Episode 9 - Full transcript

 

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Coming up in the show

Tim Beynon: Hello and welcome to the Charity show, the podcast for Charity Insiders by Charity insiders. Please rate, follow or subscribe to us on your usual podcast platform. And after our little summer break, here's what's coming up in episode nine.

Piers Townley: This is part of a three year, partnership that Ma might have with Elton John. And they've just released a brand new limited edition design jar. And it's just. The design's lovely anyway, with some iconic shots from his tour and from his career. and I think it's just quite an interesting collaboration. And, it's a $1 million partnership, which is a substantial amount of money.

Maya Bhose: If you've got a choice between someone who's done that job before in a charity or someone who's got great skills but they never worked in a charity, you just think, well, I'll have to spend more time with that person and I don't really have more time, so I'll pick the person who's already worked in the Charity. The problem is that just turns into a game of musical chairs.

Tim Beynon: So, ten years old, cycle lands. Enter John O goats. And back again to raise money for a wildlife charity. So his name is Harry Pecksa, known as Hedgey Harry because of his love for hedgehogs. He's been cycling the 2300 miles with, his father Nick from, land's end to John O Grose, and he's raised 15,000 pounds for a Buckinghamshire based animal Charity called Tiggy Winkles Wildlife Hospital.

Welcome to Episode 9

Piers Townley: Hello and welcome to episode nine of the Charity show with me, Piers Townley, pr manager at the Brain Tumour Charity.

Tim Beynon: And me, Tim Boynan, head of marketing engagement at the firefighters Charity.

Piers Townley: How are your holidays then, Tim? Now back in the saddle, as they were.

Tim Beynon: It already seems like a long time ago, doesn't it? especially because summer seems to have just done one and now we've gone straight into full on winter within about a week. It's crazy. Hats and gloves on this morning, walking the dog, it was properly cold outside, but, yeah, not bad, not bad. How about you? Did you have a nice break?

Piers Townley: Yeah, it was actually good to get a bit of perspective and just kind of a bit of a reset and a bit of a. Kind of a. It's a cliche, but a bit of a helicopter view of what goes on in the sector. But just to switch off, it's quite intense. I think everyone who works in the third sector, it can get quite intense. You can find yourself completely immersed in it. So, yeah, nice to switch off.

Tim Beynon: Yeah, it's probably the same with most industries, isn't it? You do need to step away sometimes just to recharge the batteries and come back. What about you, though? Do you find that when you come back from summer in particular, things seem to be going at a million miles an hour?

Piers Townley: Yeah. And then, it's kind of discombobulating as well. We're now looking at, ah, winter campaigns, or our next big campaign for next March or 2025 planning, which always. I mean, it's part and parcel of the planning, but it does sort of jar you every now and again when you're throwing straight back into it.

Tim Beynon: I know it's hard when you come back off the summer holidays and you'd be wearing t shirts and shorts and whatever, and, the first thing you talk about is Christmas. As soon as you get. As soon as you get back, we.

Piers Townley: Just go see what Christmas cards look great and which ones don't.

Tim Beynon: Yeah, I'm refusing to think about Christmas. I'm not. It's too early for me. But I'll tell you what I am thinking about, though, and what has been a struggle is getting back into fitness after holidays. It's always after you've been enjoying a bit of downtime, nice bit of food and a drink or two. It's a struggle to get back into fitness.

Cancer Research UK plank challenge

So I spotted cancer Research UK's planck challenge in the. In September. Have you heard of this? I wanted to ask you. Basically, their challenge is two minutes a day, planking every day throughout September. How does that sound? How are you with the plank? Could you do that?

Piers Townley: See, I've done this previously way, way back in the time when we all locked in our homes and Joe Wick started to do a lot of it and you think, yeah, two minutes. Two minutes is. I mean, anyone can do two minutes. Suddenly 120 seconds and then you get to about 37 seconds into a plank and you realise, yeah, it's quite a long time, and then once you get past the minute mark, it's hell. so not my favourite exercise. And time seems to go very, very slowly when you're horizontal.

Tim Beynon: Yeah, likewise, I did a plank challenge ages ago and, if you ever want to get the feeling of time slowing down, try planking for two minutes or longer, or even for a minute. Those seconds seem to last for hours. It is hard. I remember doing it and my kids finding it hilarious as I was lying in a plank position, sort of shaking by the end of the. Coming towards the end of each session, each time, it's not easy. So all respect to anybody who's doing the cancer research. Uk plank challenge this September. Good on you. It's a hard challenge, so well done, everybody.

