Successful Blog

Community in Conversation: The Give-Back Challenge

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I’ve heard Liz refer to Successful Blog as “community in conversation.” A place where we share tips, war stories, and lessons learned from a life of entrepreneurship and leadership.

With that in mind, I’m excited to announce that we’ll be introducing a new regular feature on the site that will highlight both the community and the conversation.

Give-Back Challenge

With each SOBCon event, Sunday was a special day. In the morning, a few passionate non-profits would present their mission and ask for help with a particular challenge they were facing. It was called the Give-Back Challenge.

After the non-profits presented, the entire SOBCon group would break into smaller teams to brainstorm solutions for the challenges described. The emphasis was always on actionable, real-world advice that would have an immediate impact for the non-profit involved.

On this blog, we’ll be adding the Give-Back Challenge as a recurring feature. It will follow the basic format of the real-life SOBCon event, in which the non-Profit will be invited to present their mission (via a video, images, and text), and pose a particular challenge they are facing.

Our community will then be invited to brainstorm ideas in the comments section (and reach out directly via email if followup is necessary). The goal is to devote some of our incredible brainpower to lifting up some of our non-profit friends and colleagues. We can start to become the “people who won’t let you fail.”

This series will require fearlessness on the part of our non-profits, and a willingness to be vulnerable in order to make an even greater impact.

Stay tuned for the first Give-Back Challenge in the next week or so. If you’re interested in nominating a non-profit, feel free to post the name of the organization here in the comments or reach out to me directly.

What do you say? Are you in?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Photo Credit: h.koppdelaney via Compfight cc

Why working for charity is not your average day job

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By Sophie Ponting

It’s not every job that offers you the satisfaction of knowing that the hard work you put in every day is making a real difference to those less fortunate than yourself, but that’s the feeling that comes with working for a charity. Whether it’s as a fundraiser, administrator, or even marketing for a charity, the opportunities for work in your particular area of expertise whilst sticking to your moral values are endless.

According to the UK Charity Commission there are 180,000 registered charities in England and Wales alone, and while many of the workers at these charities carry out their duties as volunteers, there are also quite a number of reasonably well paid charity jobs on offer at many of the larger organisations.

Here we’ll take a quick look at some of the pros of working for a charity

  • Improve the quality of life of those that need it most
  • Contribute something worthwhile to the community
  • Tremendous job satisfaction in seeing the results of your work
  • Work in a not for profit organisation setting you apart from more money oriented workplaces
  • Gain valuable experience as a graduate – pro bono internships are regularly on offer at many charities

Job diversity is also a key factor for many that choose to pursue charity jobs and here are a couple of the areas within your everyday charity with many job opportunities.

Fundraising

The role of fundraiser is one of the most important roles within any charity. They are quite often seen as the public face of the charity and their duties are quite extensive and can cover anything from organising traditional street collections to liaising with major businesses to encourage corporate donations.

Marketing

Marketing is where many businesses fail and charities are no different. Raising public awareness of a charity is key to its survival and a good marketing department is essential. With marketing being such a large component of a successful charity there are many roles available such as campaign managers, press officers, and brand managers, to name but a few.

If a change in career is something you are considering, then taking a step into the world of charity work could be the most rewarding career choice you will ever make. With vacancies that are numerous and varied, and a level of job satisfaction that is second to none, it’s easy to see why working for a charity is not like your average day job.

Author’s Bio: Sophie Ponting is a keen volunteer for a well known UK charity as a hobby and is interested in helping out others and fundraising events. Her original interest in this came due to her association with TPP Not For Profit – UK Charity Recruiters, where she is based in London.