built on the goodwill & gratitude of individuals?
Hello.
It’s quite a long blog today so you may want to grab a cuppa!
I wrote a tweet recently that asked:
The responses varied but there was a similar theme – money. Better pay, paying on time, funding that was easy to access, use and report on and that was a response to good work rather than projects created based on criteria. What if, replied another person, we could get paid for talking to each other, for giving and receiving support and sharing resources?
So, there are a few things I want to bring up here that speak to both the bigger picture / systemic issues of the not-for-profit sector and the individual’s responsibility in all of this. I’m going to frame it around my own experiences and I know that you will all have your unique experiences. I also want to pre-empt that this may turn out to be slightly ratty and ranty. In part because this is a subject I feel very emotionally connected to and because I am also in the phase of my menstrual cycle where the frustration and anger is bubbling very close to the surface! I want to harness that power and speak openly in the hope that this is a useful addition to the conversation and that it provokes some kind of action.
The two longest roles that I have held were always at some point temporary and reliant on the success of fundraising applications.
In my role at a housing association, I was recruited to run a three years Grant for the Arts project fund. Once that funding ceased, the fundraising team brought in some more money and the organisation matched funded the work. In 2008, the Global Financial Crisis massively impacted the social housing sector and despite the organisation working really hard to keep me in post, I was eventually made redundant.
I began my role at a small arts charity in 2009 as project manager of another three-year funded grants for the arts programme. It was £6k less than my previous role, and had no pension but that didn’t matter because I really wanted the job. (I’ll come back to this later). I also had my first child early on in this role so was entitled only to the statutory maternity pay, which was pittance, really. There was a constant application writing process but this time we had no lovely fundraising team so, led by the CEO, we all pitched in. By this point I was very used to putting in applications that weren’t successful and feeling always slightly precarious in my role. When we got NPO status, we could breathe a little sigh of relief. It wasn’t a huge amount of money but we felt validated and a little more secure, and so began the cycle of reporting, applying, reporting, applying. Oh, and creating top quality participatory projects too.
I left that role when I was 39, and I earned £30k (pro-rata). It had taken me 2 degrees, countless training, total commitment and care and nearly 20 years to earn £30k. The median annual pay for full-time employees was £31,461 for the tax year ending 5 April 2020, an increase of over 3% on the year before (ONS: 2020). I know that there are people out there who might be screaming at me, saying that that’s plenty, what are you talking about?
And yes it is possible to live on that amount
AND I know I was paid more than other people
AND I think there are many, many people who need to be paid better.
But what I want to say is that I think this was my story for few reasons –
My own money stories meant that I never believed I could really earn a decent salary.
I decided that working in the sector, it was as it was, and I couldn’t change it.
I was so grateful to be working in the arts, doing a job I absolutely loved, that I never thought the financial reward was important.
I could make these decisions. My husband had a decent salary which meant we weren’t only dependent on mine. We had two salaries coming in to the household, we could make it work.
Oh, and did I tell you how grateful I was?!
Why am I telling you all of this?
Because I see these stories around pay and funding all the time. And having now stepped slightly out of the not-for-profit sector I can see that there are other ways of making money, not just funding. also believe you can be grateful for your work AND be financially recompensed well. And I believe that in this world in which we live, we need more good people to have money.
And I think this has everything to do with Doing Good and Doing Well.
This pervading feeling of scarcity – not enough funding, not enough money, not enough jobs, not enough time, not enough opportunities means people are burning out. Taking on everything they can, applying and reapplying for funding, feeling rejected when they don’t get it, having no time to really process and reflect on their learning, to take any proper rest, refuelling their compassion and creativity.
Instead, they feel exhausted, stressed, angry, resentful. Maybe they leave (I can’t take it anymore but where will I go?), maybe they stay (I love it, I’m so grateful, I’ll manage).
I don't consider myself as a freelancer but as a business owner and entrepreneur.
When I first started thinking about this work, I assumed I would apply for funding because that’s what I knew and understood, but as I worked on my own feelings around money and I looked at how I wanted to be in the world, I made the decision to really limit that option (I’m not excluding it completely after all I am fundraising to keep the podcast going). I have also made the decision to be very intentional in how much work I take on and that I have time for reflection (I’m still trying to get that bit right), the dark scarcity side is very strong in me. But that means that I have to be very considered about how much I charge. I’m done with undervaluing my work. I want to earn good money and I’m done with the shame of saying that out loud.
In my previous roles, of course I do not blame the organisation AT ALL – we were part of a much bigger, complex system. I do wonder though, how complicit I was in all of that – not speaking up, not always asking for more, not questioning (not much time for any of that of course!)
I think that the whole not-for-profit sector is built on the goodwill of individuals who are so grateful to work in the industry that they’ll put up with it, or have no choice OR who have other financial means that means the sector is continually subsidised.
So, my questions to each of you.
What part are you playing in all this?
What can you do?
What are you willing to tolerate?
What are you not willing to tolerate?
None of this stuff is new. Many people have written about it. What does it mean for you? Let me know what comes up for you.