Send us your voice messages

also, just so we're taking a little break from the show, we m met up, and we had a chat about what we might want to do differently as we sort of recorded this season two. But it's really sort of, it's only episode nine, so I think, I think eight episodes is too short for a season. But when we met

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up, we talked a bit about what we might want to do differently, didn't we? We talked about trying to, how great it would be if we can try and encourage more of you, more of our listeners, to send in your voice messages and tell us a bit about what you do and the kind of, things your charity does or anything special that you're working on or any events that you're running or fundraising activities you're doing. So, yeah, so what do you think, piers? I think it's a good idea to try and get more people if you want to. It'd be great to hear from you.

Piers Townley: Yeah, I think it's just fantastic. Let's just shout about the great work all those different charities are doing out there. it's a tough role. It's a rewarding role. Let's just try to help each other, really, and learn from each other. Let's just support each other. Massive amounts of charities doing so many good things all the time. So use the Charity show as a platform. Send us what you want to shout about and we'll put it on.

Tim Beynon: Definitely. And we found a new tool, a new voice message tool that makes it super, super easy. So all the links are in the show notes. Dead easy. All you need to do is go there, click voice message, and it's literally a one button press. You record your little voice note, your voice message, and it sends it in to us. And then we can play it out on, an upcoming episode. So let's hear from you, get your voice messages into us and head to the show notes, and we'll hear you very soon. One other thing I wanted to talk about, you might like this, piers. This is just as a little aside here. So got some great talk. We're talking about feedback, talking about the voice message you want to hear from. You had a great bit of feedback from a colleague of mine at the firefighters Charity, a guy called Kevin, who, told me, he said, really enjoying the show, really listening, listening to it, and it's great. Really, really enjoying it. He said but you guys don't have to talk fast, so you talk very fast. Do we? Okay. All right, fair enough. We talk quite fast. Okay, Kev. Yeah. So then I was talking to Kev again the other day, and he said, yeah, you do talk fast. And I talked about it with my son. And, we were listening in the car on the way, and then the son pointed out to him that he's been listening to all his podcasts for, like, the last year and a half on 1.5 speed rather than. Rather than, actual speed. So I think for Kev, for all the last episodes he's listening to, we've been sounding like chipmunks. So there we go. Never mind. I don't think we are talking too fast.

Piers Townley: No, I don't think we are, either. Two of my very, very best friends do that deliberately, and I can't get my head around it at all. I'm like, well, one of the benefits of, say, listening to an audiobook or podcast is you like that person's voice, you like their personality. If you then speed it up. Yeah, you're in chipmunk Charity. I don't understand it. I know a lot of people who speed up the podcast. It's like, surely you've got enough time. Unless you're, you know, that time pressed. You need to do everything on one and a half times. Yeah.

Tim Beynon: Yeah.

Piers Townley: Well, that's the. That's the path of madness.

Tim Beynon: There you go. There you are. nice one, kev. Well done, mate.

Switching from corporate to charity

This week, though, we've got Maya Bose on the show from an organisation called the well placed, which helps midlife marketing professionals from the commercial world to find work in the Charity sector through paid placements. Now, you and I are probably midlife comms professional, Spears. I think that's fair to say. can you remember what it felt like moving from the corporate world into the Charity sector?

Piers Townley: Yeah, I can remember it distinctly, actually. I remember it being a huge kind of leap of faith and completely unknown as well. Like yourself, I was a journalist beforehand. Busy editorial newsrooms, lots and lots of egos going around. Very kind of fevered, atmosphere, particularly around production or, deadline days news stories. The kind of stereotypical ego driven, deadline driven environments that you were and to then be thrust in the Charity sector. It was a real eye opener that went out the window, really. The deadlines and the stress were still there, but it was a hugely supportive environment. Everyone was passionate, often from our own Charity, very personally connected. and I was personally connected as well. My dad is living with a Brain Tumour. So that's why I wanted to do and work for the Brain Tumour Charity in itself. So that personal cause probably makes me a little bit different than perhaps a lot of people there. But I was greeted with such a, professional team of people that were just so supportive and so passionate for the people that we did. And that's what struck for me and that's what made it such a, you know, the right choice and such a rewarding thing to do as well. Such a rewarding sector to get into. Loved it.

Tim Beynon: I agree. And I think that's, that's. I felt the same when I moved from, from the commercial world and the, magazines and newspapers and things that I used to work on into the Charity world is you did notice that, that distinct change in terms of that feeling of you're not working for the biggest, you know, for the big dollar, you're not working for the faceless people in, the top of the tower, you're working for people and making a real difference to them. So that really struck a chord of me. But I also, increasingly, over the years, can see the similarities as well between the fact that charities are businesses as well. You know, we need to, need to make money, need to make sure we don't dig into our reserves too much and that kind of thing, and need to make sure we're sustainable in the long term. So increasingly, I think the charities need to think like businesses. Talking

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Tim Beynon: to Meyer has been fascinating, and hopefully everyone will agree when you listen to the interview shortly. But, there is that distinct similarity and people from a corporate world, commercial world can bring an awful lot to the Charity sector. So it is fascinating to hear what Maya, told us all about that.

