So what's your background?
I started life in local radio, journalism and publishing before going into corporate communications at Guinness, then into the charity sector with ActionAid, Citizens Advice and finally Independent Age.
What was your first charity job? And your first communications role?
Head of Editorial at ActionAid, though I had been a Samaritans volunteer for a few years as well. My first communications role was as Station Assistant at BBC Radio Humberside, back in 1983. There were two parts to the role – making radio features, which I really enjoyed and was reasonably good at, and twiddling the knobs and dials to control the station output, which I was terrible at. This is why I subsequently went into journalism and PR rather than IT.
How did you get this job?
I was looking for something different after seven years at Citizens Advice. It’s a cliché, but I was genuinely looking for a challenge. I certainly got it at Independent Age. As part of an all-new management team, within a few months we’d realised that the charity was in a far worse state than we thought and its service model needed rapidly updating for the modern world.
How long have you worked at your current organisation for?
Just over three years.
What do you actually do on a daily basis?
My role’s very varied, covering everything through from the details of our policy position on social care to overall responsibility for our fundraising operations. So a typical day might involve tweeting a comment about a policy story in a newspaper on my way into work, then chairing a meeting about the relaunch of our website, signing off a funding application to a trust, and maybe speaking at a volunteer meeting or doing a radio interview. In between I do all the other stuff: fielding calls from people trying to sell me things, trying to enthuse my excellent team to deliver even more, sitting down with colleagues to work out how to implement new services, analysing the results from a fundraising evaluation. Making tea seems to figure quite a lot as well.
What's been your biggest achievement in this role so far?
I’m proud to have been part of a fundamental review of the charity’s services which has led to us offering more services to more people and dealing increasingly with isolation and loneliness, rather than just financial poverty. But in my specific area it would have to be our rebrand, which took this new service model, and the vision and mission that drove it, and turned it into a well-researched, attractive new visual and verbal identity for the charity.
What advice can you give to other organisations about integrating communications and fundraising work?
Integration only really happens, I think, when everyone understands the overall approach and sees how their work fits in. That way, they can join things up at their own level rather than expect a Soviet style ‘central integration plan’ to come down from on high. So the key thing is that everyone needs to be clear about their own roles and how these fit into the wider fundraising and communications objectives and strategy (and, in turn, how these help the charity achieve its overall objectives). Then you have to keep on checking that people are actually doing what they’re supposed to be doing and that they still understand why.
What are the most challenging parts of your role?
Like many people working in charities, I’d like us to be doing more, and faster.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
Back to the variety. I love that one minute I’m trying to get my head around a policy issue about social care and the next pouring over statistics about a fundraising campaign.
Anything you don't enjoy?
Only the usual frustrations of working in a complex organisation. It can be difficult to wait for things to go through proper processes before they’re put into action. But as a relatively small organisation we can move things along quite quickly and (though I hate to admit it) often process is necessary to make sure something really is a good idea.
What kind of personality is best suited to working in a job like yours?
I think most personality types could find a way of doing the job well, providing they had a reasonably agile mind and a passionate interest in the issues.
Any top tips for people wanting to follow in your footsteps?
Know the business you’re in. Having a good understanding of the technical stuff around media relations, fundraising, or event management is only half of the job. If you don’t understand what your charity does, how it does it and how it plans to grow then you’ll never be much more than average. I would much rather employ someone who was interested in the issues, and able and willing to learn the ‘how to’ things than a skilled fundraising or media professional who had no real interest in what the charity does. One of the behaviours, linked to our brand, we’re trying to encourage is curiosity. We want to make it easy for people to spend time finding out what colleagues are doing and why.