Opinion | More than love: charities need professional staff, funding to succeed
- There is a strongly held belief among some donors that charity workers should be volunteers who work for love and fresh air
- Charity workers still have bills to pay, though, and the sector needs skilled, competent professionals who love their job and are paid fairly
When we think of people who work in charities, adjectives such as kind, passionate and resilient come to mind. As women who run charities, we want to change that narrative. We want more people to think of charity workers as skilled, competent and professional. And like any professional, charity workers deserve to be paid fairly.
They create social capital so we can live in harmonious communities and our economies can function well. Through their work, they help keep society peaceful and crime rates down.
As with any business, charities need a back office. They need finance professionals to ensure donations and expenses are properly managed. They need operations and HR professionals to manage staff and run offices. They need fundraising professionals to identify donors and write complex grant proposals to fund projects. They need senior executives who report to an independent board of directors to ensure governance, policies and standards are upheld. All these professionals need to be paid, and charities compete with the private sector for this talent.
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