Piers Townley: Yeah, that's key, Tim. That's a theme, I think, that's run through the previous episodes that we've done now. We've spoken to, our guests that have come on, and the comparisons and the tips and the, the inspiration goes both ways from the commercial world. It's something that I think come across in many of the episodes we've touched on.

News

Okay, let's take a look at some third sector news. What have you spotted over the summer, Tim?

Tim Beynon: one of the things I've noticed recently, is especially over the last month or so, is a number of charities that are stepping back or withdrawing completely from XDev. The, reasons, they give are aligned to the platform's issues with the platform and the divisive, controversial nature of the platform in regards to its spreading or alleged spreading of disinformation, misinformation and material related to hate. And I think that leaves an ethical dilemma for a lot of charities. Well, for every Charity that uses x or is on x as a platform, is that the right thing to do? We'd be on there, should we be on that platform? So hopefully we can get someone to come onto the show, to talk about that. A really, really hot topic, I think, for every Charity to consider. and I think things like the riots that we saw, earlier in the summer, lots of that has been linked to things that happened on social media and misinformation and, material that was spread on social media. So there's a whole debate raging, I think, now, over charities use of social media and the responsibilities that lie with platforms and the ethical dilemmas that we all face, when we make decisions about what we post and when we post and where we post it. So I think that's a really interesting piece of news that hopefully will bubble along and we can get some more information on, over time.

Recent research suggests wealthy people could give more to charity than they actually do

One other thing, a couple other things that piqued my interest. wealthy people in Britain could give apparently 2.8 billion pounds more to Charity a year than they actually do. And, this is according to recent research, and that really fascinates me. Wealthy people, we know from talking to, some of our past guests that, quite often the most generous people in the country are people who have the least, and this, reaffirms that to a degree that apparently wealthy people can give much more than they already do. But it might actually be down to a bit of a, lack of, adequate information being passed to them from their financial advisors. What this report has suggested is that there's more training needed for financial advisors in terms of, philanthropy, and giving to Charity. So perhaps if wealthy people's financial advisors knew more, they might give more. So I think that's a really interesting piece, of, news and something to consider. And again, hopefully we can get someone to come onto the show in the future, to talk about that.

Public trust in charities at highest level in ten years, says charity Commission

Now, one other piece very, very quickly that I think really needs to be pointed out is, something that pops into my inbox once a month or every now and again. And I don't always, don't always, ah, spot it. But I have done recently, charity worker discounts. So, if you haven't, if you're not aware of this and you work for a Charity, you are entitled to a whole wealth of discounts from different retailers and organisations, in terms of your holidays, in terms of the things you purchase and the things that you do, the things you buy, week in, week out, you are entitled to discounts, from these. So Google Charity worker discounts and cheque out what you're entitled to, because I'm sure that a vast number of people who work for charities are unaware of this. So cheque out, charity worker discounts. That's my last little nugget of news. What about you, piers, what have you spotted?

Piers Townley: Well, just bear with me, Tim, I am just googling Charity benefits there just to see what we're entitled to. Fantastic piece of, info there. Mine's also, research and reports this end. Over the summer, a really heartwarming report, really done by the Charity Commission, found that public trust in charities is at the highest level in ten years, which is good news for all of us. It polled over 4500 members of the public public between January and February, earlier on this year, then did loads of focus groups. And last, month, the end of August, it published its results that said that more than half of people have high trust in charities and it's the highest level since 2014. And the third sector site says that focus groups found that causes of low trust in charities included negative media coverage, things we've talked about on the podcast over the many episodes, contact and disagreement with the charity's actions and lack of financial information on charities, which is an interesting one. That comes back to transparency, which we've also touched on in a few episodes. It says that some respondents mentioned not door knocking as a driver of low trust. So that old traditional way of garnering support for charities is not well liked. The focus groups also found that national charities tended to be less trusted, which is maybe something

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Piers Townley: we could address in future episodes. So the larger the Charity generally, the stranger, the less favourable perception of them. But despite this ten year high good news, good news for the sector generally.

Tim Beynon: I think that's fascinating. I think especially the whole big Charity versus small Charity public perception. So maybe it is the fact that maybe this is the time for the small charities and maybe this is the time for them to take advantage of the fact that maybe the bigger charities are struggling from that side and maybe small charities can take advantage of that. That's an interesting one.

Piers Townley: I think it'd be interesting to get people on the show and we can discuss this further. The big behemoth charities that Mamillans out there, the Cancer UK is out there, versus the very smaller bespoke ones.

