WORKING IN THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR AS PART OF YOUR WIDER CAREER PLANS

Having worked through the other chapters of this book (especially Chapters 2 and 3) you should now have a reasonably clear idea of why you want to work in the voluntary sector. Once you are working in the sector, either as a volunteer or as a member of staff, it is likely at some stage that you will find yourself considering a number of questions:

• Could I do more?
• How could I do more?
• Where can I go now?
• What do I need to do in order to move on?

Moving up in the voluntary sector

Going from volunteering to paid work

Doing voluntary work is a useful way of getting a step on the ladder to a career in the voluntary sector. It helps you to understand the way the sector works, gives you contacts and helps you to build up relevant skills and experiences for getting paid work.

Going up the promotion ladder

Career development in the voluntary sector may seem less ‘vertical’ than in other sectors. In other words, career paths may be less clear, but there will be opportunities to take ‘sideways’ promotions and temporary responsibility for projects above your grade. Moving into areas outside your own speciality may be more normal. In 1998 the RSA (Royal Society of Arts) published a report about work in the voluntary sector, which described the career structure as ‘spiral’.

What this means in practical terms for your career is that if you want to be a manager, the route to that position is less likely to be a straightforward one, than in the private sector. It is not simply a case of waiting for the position above you to become vacant and then applying for it, and so on, until you reach the position you want. Part of the problem with this approach is that many organisations are too small for this to be a fruitful tactic – staff turnover is either too slow or the difference in job levels is too great for internal promotion to be feasible.

On the other hand, having to move around in order to move up means that you could develop a wider understanding of the issues that affect your work and that of the organisation. It’s also an excellent way of developing a wider portfolio of skills.

Moving on to other sectors

If you are unemployed or looking for your first job after college, experience of voluntary work can show potential employers that you have initiative and a real desire to work (see Chapters 4 and 5).

If you are doing paid work in the voluntary sector it is important that you are able to show employers in other sectors that you have developed skills that will be useful to them. You also need to bear in mind that you will be competing with people who have more commercial experience than you, so you will need to show, from your CV onwards, that your experience is appropriate. For example, many advertisements for positions in the private sector are looking for people who can work under pressure and have experience of a competitive environment. You’ll need to re-assess your voluntary sector experiences in the light of this and present them accordingly.

DEVELOPING YOUR SKILLS

While you are working in the voluntary sector it is important for your career development and for keeping up your interest that you continue to expand and develop your skills. Some skills you will develop by doing the work on a day-to-day basis. Others you may develop by going on courses, which may lead to qualifications.

The availability of training in the voluntary sector is variable. The organisation you work for may not be able to afford to pay for a training course, but they may be able to find other ways of supporting you through one. For example, if you are willing to pay for a course yourself, your employer may be willing to let you have a few hours each week of paid study time.

Doing a course

Many voluntary organisations provide their own training courses to meet their own needs. For example, one member of staff who can use a particular computer software package may be encouraged to train others how to use it. Or the organisation may develop its own training package (sometimes leading to a recognised qualification) that it can use with new staff and volunteers. This may be the case with organisations that provide counselling services or do conservation work, for example.

There are a number of organisations that provide courses tailored to the voluntary sector in general:

• Charity People provides access courses for people new to the voluntary sector; software package training; courses in communication skills, self-marketing and fundraising.
• Directory of Social Change provides training courses in management, supervision, personnel and training skills; personal development; communication; fundraising; and finance and law. The courses are available at different levels, from beginner to very experienced. Publishes a training course catalogue and a publications catalogue.
• National Centre for Volunteering provides training in all aspects relating to the management of volunteers. Publishes a training and publications catalogue.
• Various universities run distance-learning courses relevant to the voluntary sector that can lead to the Professional Certificates and Diplomas in Management with modules addressing management issues specifically in relation to the public and non-profit sectors.

Apart from these there are specific courses at all levels that will be relevant to your own work and interests. For example, if you are working on an inner city car project you might be thinking about college courses in mechanics or youth work. As with the public and private sectors, the general principle applied to providing training for individuals is to ask whether it is relevant to the work they are doing. If the organisation you are working for does not seem to be aware of what training is available, it may be worth going to your local careers advisory office. They will have information about all types of courses available locally.

Getting accreditation for your skills

Apart from doing courses that lead to qualifications, another way of getting a nationally recognised certificate for your skills is to do an NVQ (National Vocational Qualification).

The good thing about NVQs (SNVQs in Scotland) is that they don’t depend on examinations. Getting a qualification depends on the work you are doing. In other words, if you’re already doing the work, you might as well get a qualification for it. Of course, it’s not as simple as just turning up to work every day and then getting a certificate. You have to prove that you are competent at certain things, and someone from outside your organisation assesses your work.

There are hundreds of NVQs available in a range of areas, including:

• animals, plants and land
• transport
• goods and services
• health, social and protective services
• business services
• communicating.

They start at Level 1, which is basic and shows your ability to do routine tasks, and go up to Level 5, which is intended to be equivalent to a postgraduate qualification and is suitable for senior managers. You don’t have to start at Level 1 and work upwards – you can take the level most appropriate to the work you are doing.

The good thing about NVQs is that they are designed by employers and so are recognised throughout the country. They also provide you with a means of getting a qualification without having to take a career break.

Opportunities to do NVQs in the voluntary sector are variable, but most organisations see the benefit of them and some positively encourage them. Over 50 per cent of the NVQs awarded in Environmental Conservation are gained by BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) volunteers.

Information about NVQs should be available from your local careers office.

