DOING PAID OR UNPAID WORK

Getting paid work

The range of jobs

Whatever skills and qualifications you have, it is likely that there is something in the voluntary sector that you can do. The important thing to be aware of is that for paid positions a sense of commitment has to be backed up by real skills (unless, of course, it is an entry-level position with training provided). In this respect the voluntary sector is no different from the private sector.

Here are some examples of paid jobs in the voluntary sector; it is by no means an exhaustive list:

• accountant/finance assistant/personnel officer
• carer/befriender/counsellor
• child worker/community worker/rights worker
• conservation officer/ecologist/city-farm worker
• director/manager/project manager/volunteer co-ordinator
• fundraiser/campaigns officer/grants officer
• lawyer/psychologist/scientist
• mechanic/architect/carpenter
• nurse/therapist/doctor
• programmer/systems analyst/network manager
• researcher/information analyst/journalist/lobbyist
• secretary/clerk/admin assistant/receptionist
• trainer/vocational instructor/teacher.

Working full-time

Working hours are normally 35–40 hours a week, although heavy workloads, few staff and funding constraints can mean working many more hours than this. When deadlines are tight or workloads are heavy it is normal to put in the extra hours needed and not be paid for them – many organisations operate a time-off-in-lieu (TOIL) system. However, there is always the exception and occasionally a full-time position in the voluntary sector can appear for as few as 30 hours per week and still be quite well paid.

Working part-time

There are lots of part-time positions in the voluntary sector, at all levels. There are just a few things to consider:

• There can be a good deal of flexibility concerning when you do your hours.
• Part-time work may be worth taking to get a ‘foot in the door’.
• If you are receiving benefits, they may be affected by the hours you work and the amount of money you are paid.

Job-sharing

Job-sharing is a way of doing a full-time job, part-time. You simply share your position with another person. The most usual arrangement is to split the days or weeks in half. Not all organisations offer this kind of option and you will need to think about the following:

• It might be up to you to find someone to job-share with.
• You’ll need to be able to work with the other person extremely well – you may not see them much, but you’ll be working on the same things so you’ll need to be very organised and co-ordinated and communicate well with each other.

Working on a permanent or temporary basis

There are many positions in the voluntary sector recruited on a permanent basis. However, many are recruited on fixed-term contracts, often due to funding constraints. It may be that you are already clear about which type of position you want, though it will be worth thinking over the following issues:

• Permanent work provides a measure of security and may give you access to opportunities that won’t be available to temporary staff.
• On the other hand, a series of temporary contracts could expose you to lots of different opportunities and will certainly give you lots of contacts.
• Temporary work can be very exciting because it can be focused on short-term projects.
• Temporary work can also be very dull, made up of the easy-to-delegate and less interesting work.
• Short-term temporary work can be unsettling and stressful because of the insecurity – though it can also be a useful filler.

Taking secondment or leave of absence

Some employers encourage secondments or leaves of absence to do work in the voluntary sector. It may be worth approaching your manager to see if he or she would be open to the idea. You would need to be able to show your employer not only that what you would be doing is worthwhile but also how the company would benefit from it on your return.

A leave of absence is unpaid, whereas with a secondment your employer continues to pay you for the duration.

Things to consider:

• How supportive is your boss/company?
• Will taking time out mean you miss out on some interesting work or a promotion prospect with your employer? Or will it benefit your career?
• Can you afford to take a leave of absence? Your employer will not be paying you and the voluntary sector organisation you are working for may not be paying you much. How long can you afford to take a leave of absence for? People taking a leave of absence to work on overseas development projects for two years often sell their houses, or rent them out.
• Are you willing to take the risk of not having a job to return to? During your absence your employer may make changes, which mean that you end up with a different job from the one you left, or have no job to return to.

Volunteering

Looking at the range of jobs

A deciding factor in what you do will be the amount of time you have available. Maybe you can only spare an hour or two here and there and can never predict when it will be. You may have a regular night each week that you can devote, or it may only be once a year when you feel you can do something.

