A few weeks ago, the Women’s Resource Centre announced they were looking for a new Head of Communications as their current post holder, the incredible Leah Williams, is moving on to pastures new. I have to confess that I looked at it with great anticipation, because back in the day, when I was the information co-ordinator at a small domestic violence charity, if I could have had any job in the voluntary sector then Leah’s job would have been it.  WRC was – and still is – a dynamic organisation staffed by superwomen and that team does amazing things.

In the two years since, I have often said that I would never go back to working for a charity.  Don’t get me wrong: the last charity I worked for was far from being a bad place.  They were at the forefront of creating policies for addressing domestic violence in London and worked with a large number of organisations at all levels to get these policies embedded.  But, like most charities, they were small and underfunded.  There was a lack of development opportunities and my very limited knowledge on all things techie was still the most advanced within the organisation with no one to mentor me.  And as our workload was always immense, projects that I wanted to develop always took a back seat.  

Most frustratingly, looking at all the organisations we worked with back then, many of them had to be dragged kicking and screaming to try out new tools, always too busy, too underfunded, or – the worst thing of all – too closed minded to see their potential.  

To everyone’s benefit, in the last couple of years the development and availability of free and fabulous tools, especially in social media, have made information sharing easier than ever to seamlessly integrate into your daily workflow and engage with a new audience in networking and campaigning activities.

The one thing that I realise now that I have always carried since leaving the sector is the perception of charities in the dark ages who perceive email as being the most advanced method of communication, of having to battle with organisations to simply try a new idea.  Consequently, in retrospect, I’ve realised why I have always been surprised when the charities for which I now consult have welcomed some new ideas on getting their messages across.

I had the privilege of attending my first NFPtweetup a couple of weeks back.  NFPtweetup is a meeting of Twitter users who work with or in non-profit organisations and are interested in harnessing the potential of social media for campaigning, fundraising and supporting activities that do good things in the world.  I met consultants, social enterprises, CSR professionals, agencies and people who have responsibility for communications, information, digital, fundraising and campaigning at their charities.  And they weren’t in the least bit stuffy, skeptical or ignorant of new tools.  They all worked for organisations that were excited about the potential of social media and were embracing it to great benefit for their organisations.  A shining example was I CAN’s Adopt A Word initiative that exploded when Stephen Fry tweeted about it.

I left feeling incredibly inspired by all the organisations present.  I learnt so much about how they had gotten their organisations to buy in to the benefits of social media and what they do to keep their activities current and relevant.  Most staggeringly though, it really made me want to work with non-profits full time again.

One of the interesting people I met was Jack Wilson from Leap Anywhere, an organisation that I can best describe as 'Time Out for good'.  Leap promotes and creates video content of events for good causes all over the country.  This week, I did a brainstorm with Jack and Tom Robbins, Leap’s Head of Content, at their office on some forthcoming activities they have planned.  Their Soho office had a great vibe; their team was huddled around the main table with their laptops, bantering and editing, whilst we were bouncing around ideas on their sofa.  We really had a great meeting.

Much of the advice I was able to give them was gleaned from experience working in the private sector.  I’ve been able to take advantage of training budgets, work with people that have more knowledge and experience of all things online, learn efficient business processes and how to run effective marketing campaigns, and develop and launch projects with all the resources that most charities don’t have.

And that’s exactly why I won’t be applying for the Head of Communications job at WRC.  I realised that I have more fun and I’m much better at working with organisations that do good things, as opposed to in them.  This way, I get the best of both worlds; I’m constantly learning and developing through the work I do with private companies and advising non-profits on how to use what I’ve learnt to move their projects forward.

I hope WRC gets someone good.  If you know anyone, you have the weekend to get your application in!