UPDATING YOUR CV

It’s a good idea to keep your CV on a word processor file if you can, so that it is easily adapted to suit different employers and quickly updated. Even so it’s worthwhile having at least two separate CVs:

• 1.Your ‘base’ CV – this is just a list which you can divide up into sections and then list everything chronologically. This way you won’t forget a half-day training course that you did last year.
• 2.Your ‘model’ CV – this is your skeleton which has all the right shapes and components, but which you flesh out each time you apply for a job.

If your career is focused within the voluntary sector then your experiences in the sector will appear on your CV under ‘work experience’. But if you are, or have been a volunteer, or your paid experience in the sector was a long time ago, you need to think about whether that experience is relevant to your current application and how best to present it on your CV. Updating your CV isn’t just about putting new things on – it’s also about deciding when to remove things, or reduce or change the emphasis on them.

Keep things brief and simple, and relevant to the job you are applying for. You will be putting more detail on your CV about your current or most recent job, so the further away in time a job is the less detailed and the more pertinent it will have to be.

If your experience in the voluntary sector is as a volunteer you will need to consider where to put this on your CV. If you were unemployed at the time and volunteered several days a week it’s quite legitimate and very positive to put this down under ‘work experience’ provided you make it clear it was voluntary. On the other hand, if your volunteering has been on an ad hoc basis or something that you do in your spare time, you could either make a separate section for it on your CV (if it’s significant enough) or put it under an ‘other information’ section.

If you are applying for a job in the private sector that needs experience of ‘fast-moving, competitive’ environments, don’t forget that organisations in the voluntary sector are competing for resources (money, materials and help) and responding to pressures and crises all the time. It’s simply a matter of re-interpreting your own experience to match the needs of the employer.

KEEPING IN TOUCH

Keeping in touch with the private sector

If you are working more or less full-time in the voluntary sector for a significant period (anything above three months) whether paid or unpaid, and you think you might return to the private sector, it is important to remain in contact.

• If, for example, you are on secondment or leave of absence, make sure that you stay in touch with your old colleagues by telephone, e-mail or letter – even the odd note on a greetings card. It will help you to keep in touch with what’s going on and if and when you do return, it won’t feel so strange.
• If you worked in a particular industry or profession (whether it’s health or brewing) try to keep up any membership subscriptions you have and stay on the mailing list for newsletters and journals.
• At the very least keep an eye on the jobs pages of news papers so that you can get an idea if jobs are changing or if entry requirements are getting tougher.

Keeping in touch with the voluntary sector

If you decide to stop doing paid work for a particular organisation or cause in the voluntary sector you may still want to help out occasionally and volunteering is one way of doing that. You could volunteer in one of the many ways mentioned in Chapter 5.

However, if you no longer want to volunteer you may still want to feel as though you are making a contribution in some way. You could do this by:

• Becoming a non-active member – paying your subscriptions and receiving newsletters.
• Making regular donations by direct debit or including an organisation in your will.
• Becoming a freelance adviser or consultant – using your experience within the sector to advise other organisations. This gives you the freedom to do other work while still being involved in the sector.
• Staying in touch on a personal level – this may be obvious if you have made good friends during your work, but even on a professional level it can be useful to have an extra contact for references.

CASE STUDIES

Anne-Marie Moore, administration officer, Skillshare International

‘I left school at 16 and found a job with a company where I was doing an NVQ, but it didn’t work because there was no support. Then Skillshare took me on as an admin trainee.

‘I was hired on the basis I would go on to NVQ Level 3.1 got my Business Administration Level 1 in six months and went on straight away to do Level 2. It was good because one of the other women here was going for her NVQ assessor’s award, so she was able to use me as a case study and support me on an almost daily basis.

‘After Level 2 I went on to do Level 3 and it took about 18 months to get all three levels. I could have gone down the secretarial qualification route, but I wanted to do the business administration. Doing the NVQs gave me more confidence and I’m now thinking about studying for higher education qualifications.’

Tony Markham, freelance photographer

‘I really got into photography when I was an assistant in the fundraising unit of a local homelessness project. It was called the fundraising unit, but it did everything to do with publicity and marketing so there was always a lot of work going on with leaflets and exhibitions, and there was a lot of discussion about how we should have images of our clients that were positive, that didn’t patronise them.

‘Our stock of photographs was quite old and so someone decided it would be a good idea to buy a camera and get everyone – staff, volunteers, clients – to take pictures of the things that mattered to them about the project. It took quite a lot of organising and I got more and more involved until really I was running it as a little project in its own right. I suppose I must have done well because I was sent on photography courses.

‘I thought there must be a market for this kind of skill with other groups so I started asking around and putting a portfolio together, until I’d done enough and felt confident enough to set up on my own. I think my background in the voluntary sector has definitely given me the edge in winning some commissions I know what the issues are and why they matter.’

Jackie Nelson, finance officer, animal welfare organisation

‘I’ve always worked in the voluntary sector and I’ve done all sorts of things. But I’ve always been interested in numbers and computers so whatever job I was doing I was looking for opportunities to develop skills in those areas – I suppose I’ve always been fairly ambitious.

‘A few years ago I was in a project development team at a large charity and I was responsible for applying for grants from big donors like the European Union. When we got the money I had to monitor how it was spent and what the results were. My skills were developing fast because I would go on courses and then have to apply what I’d learnt to a real-life situation straight away.

‘One of the courses I did was an OU management certificate course about finance and accounting. That was brilliant – it helped me get this job and it gave me confidence to study for accountancy qualifications by correspondence. The course is really expensive, but my employer pays and I repay them a little bit each month. They also let me have a half-day of study leave every week.’

CHECKLIST

• What kind of career pattern might you expect in the voluntary sector?
• How can you develop your skills while working in the voluntary sector?
• What are the two CVs you should have?
• What are the advantages of keeping in touch with the sector you have left behind?

USEFUL RESOURCES

Useful addresses

Further reading