Welcome to Professionals with Purpose

If you are wondering how you can have a more positive impact while you run a business or earn a living, you’re in the right place. Read on for examples of people who have done this or are achieving it, and often at pace.

It’s possible whether you run a business or work for one. Each week we’ll feature inspiring people from a variety of backgrounds - for-profit businesses, charities, social enterprises, government organisations, and startups.

This week we feature a new scheme of paid internships that aim to open a career in the charity sector to a wider audience, and the person behind it.

In addition we’ll share opportunities, tools, events and resources to help you in your aims to work with social impact or to find a social impact role or employer.

Howard Lake
Editor
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Maya Bhose: championing the career changer with Charity Interns

Think of an intern, and it’s typically a young person who comes to mind, perhaps a university or college student, or a recent graduate. But in the charity sector, a new scheme is opening up internships to a wider audience.

Charity Interns launched in May, offering paid internships that they hope will appeal in particular to people who are midlife as well as anyone who is disabled or from the global majority and wants to move into the charity world. A first for the sector, Charity Interns is founded and led by Maya Bhose, and is being incubated by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).

The pilot, starting in October, offers six-month positions for six interns, each one with a charity host, including Alzheimer’s Society, IAM RoadSmart, and Age UK. The positions are full-time, open to flexible working, and paid at the UK’s real living wage.

Providing a foot in the door

Maya’s mission to provide a foot in the door to a new career for older candidates, as well as others disadvantaged in the workplace, has its roots in her own experiences. Trying to move into the charity sector midlife she found it far more difficult than she had anticipated after a successful 25-year career in marketing and brand development – mainly in TV, but also in tech with roles at big name firms including Nokia and Microsoft.

Made redundant after the company she worked for was acquired, she suddenly had time to consider what she wanted from her working life – and it was something with meaning and purpose.

“I had got to my mid 50s,” she says. “I was working for an American TV company that was acquired, which led to 90% of their roles becoming redundant. So I had that breathing space to think about what I wanted to do next, and that’s when I decided I’d like to move into the charity sector.

“I wanted to start spending my work time doing something that I felt was more valuable for society and I thought, okay, I’ve got a fantastic track record and skills so surely it’s going to be relatively easy to find a job – and it proved nigh on impossible.”

Breaking through the barriers

Maya identified a couple of key issues. First, she was talking about the wrong things – “It was only in retrospect that I realised that what I thought would be attractive to hiring managers wasn’t really. I shouldn’t have been talking about launching TV channels because why does that matter? I should have been talking about my skillset.”

But she also didn’t have a network in the charity sector to connect her to people and opportunities, and, she says: “I found the words ‘Previous charity experience essential’ on pretty much job listing.”.

Eventually she remembered that she did have one friend working in the sector, and this provided her foot in the door, resulting in an interim (and later permanent) role at Locality, a national membership network supporting local community organisations.

It’s an experience that has taught Maya a lot about what it takes to move from one sector to another. For anyone else with that dream, she says it’s about finding ways to get that first foot in the door:

“Look at the companies where you would like to work, and then just knock on doors, ask people if they’ll give you 20 minutes of their time. Ask your friends if they know anyone who works in that area – once you start asking the people you know, you’ll find out that a friend of a friend knows somebody who’d be very happy to meet you for coffee – it’s quite amazing how that happens.”

Continuing, she says:

“And then I would talk to people within the sector you want to move to and get their advice, find out how they managed it. Always ask them for suggestions of what you could do, and other people to speak to – is there an introduction that they can make to help you start building your network? Offer to do some pro bono work or try to find interim or project work to add things to your CV.

“Once you get into an organisation, whether it’s paid or pro bono, you hear of other opportunities that come up so at least you’re then in a position to find out about them early on.”

Lightbulb moment

The real driver for setting up Charity Interns however came after Maya tried to get another job in the sector following a break from work. Despite having gained experience in the sector, she found herself back at square one:

“I applied for up to 70 jobs in nine or 10 months, and had one interview. And I’m absolutely convinced it’s my age because that was the only thing that had changed.”

It’s this that resulted in her lightbulb moment. Looking into recruitment and vacancies in the charity sector, it wasn’t long before she came across statistics on the skill shortage.