Below are examples of the voluntary work that could be available to you:

• Dropping leaflets for a political party; doing a street collection for a charity; campaigning (from writing letters to going on demonstrations) for an environment group; organising a crèche for local children.
• Working at an animal rescue centre or on a city farm; clearing waste from canals or designing a garden for a local community.
• Working in a charity shop, or driving a van for an organisation that collects old clothing, furniture and bric-a-brac.
• Supporting people in ways such as befriending, counselling, giving telephone support/advice, working for hospital radio.
• Learning skilled work on heritage restoration, archaeological digs or countryside maintenance projects.
• Using first aid skills with St John Ambulance or helping to keep people safe as a lifeboat volunteer or mountain rescue worker.
• Helping a particular group of people such as those with special needs – for example, the disabled, the homeless, ethnic minorities; this could be one-to-one or group work – anything from being a helper, to going on soup runs, to teaching English as a foreign language.
• As a trustee or committee member you could be using your management/technical/organisational knowledge to help an organisation run properly or to set up a project.
• Doing almost any of the jobs listed under the ‘Getting paid work’ section earlier in this chapter. Small organisations with very tight resources are often very grateful for volunteers able to provide specialist skills.

WORKING AT HOME OR ABROAD

Working within the voluntary sector in the UK is something that you can do at any time, especially if you are volunteering. But working overseas means you will have to make a commitment of a block of time.

If you decide to find work in the UK (paid or unpaid) you will need to decide where you want to work:

• Regionally – paid positions may be difficult to come by, though there will be lots of volunteer opportunities.
• In London – some voluntary positions provide food, accommodation and an allowance – and London is where a vast number of the paid positions are.
• In an urban area – there are a lot more opportunities than in rural areas.
• In a rural area – unless you live in a rural area, opportunities may be limited to weekend work or ‘holiday’ projects.

Working in the voluntary sector in the UK can often provide a useful grounding for working overseas – some organisations insist on it. Firstly, it gives you experience of the voluntary sector culture and, depending on the work you do, it could provide you with experience of dealing with different ethnic cultures.

Working overseas is often seen as more adventurous. It certainly can be interesting to work in a completely different environment and culture. Learning a new language and mixing with different people can be very rewarding. But you need to be realistic about this. For a start, working overseas for only two weeks won’t give you the depth or breadth of experience you’d get by working abroad for two years.

Also, if you go overseas with a group of people, it is easy to become complacent and not bother learning the language, or mixing with people from your host country. On the other hand, if you go overseas on your own, even if you learn the language fairly well you could still feel isolated if you can’t talk to people about things from your own life.

You may need to sort out permits and visas to work overseas, even as a volunteer. Some organisations will take care of this for you, but many won’t. There can be a lot to sort out so you’ll need to be well organised and patient.

For more detailed information on working overseas see Chapter 8.

DECIDING HOW LONG TO DO IT FOR

Your commitments/career plans

A family, a serious relationship, a mortgage, loans, pension schemes or any other type of commitment will have an impact on how long you can work in the voluntary sector, whether you are an employee or a volunteer. For example, if you have financial commitments you may have to set some money aside if you want to do a large block of volunteering, or if you want to work on a long-term paid contract overseas. Family members or your partner may feel quite strongly about you working away from home for even a short while.

Your financial commitments may be contributing to your motives to transfer your career to the voluntary sector. You might recognise this as ‘wanting to get out of the rat race’. As this means you are thinking about a long-term change, which could see you earning less than you currently do, you will need to work out how you are going to adjust your outgoings so that you can cope. If you say ‘I want to get out of the rat race’ during an interview, voluntary sector organisations may think you see them as an easy option, so you’ll need to convince them that you’ve thought through the implications of your decision.

If you are at college you might want to do a period of work in the voluntary sector after finishing your studies. You need to think about how long you can spend in the sector without harming your chances of moving into the business world later. For example, if you are an information technology graduate it could be unwise to spend even six months as a volunteer hospital worker in India; your skills and knowledge could be significantly out of date by the time you return. Even if you are on the paid staff of a voluntary sector organisation in London, setting up its IT systems, you still need to be careful with the time. You may not be dealing with leading edge technology and again, your skills and knowledge could fall significantly behind within a couple of years.

Committing yourself

In most cases the length of time you do voluntary work for is up to you, but some organisations will ask you to make a regular commitment. For example, Relate asks its volunteer counsellors to do at least three hours’ counselling each week as well as attend regular training sessions.

All overseas work, paid or not, is temporary. However, contracts can be for a number of years and are sometimes renewable. There is also always the possibility of going from one contract to another.