Only 3% of charities are using AI in their regular operations, survey finds

Some that we've also featured ourselves and then just briefly, it's another report that I saw over the summer was harking back to our episode four when we spoke to the lovely Zoe Amar and, digital and AI developments in charities. a recent survey, again by the Charity commission, found that only 3%, I think is really low. Only 3% of charities were using AI in their regular day to day operations, and that's after surveying over 2500 trustees. So that's actually quite a start. I would have thought that would have a lot higher. Tim, I'm not sure what you are. We don't use AI a great deal on a day to day basis, but we do use it in different aspects. But I do remember in episode four, Zoe telling us about fundraising, comms, strategies, campaigns, all the different aspects that could be used. But yeah, only 3% it found of charities were using it quite low, I think.

Tim Beynon: Yeah, that is surprising. Like you, I would have thought that would have been, would have been more. And I think the digital skills report, that Zoe, published recently, sort of also reflects that a little bit in terms of how maybe there's this reluctance amongst charities to take the plunge and use some of these tools. I don't know what it is, whether that comes from fear of the unknown or sort of just an inbuilt scepticism, perhaps, of AI as a solution. I also just think that maybe people think it's cheating in terms of the fact that if you stick into chat GPT, give me ten campaign ideas, maybe the fundraisers out there are thinking, well, is that cheating? Should I be coming up with those ideas? I think we need to get over that hurdle and get over ourselves a bit and use it as a tool, as Zoe was saying, use it as a tool to supplement and complement, you know, the human input as well. So there's always going to be a need for that human input. But use AI as a, as a tool to help, why not? I think it's, yeah, really, really interesting.

Piers Townley: The third sector is missing a trick, according to Maya Bose, founder of the well placed, who has made it her mission to help fill skills gaps in uk charities by establishing a stepping stone scheme to entice those from the corporate world to take the leap into the world of Charity. Furthermore, it is those midlifers, the generation xers, that she is looking to, in particular, to bring seasoned expertise and experience into the third sector. So, to find out more about how business thinking Gen X marketeers can make a difference to charities today and keep the growing, number of gens, they had social gurus on their toes. We spoke to Maya, about the pros and cons of recruiting from outside the sector and why Charity recruiters need to stop looking for Charity experience.

Maya Bhose and The Well Placed

Tim Beynon: Maya, welcome to the Charity show. Thank you so much for joining us today. It's lovely to see you. fantastic to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us. Tell us a little bit about, the well placed. What's your elevator pitch? How do you talk about, okay.

Speaker C: So the well placed is a stepping stone into the Charity sector. For people in midlife who have marketing skills, it's really hard to break into the Charity sector. I often wonder whether people on the inside who've been there for a long time realise just how tough it is. And I could see that there's such a skills gap in the sector and I was having more and more conversations with people saying, now I've worked for 25 years and I want to do something different now. I want to make a difference to society and then they just can't get in. So I thought, well, I'll put those two things together and create a stepping stone. So that's a really long lived journey we've just been on.

Tim Beynon: Excellent. But let's just be clear. So you're not a recruitment agency, you're a nonprofit yourself. So how does it work? Tell us, in terms of the actual, some mechanics of the well place, if you like. How does it actually work?

Speaker C: Yeah, no, I set it up as a community interest company, so it's a not for profit. And I don't think of myself as a recruiter. I'm driven by this mission to help people break into the sector and extend their careers. So the way that it works is that I partner

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Speaker C: with, leading UK charities. So I ran a pilot that ended in April. It was a six month pilot and the placements are, ah, six months long. And I have a job description from each of the charities as to what they would like the person to cover in the placement. And then we have an application form rather than using CV's. So I'm very, I really want to understand someone's motivation for switching to the charity sector and what their skills are and how they think they will relate to the sector. So I, basically have the JD and I have someone's application and I am matching to see a fit. And then I agree with the Charity, the shortlist who will be interviewed and questions are sent in advance, which people really like, because especially if you haven't had an interview for a while. They can be quite nerve wracking. And I, mean, really what an interview without questions in advance does is find out who's really good at thinking on their feet, and that doesn't always make them the right person for the job. Anyway, after the interview, we decide who's going to be in the placement. Then their contract is with the Charity and they are paid by the Charity, and there is a placement fee between the well placed and the Charity. That's the business model, how it works.

Maya's background

Piers Townley: Thanks, Mai. So what, about you? What's your background? And why did you choose to set up the well placed?