“More than half of charities have hard to fill vacancies, and I thought, look, there are all these empty jobs, and there are all these people who would like to do these empty jobs. How hard is it to put those two things together? What you need is someone who will open that door and create a stepping stone into the sector, which is where the idea of Charity Interns came from.”

As Maya herself says, it’s a really simple idea, and one that has been welcomed throughout the sector with the six-month pilot about to get underway to find out whether it is a concept that will work longer-term. And, while the pilot is focusing on marketing roles, the aim for the future is for Charity Interns to cover all disciplines.

Maya says:

“My absolute vision is that the sector changes its mindset so it’s completely open to looking outside of itself and at people who haven’t had previous charity experience.”

The start of a movement

Some charities, she’s found, are more open to the idea, especially the bigger ones which often already employ people who’ve made the leap.

“Some actively recruit from the commercial sector because those candidates are very comfortable around budgets and figures,” she explains. “A commercial background is a real asset to a charity but a lot of people don’t think about making more of it. If you have this, you will know how to set targets, how to measure success, and then how to communicate that impact in an engaging way, which is really crucial for securing future funding.”

Applications for Charity Interns opened at the end of June and close on 27 July, and the initiative has seen a lot of interest so there’s certainly an appetite for change from both charities and professionals looking for a way in to the sector.

“People are increasingly moving away from linear careers to take more interesting paths – or squiggly careers as they’re called,” Maya notes. “Society is waking up to that as an idea.

“But again, I think it’s probably something that’s attached to younger people when I think you’re entirely capable of squiggling to your last!”

Finding the fire

In a few short months then, Maya has gone from midlife job hunter to not only recognising a bigger issue, but setting up and launching an initiative to help others in a similar situation – proving it’s never too late to find your purpose and have an impact that helps others.

So, to what does she attribute the secret of her success with Charity Interns so far? Apart from the irritation of being ignored, she puts it down to having that fire inside her to change something.

“I could have set up a marketing consultancy or brand development consultancy in my 30s or 40s. And I didn’t because I didn’t have enough fire to do it. But I do now, with this, because I know I’m not on my own and I want to do something about it.”

For others keen to make a difference, her advice is this:

“if you can see an injustice that you think you can do something about, then do it because there is absolutely no harm in trying.”

She adds:

“If I get to the end of the pilot and it doesn’t go any further but I’ve helped six people switch sectors then that for me will be a fantastic success, but I really think this is scalable. If you think about the number of charities in this country, and 55% have got jobs they can’t fill –that’s huge.”

As our working years grow longer, more of us will be wanting to ‘squiggle’ while at the same time others will be seeking a way to overcome different barriers to entering the charity world. Many in the sector then – and outside of it – will be watching this space.

Next week: Mark Longbottom, host and founder of the Purposely Podcast

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Resources

Looking to move into the social impact sector, to set up or grow your own purpose-driven company, or want to gain skills and knowledge in this area? Here are some events and opportunities that might help.

Social enterprise jobs

If you want to work for a business that exists for a social or environmental purpose, try the jobs section of Social Enterprise UK.

But which social enterprise?

Which is the right social enterprise for you? Explore this year’s NatWest SE100 Index, which lists the “top 100 social enterprises for 2023”.

Social enterprise in public services

Public services in the UK are under intense pressure as demand increases while resources are stretched - financial and human.

A new book by Jamie Veitch and Jonathan Bland highlights another way of meeting the needs, and moving beyond the traditional approaches of either in-house local authority or outsourced third party.

Vitalising Purpose: The Power of the Social Enterprise Difference in Public Services investigates “how partnerships between public authorities and social enterprises can make a difference to how public services are provided, and to people’s lives”.

It contains “inspiring examples of the ‘social enterprise difference’, and practical ideas about collaboration, commissioning, social investment, impact, risk, equality, culture and leadership”.

With a foreword by Lord Victor Adebowale CBE, it features interviews with a public benefit lawyer, a strategic public procurement advisor, and experts in behavioural finance, impact measurement, social investment, and auditing mature social enterprises.

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What we’ve been reading

This is a very unusual opportunity for creative organisations and start-ups, including social enterprises, to secure six-months of rent-free premises in the centre of London along Oxford Street. Find out more on UK Fundraising.

What readers say

"I can’t believe I’ve not come across this before now – it’s a great read."
Liz Rigby
UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub
27 June 2023

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