DECIDING WHEN TO DO IT

• Is your available time going to restrict any voluntary work you do? Evenings, weekends, holidays, a particular time of year, a gap year, a secondment, a leave of absence? All these things will affect how flexible you are concerning when you do it.
• How flexible are you? If you want to work overseas could you go next month, or, equally possible, are you happy to go in two years’ time? Your circumstances could have changed by then, but the application, selection and placement processes for some overseas posts can take many months.
• Is working in the voluntary sector part of a wider career plan? If it is, you may need to think about the recruitment processes and needs of your future potential employers to make sure you get your timing right.
• If you are thinking of volunteering, is it something you want to do now or could you do it when you are older, perhaps when you are retired?
• Is it something you want to do in your college holidays? If it is, it’s a good idea to start planning about six months before the holidays start. At the very least you need to investigate the opportunities available to you.

ASSESSING THE BENEFITS

Only you will really know what you are getting out of the experience, whether paid or voluntary, and whether it is enough.

Personal benefits

• job satisfaction
• recognition for contribution
• satisfaction of giving something back
• personal development
• sense of achievement
• new skills and knowledge
• career development
• new friends and social activity
• a sense of belonging
• fun.

Social benefits

• Enhanced quality of life – whether you are working on a local campaign for better street lighting or a major international project to relieve poverty, the aim will be an enhanced quality of life in some way for someone.
• Community spirit – by people working together for a ‘greater good’ the theory is that we’ll move towards a more democratic, socially responsible, caring society.

USING THE INTERNET TO MAKE YOUR MARK

If you are unable to spare much time as a volunteer, or do not want to work in the sector, but still want to make a difference, it is possible. The Internet has changed the way many charities operate, including how they raise funds and how they organise campaigns.

For example, some charities have Internet fundraising campaigns where you click on a sponsor’s advertisement. Each time you click on the advertisement, the charity receives a small donation. You can also make donations yourself, by filling in online forms.

On many charity websites you can register your concerns about issues, ‘sign’ petitions and vote on important matters. It helps you to get your point across and the charity benefits by being able to use the information to show relevant bodies the level of concern among the population.

Of course, the Internet is an excellent research tool, particularly for finding volunteer opportunities. One website (www.do-it.org.uk) has a search facility where you can find volunteering opportunities in your area according to the kind of work you are interested in. Another website (www.communtitychannel.org) is specifically for armchair activists.

CASE STUDIES

Mary Neill, St John Ambulance volunteer

‘I’ve been a volunteer now for quite a few years. I enjoy the work side of it – helping people, doing something useful, meeting lots of different people – and getting into football matches free! Seriously though, a lot of the time it’s good fun, but it can be upsetting because we can come across some traumatic situations. The thing is, I feel really good when I’ve helped someone and I can see it in their faces that I’ve made a difference. I also like the social activities with the other volunteers. My day job’s okay, but I don’t get the same out of it that I do out of being a volunteer.’

Daniel Cort, archaeology consultant

‘I took a leave of absence from my job in London as a museum services archaeologist to work in South America for two years. The museum service promised to keep my job open, but when I got back they made me redundant. It was really strange because before going overseas something like that would have had me fretting about security and money, but I really do think that working overseas made me more relaxed. I found myself enjoying this new challenge and I felt much more confident and flexible. I decided to become self-employed and I now run a small archaeological consultancy.’

Shibero Akatsa-Darby, alcohol abuse counsellor

‘I worked as a training consultant in the private sector for ten years. I wanted to be a counsellor, but the leap seemed too large. I decided to take a job as a trainer for a charity. It was a kind of halfway house and it certainly was the right thing to do. I learned a lot about the charity culture and I was exposed to a lot of things going on that I didn’t even know about. It gave me exposure to the personal development side of things.

‘Making that move gave me a lot of confidence about going into counselling. I really got my act together. I did the Relate training, became a volunteer counsellor and then, as soon as I saw the right job, applied for it and got it. But getting that first charity job is probably the best thing I’ve ever done because it took me down the path where I’m meant to be going. It kind of concluded my career search.’

CHECKLIST

All the issues in this chapter are interlinked. Your responses to one issue will depend upon your feelings about another. The main points to be aware of are:

• Are you clear about why you want to work in the voluntary sector?
• Have you thought about your lifestyle and your ambitions?
• Are you sure you can adjust to working in the voluntary sector?
• Are you looking for a paid position or for voluntary work, and in either case, for how long, where and when?

USEFUL RESOURCES

Further reading