Speaker C: Well, my background is in broadcast media. I, actually started advertising in the midst of time, and then I switched client side and I worked mainly in broadcast media. I worked in tech as well. I was at Nokia and Microsoft, and then I was working for a big american company that was bought and, 90% of the roles were made redundant. I've heard this story in slightly different guises from so many people now. You get to midlife, your role is made redundant, and it gives you a little bit of breathing space, which is what, you know, it gave me. And I thought, you know, if I've got another 20 years of, paid work left, do I want to carry on doing what I'm doing now or do I want to do, do I just want to take this time to do something different? And I decided that I wanted work that had some more meaning to it. I'd spent 25 years chasing profit for shareholders, and I decided that I didn't want to do that anymore. I wanted to make a difference. So that's when I decided to switch to the Charity sector. and I had so much trouble getting in, it was really, really difficult. So I've had personal experience of how hard it is to get into the sector. and I just thought I would try and create a stepping stone to help other people through the door because that was a pattern that I saw with many of the people I spoke to who did make that commercial to charity sector switch was that eventually they came across someone who helped them get inside or at least get through the door. That's the difficult bit, getting in front of the right person to talk to them. So that was my motivation.

The third sector skills gap in marketing

Piers Townley: Just digging into something you mentioned, Maya, about this. Why do you think the third sector is seeing a skills gap in marketing? In particular?

Speaker C: It's seeing a skills gap all over the place, to be honest. The reason I focus on marketing is because that's my skill set is the area I'm best placed to evaluate someone else's skills. There is a particular shortage in fundraising and in digital, but actually I don't think it's sort of digital, it. I think it's people using digital tools in the roles that they have, and it's got to stay. Now, with the skills gap in the Charity sector has overtaken the corporate and public sectors. And I found some data that said that the vacancies that are there, they're called hard to fill vacancies because of skill shortage. They nearly tripled in the last decade. And I know at the same time, as vacancies have risen or skills gap has grown, the training budget has decreased. So its a perfect storm, really.

Tim Beynon: William, why is it, Maia, that the Charity sector and the corporate sector, why dont we see more cross fertilisation, as it were, in terms of roles? And is it a case that charities are reluctant to recruit from the corporate world, or is it the other way around and people in the corporate world are reluctant to convert and move to charities? Why is it not more fluid between the two?

Speaker C: I think for smaller charities, it's the risk factor. And I get it. most of the charities on the pilot were very, very large charities. I think for smaller charities, the workload is heavy. So if you're going to pick, if you've got a choice between someone who's done that job before in a charity, or someone who's got great skills, but they never worked in a charity, you just think, well, I'll, have to spend more time with that person and I don't really have more time, so I'll pick the person who's already worked in a charity. The problem is that just turns into a game of musical chairs, because there is charity job is the largest job board, and in last year they advertised 93,000 vacancies. So it shows the scale of the problem, really. And I think that, again, with smaller and medium sized charities, if they don't have experience as someone who's come in from the commercial sector, I think there's a hesitancy that someone's going to be rushing around telling you what was wrong with everything and how to change it. and I also think people from the corporate sector, and this was certainly my case, I was really bad at explaining how my skills were transferable. I was talking about what I had done, which for me was things like launching tv stations, which means it's not relatable to the GRT sector. But if I talked about what's at the core of marketing, which is about understanding your audience and learning how to tell a story and changing someone's behaviour. That's what every Charity needs. So I think there are issues on both sides, but particularly in the Charity sector, I do find this quite a, ah, closed mindset with a lot of hiring managers. So a lot of what I do is campaign to change that mindset as well as working with charities to create this stepping stone.

Tim Beynon: I think there's probably more in common on both sides than most people realise. On both sides, which is fascinating.

Midlife marketers embracing the charity sector

But tell me a little bit about the people, the midlife marketers who you come across, who come from a corporate, commercial world, and maybe they face redundancy and they're out of work. What is their general, in general terms, what's their attitude like towards the prospect of joining a charity and moving into the sector? Are they embraced? Do they embrace that or have they never thought about it?

Speaker C: No.

Tim Beynon: What's the general feeling?

Speaker C: In fact, all of the six people on the pilot were women. The scheme is open to men and women. They were all so excited to join three of them. They were all job hunting, they all wanted to switch the charity sector. Three of them were actually returners who taken career breaks to support their kids through school. And they were all so excited. And before the end of the pilot, four of the six had actually found work. So it's been life changing. It's been life changing.

Tim Beynon: That's encouraging to hear. Definitely.

Piers Townley: So what sort of skills and experiences do you find, Maya, that marketers, in the corporate world can bring to charities? What skill sets would charities benefit from? Looking for corporate experience?

