Lucie Davison, Communications Consultant
In 2010 I was made redundant as a regional fundraiser for an international charity. I had been there for 3 years and in hindsight it was the ultimate sabbatical from a career.
It was much more than a job for me, I was so passionate about the cause. The charity got the very best of me as I was fresh from visiting water projects in India. I was incensed by the lack of equality and poverty I had witnessed and was set on educating everyone I could on the issue. I regularly worked round the clock at balls, sporting events, speaking engagements, marathons and village fetes spreading the word and encouraging our partners to beat fundraising targets from year to year.
It felt like a massive kick in the stomach the day I found out my role was being made redundant. Forget the fact it was handled pretty badly, I was in crisis! I was almost 30 and all my friends were climbing their respective career ladders, it seemed to me they all knew where they were aiming. I was lost. I did not want to work for another charity, I had no connection to other causes, I wasn’t a ‘professional’ fundraiser. Previously I’d worked in customer service but didn’t want to go back. I had just got married and had a mortgage and bills to pay. I wasn’t going to get a decent package, just some coaching support in the last couple of weeks of my months notice! It also felt very personal, I knew it wasn’t, all roles like mine were being made redundant; but there was a nagging doubt that I wasn’t quite worth saving.
The fundraising role had exposed me to a lot of people corporately, our regional office was two borrowed desks in the water company where I had worked in customer service. I was known to people there and whilst I was fretting about my next move, one of the project managers there was making a case for a change and communications specialist on a big project for the company. When she asked me for a coffee and suggested I might like to consider it my initial reaction was ” I can’t do that, i don’t know how.”
What I hadn’t really understood until this point in my working life was that transferable skills were a real thing. The qualities required for managing volunteers, inspiring donors and adapting communications for different audiences, from senior corporate leaders to 5 year old school children were pretty aligned with the change effort required to deliver a major technology project to a business not used to change. I took the 12 month fixed term contract and flew by the seat of my pants!
A decade later I still feel like I am so lucky to have found a vocation that I love as much as my charity job. I look at my redundancy as a blessing that set me on the right path and I’ve not looked back.
Thank you to Lucie for sharing her story.