sector. Even if it wasn’t the job I was going into, it was experience of working in a charity in some way.

I was very lucky that one of the charities I sought out for volunteering, a surplus food organisation working in Borough Market, was small enough to really need the help. That was the one that turned into a freelance job, while the charity job that I work at full-time allowed me to do my work in 4.5 days, so I now dedicated a half-day and other hours in evenings and weekends to the freelance job. Volunteering turned into something paid and that doesn't always happen. I think it happened in my case because they were small, only one member of staff, and having an extra brain was useful for them. Because I wanted to get corporate fundraising experience, I asked if I could help them get some corporates onboard. I found a gap, my own niche, and more funding also became available for me around then. It almost happened by accident, but it was a case of sticking with something you’re passionate with.

How does the not-for-profit sector differ from the corporate sector (for better and for worse)?

I'm still very early days in my not-for-profit sector career, so I'm still yet to see all the differences, but for me one of the clearest things is the work ethic. I'd say that people in the non-for-profit sector are more dedicated, because the people in these jobs actually want to be here. They're passionate, they're committed to the cause and it's so much more than just a job, they genuinely care. They know that each task they do is is leading towards something for the greater good. I can’t think of anything more motivating, and it’s a happier place to work – that’s been my experience of colleagues so far.

Also, competitors can be friends – that’s not something I came across in the corporate sector. We talk to each other, everyone in the charity sector is happy to offer advice. I spoke with some recently who was helping a charity she doesn’t work at to win a partnership with a current partner of the charity she does work for, because they wanted to partner with the same organisation but in a different way. Everyone shares their advice, their failures, and they want you to do well.

For the worse - I find that particularly working in international development, everyone not in the sector has got an opinion on how you should do your job and how a charity should work. ‘Why don’t charities just do this, just put the money there’. They will make assumptions about how charities should run, or will offer old broken computers we can’t use, on the mentality that anything is better than nothing – you’re up against those kind of conversations. You also have that tough conversation with people about where all the money goes - a lot of people want their money to go a hundred percent to a specific cause or project, and they don't see the value in the running costs of the charity and paying salaries. There is actually an amazing TED Talk by Dan Pallota - ‘The way we think about charity is dead wrong’. He sums up the double-standard that people expect charities to scrimp by, how they don’t see the value of staff as something that needs to be invested in.

Another downside of that broad positive of really caring about your job and having that big work ethic is it's probably more emotionally draining. The stakes are a lot higher in the terms that you're working for a cause that's close to your heart. If you have a bad day or you fail, you can feel it's actually going to affect people's lives - it's quite hard to switch off from that. Along with the job satisfaction, you can also get more guilt.

What advice would you give someone considering the same change?

If you want to do it, do it with all your heart and soul. A hundred percent of your capacity - you’re not going to get it if you put less than that into it, it doesn’t work. Like I said, be prepared for bad days, be prepared for frustration and rejection, but if you want to do it, do it because it’ll be the best thing you ever do. Can you imagine the next however many years of your career not being happy? Educate yourself, read as much as you can about the job, learn the lingo and train yourself before you’re even in a role. And I think volunteer, no matter what industry you’re trying to get into, because it’s really nice having that volunteering to take your head away and to give you meaning.

And also, network. It’s so true when they say ‘it’s not what you know, it's who you know’, and for me I didn't know the people that I needed to. So I had no choice but to get to know them and just push my way in – I wouldn’t have come across the opportunity that I came into if I hadn’t. My LinkedIn feed changed to the charity world, I was seeing jobs popping up, people recommending me because I’ve had conversations with them – people are nicer and more likely to speak to you than you might think.