Speaker C: Yeah, well, three of the women on the pilot were working in fundraising roles. And if you're working on corporate partnerships, building them, establishing them, if you've been in a corporate, you understand what those partners want, those corporate partners want from a Charity partner, because you've stood in their shoes. So you come with that mindset. And also having myself worked, having a commercial background, you think about the bottom line all the time. You think about targets, you think about m data, analysing, data, bringing it back to the budget. So I think that, I think of charities as businesses. Everyone has overheads. It costs money to run any business, whether you're a for profit or a not for profit. And I think that increasingly with, you know, the funders asking more and more to see the impact that charities will actually have, they will need to develop more of a commercial mindset. And so you'll be bringing in people who've only thought in that way for the last 25 years.

Tim Beynon: I, think it's really fascinating because actually we spoke to Casey Dougherty from the Chartered Institute of fundraising, on, a recent show, and she was telling us about how the landscape for fundraising is changing, across the UK. And increasingly, actually, I can talk from the firefighters Charity perspective. We know that we've got to diversify our income and look at different income streams. Working with corporates, working with the commercial world is an important part of that, potentially.

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Tim Beynon: So it seems to make sense that having internal expertise that comes from that sector could only benefit charities going forward.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And I think smaller and medium sized charities, maybe they're more dependent on grant funding, and haven't really thought about corporate partnerships or part with local businesses. But, I think increasingly as funding gets cut back and who knows what will happen with government funding now that charities do need to look more in the direction of corporate funding. So to bring someone in who has that background would be an enormous advantage. They speak the same language, of course.

Tim Beynon: Absolutely.

The older you get, the harder it is to find work

and you mentioned, earlier, obviously, that the sheer scale of the number of vacancies, and opportunities are available in the third sector. I don't know, because I'm not in it, but is it different in the commercial world? So for those people who find themselves in their forties and fifties, out of work, and looking to get into marketing in that sector, is that really hard? And is it therefore an obvious place for them to turn to, in terms of coming to the third sector?

Speaker C: depressingly, the older you get, the older it is to find work. There's lots of research on this. I found some stats that said only 40% of all companies, so we're not talking about charities now, but only 40% of all companies would consider hiring someone above the age of 55. So ageism in the workplace or in the job market is rife. So the over fifties were hardest hit with redundancies during the pandemic, and once out of work, it's really hard to get back in. So I think that if you've been made redundant and you do have that time to stop and think, I think I haven't quantified this. I would love to be able to afford to do research into this, but I do think it's a bit of a life stage that people think, actually, I want to do something different, but I think finding a new job once you've hit your fifties or even a bit younger for some people, it's hard. It is really hard. I mean, I talk to people who are so well qualified. I spoke to someone today who'd applied for 80 jobs and she has a really fantastic creative background. She's getting absolutely nowhere.

Tim Beynon: That's so hard for people.

Recruiting midlife workers

And that whole area, on that topic of ageism, it is awful. Has there, or have you seen any evidence in terms of, to suggest that the third sector is perhaps. I don't know. I don't know. Is it less discriminatory in terms of age when it comes, to recruiting people of midlife?

Speaker C: In terms of age profile of the workforce? The Charity sector has an older age profile than the public and private, but I can't find anywhere data that shows the age at which people were hired. And I think that would be a very interesting, really interesting stats to see, but, I don't think they exist. And actually, just going back to what we were talking about just now, about how hard it is to get into work if you're out of work in your fifties. There's an amazing organisation called the Centre for Ageing better, and they did some analysis of government statistics and they reported that there are a million people in the UK between the ages of 50 and 67 who want to work but can't get into the job market. And there are almost a million vacancies in Britain. So, it's just really frustrating. There are many. And also, it's not just the impact it has on someone's mental health. If they know they have experience and they can't find a job, is just such a waste of, skills.

Piers Townley: That's a really powerful point, Maya, the waste of skills. And obviously, just speaking to some of the barriers, around this topic, I had the Brain human Charity in my mark on steam, obviously, I'm part of the PR team, but in our wider mark on team, I'm a little bit of an outlier. I'm one of the older ones there. I'm just. Whether you've found that the speed of technological change and the use of social media and digital skills, especially when it comes to marketing at comms, do you think that that might be propelling the myth that marketing is a young person's game and therefore throwing up barriers that don't necessarily exist or aren't really true?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Actually, one of the things I've seen in, well, I use the word older, I won't use the word of midlife. Midlife marketers is that they have experience of developing strategy long term strategy. So they might

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Speaker C: not be as strong on using existing digital tools and channels, but they understand how to develop the strategy. And if you put them together in a team with younger people who are fantastic at, managing social media campaigns, but haven't had exposure as to how to develop a long term strategy, you put those two things together, it's like the dream pairing. You know, one of the things, one of the impacts of the pilot that I haven't thought about was on the line managers, because they were all either new or relatively new to line management. And here they were managing someone who had probably been managing people for over two decades. So it was a very easy way to go into line managing because they were almost being, well, they were being reverse mentored. And, I think maybe a couple of them were a little bit apprehensive about how things were going to work. But they said, you know, within a week, any of that apprehension had just evaporated. And they really, they loved how there was such a diversity of thinking. Because it's logical, isn't it? If you've worked for 20 years more than someone else, you'll approach a problem in a different way. And that's not to say it's a better way, it's just a different way. So you bring together all these different ways of approaching a solution and you have a much more creative outcome.

Piers Townley: And it's hugely mutually beneficial for both from the corporate section and from the third sector. The third sector get these incredible invaluable skills and experience. but it's much needed.

Success stories

What about some of your success stories, Maya? What sort of, what's the well placed habit success?

Speaker C: Well, I look at all six of the women on the pilot, and I see them all as a massive success. Two of them remained in the charities where they did their placements. they both stayed in the same teams, actually, both in fundraising. I did notice that those in fundraising roles found their jobs much faster than the others. when I'm talking with Charity, because I'm going again in November with another cohort and, I think there will probably be quite a few more fundraising roles. And then, there was one associate who lives in Devon and was working remotely for a scottish Charity based in Glasgow. They were the only very. They were the only small charity. They had about eight employees. They would have loved to get her, but they didn't have the funding. But what they did do was introduce her to a, marketing agency that is a non profit. So she now works for them, but again, remotely and then the fourth, who founded a new job, she'd previously applied for fundraising roles or just applied to get into charities and had managed to get interviews. And I think it was two or three occasions lost out to someone who worked in a Charity before, and she's now head of fundraising at a children's charity. And the two who are job hunting, they said that their confidence has absolutely soared because they'd been an insider. So they understand the language to use. They understand the roles. How do the roles in the Charity world map to the corporal? And they are very different, but they understand the difference now and they also know how to explain their skills. So it will make sense to the person who's reading the application. So it's small scale, but I had to start somewhere. And, I always thought if I could help one person switch, it would be amazing. So to have helped four, and I'm pretty sure the other two will be not long before they're back in work. yeah, it's been fantastic.

Tim Beynon: Amazing stories. Yeah, fantastic. thank you, Maya, for your time. I really appreciate it. We've got one last question for you. actually some multi stranded questions and a couple of questions thrown together.

Speaker C: My memory is really bad.

Tim Beynon: So you, Maya, hopefully it's not too taxing. basically, just your advice, really. What would your advice be to anyone listening to this? Any charities listening to this who maybe have some marketing or called comms vacancies, what would your advice be to them in terms of keeping an open mind to who they recruit and then also potentially to any midlife, marketers, who may be listening to this themselves, who might be looking for work, what would your advice be to them? So two strands.

Speaker C: Okay. So for charities, I would say the skills from the commercial sector are so valuable and so transferable. And I've now had first hand experience of how it works. And not just for the person going into the role, but for the Charity, for the line manager. I saw a job ad for Barnardo's recently that very near the top of the ad, it said, you do not need non profit experience. If

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Speaker C: you're interested in this role, we would love to hear from you, and I would just advise charities to just try it. You know, try it. Put those words onto your job descriptions and, your job ads and just see, open the door and at least have a conversation with people. That's the problem. They can't get through the door. So you're not committing to anything to just have a conversation with people. So that's why I would say to them and to those people who apply for charities, to charity jobs, I spoke to someone recently who had been trying to get in and she couldnt. And ah, I think she had a finance background. She saw an admin job, it was a six month contract and she thought, well ill apply for that because theyre not going to think thats much of a risk. Its only six months. And she actually phoned the chief exec and said, im applying for this role. Im really overqualified. This is why I want it. And four years later, she's an acting CEO. So if you apply, if there's a role that you really love the look of, I would try and find someone at the Charity to speak to and explain your situation so that when your application comes through, they've heard your name and just think really carefully about the person who's reading your application. Will they understand what you're saying? Make it relatable, don't use jargon. And also remember, you're applying to work for a cause. You really need to show your passion for that cause. It's not just a job.

Tim Beynon: Fantastic advice. I, completely agree. As someone who's recruited into marketing roles myself in the past, sometimes you can get inundated with applications, but it is somebody who takes the time to pick up the phone and talk to you and ask you before you've even gone through the selection process, just a bit about the job. They're the people you remember. So. So yes, exactly.

Speaker C: Yeah. And also network because I knew one person who worked in Charity. I'm sure that if you ask around your friends, you will find someone knows someone who will have a cup of coffee with you and you can ask their advice. You know, things like the language to use. And this is my experience. Which roles would that experience best map against? yeah, I ask people to help. I find that people are very willing to say yes, actually.

Tim Beynon: Fantastic. Maya, thank you for your time. It's been absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much for joining us.

Piers Townley: Thank you, Maya.

Speaker C: You're very welcome. Love to speak. Thanks.

Superstars of the week

Tim Beynon: In each episode of the Charity show, we want to celebrate our sector superstars, those incredible people working, volunteering and fundraising across our sector. And you can nominate your deserving colleagues, volunteers or fundraisers. Just email us at, thecharityshowpodmail.com or get in touch through the links in the show notes. You can even send us a voice message as we were talking about earlier on, that we can play out in the next episode. So, Piers, who's your superstar this week?

Piers Townley: I'm going to depart slightly, Tim, and talk about brands rather than individuals. Well there's also an individual there as well. My one is, I was in my local supermarket and someone really jumped out of the shelf, and make me just stop. And it was the Elton John eggs Foundation Marmite jar. This is part of a three year, partnership that Mar might have with Elton John and they've just released a brand new limited edition design jar and it's just, the design's lovely anyway with some iconic shots from his tour and from his career. and I think it's just quite an interesting collaboration. And it's a $1 million partnership which is a substantial amount of money. So there's three designs so far, apparently and another one is due next year. A really good colours, really good little piece of designing. Just a very unusual combination. If you hadn't approached or realised it before. I mean I love Marmite and I'm guessing that elder John must really, really love Marmite as well. But this also harks back to a previous episode where we saw the Jelly Babies brands teaming up with help for heroes and the backstory that was with all of that connection as well. So just something that really made me stop and think. Really interesting combination there of such a household and well known product with such a superstar. I mean in that core programme, in that partnership, teams of those charities must m have just been high fiving each other with that collaboration. Just fantastic. All right, well maybe you either love it or you hate it. I love it.

Tim Beynon: Well, Pierce, can you feel the love bomb? That's the question, isn't it? Saturday night's Marmite for fighter? Whatever. Anyway, I was too many too. Must be too many Elton John Marmite puns out there.

Piers Townley: I'm sure we're working carms, Tim.

Tim Beynon: Yeah. Oh dear, there's virgin on dad joke territory, that is, I must admit. Anyway, anyway, yeah, that's a great, I love that, I love that. Great, great if slightly bizarre partnership. Love it. okay, so who's my superstar this week? So I've got, I picked a ten year old boy who,

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Tim Beynon: you know, we hear quite often of children who do amazing, amazing things and take on incredible challenges, but this one really jumped out at me. So this was a ten year old boy who cycled from lands end to John O groats and back again. So ten years old, cycled lands end to John O groats and back again to raise money for a wildlife charity. So his name is Harry Pecks, known as Hedgey Harry because of his love for hedgehogs, hes been cycling the 2300 miles with, his father, Nick, from, lands End to John O grose. and he's raised 15,000 pounds for a Buckinghamshire based animal Charity called Tiggy Winkles Wildlife Hospital. So that's just incredible. But not only because he cycled lands into gross, but he went back again. So he went both lengths of the country and he's ten years old. I can't remember what I was doing at ten years old, but I was not cycling the length and back again of the UK. That is incredible. Well done, Harry, mate. That is an incredible achievement. And he's also done it, he also cycled the length of the country, when he was aged eight as well. So he's done it before, and nine. I'm sorry, I'm just reading this article here. He's a veteran at doing this challenge, so, he's done it a few times. and he's raised a huge sum of money for Charity. So well done, Harry, mate, you're a legend. And at ten years old, that's incredible. Hats off to Harry. That's. That's my shout out.

Piers Townley: Yeah, that is incredible. I think that's that phrase that stands out, isn't it? And back again. You're doing it once. Yeah, brilliant. Good second time. Phenomenal. Yeah. Age turned out.

Tim Beynon: Too.

Piers Townley: Busy skidding my grifter down the local park. I was quite a long way. Amazing.

Tim Beynon: Excellent. Legend.

Coming up next time

So that's it for episode nine. Thanks to Maya for reminding us that while we might not be slaying it with Gen Z, there's still hope for all us Gen Xers out there. And we've got lots coming up in the next few weeks too. Peace.

Piers Townley: We definitely have. We're going to find out why young people want to be charity ambassadors, why charities might be missing out on apprenticeship funding for their existing staff. And we're going to take a deep dive into philanthropy.

Tim Beynon: That's right. If you've enjoyed our first few episodes, come and be a part of the next few. Send us your voice messages as you mentioned at the top of the show, or get in touch through any of the links in the show notes to share your stories and tell us what you'd like us to cover.

Piers Townley: And don't forget, we want to know who your superstar fundraisers, volunteers or colleagues are too. So head to the show notes and ping us a message.

Tim Beynon: And in the meantime, please follow or subscribe to us on our usual podcast platform and leave us a review, both of which help others to find the show.

Piers Townley: So that's it for this episode. Have a good couple of weeks. Take care, and we'll see you soon.

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