Back online ...

Sorry its been a while. There was some talk of getting this onto a different platform - Myspace or a Christian Aid one, but nothing's happening as yet.

Been a busy period since coming back from The Philippines, including Christian Aid Week ...a mad, wonderful week! Anyway, to get things going again here's a press release I used to try and get some PR in a local paper which had often used my press releases in my last job. Its not the best press release ever which is why I don't think it saw the light of day ...but it has now! As ever I have anonymised it to protect the innocent!

"xxx spent 8 years as a tax partner before moving to head up the .... office of Christian Aid last year. As Christian Aid week arrives once more he writes a little bit about his experiences.

“This time last year I was experiencing my first Christian Aid Week as regional manager for Christian Aid . It was a huge step to move out of partnership to my new role, and my first year was a steep learning experience.

I have blogged an ongoing reflection of some of the comparisons between working for a large charity sector organisation and working in the accountancy profession, you can see this at http://accountant-to-charity-worker.blogspot.com/

Here’s a few comparisons of life in the two sectors:

• My experience in the profession, requiring a wide mix of technical and softer personal skills, has stood me in really good stead for some of the issues I have had to face here as I have managed the office through a process of huge change. I am grateful for that, but equally have no regrets on moving. Not only do I go into work every day looking forward to it, but I know how well spent the money we raise is.

• Development work is very technical and not well understood by many people; its not as simple as giving food to starving people but rather its about empowering people and creating sustainable development programmes that bring long term benefit so that after the next disaster they don’t need emergency relief. So my experience of trying to translate complicated tax concepts into understandable language has proved invaluable. There’s also not the stress of worrying about getting sued if I don’t get it exactly right every time!

• I recently toured the area with a visitor from Senegal who spoke French and no English. We used a translator. Sometimes I felt a translator would have been invaluable when dealing with tax issues with both clients and the Revenue…

• I have travelled extensively around the area – the only difference between that and my travelling round seeing clients before is that it has mostly been evenings and weekends. And my car is now much smaller and less comfortable! However, I have also had the benefit of being able to travel to The Philippines to see how the work is delivered on the ground by our partner organisations.

• Christian Aid as an organisation is constantly reviewing its strategy in order to keep up with a rapidly changing world. I was well prepared for that, although arguably the pace of change here is even faster than it was in the profession.

• We are doing a lot of work on how we engage with business, our views on tax avoidance and its impact on developing countries….my experience has allowed me to have an impact in this process.

On a lighter note …there are some aspects which are just the same…

• A lot of my time is spent asking for money for nothing …

• The computer support people never seem to be able to sort the problem first time….(although the IT systems here are surprisingly excellent).
  

• There aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done
  

And some are very different:

• No more client lunches/business entertaining at evening functions with the alcohol flowing. Fair trade coffee is great but its not quite the same..
• I travel to London frequently. It now involves detailed web searches to get the cheapest possible tickets, as opposed to the first class experience before….
• Its so good to be able to read the Guardian openly without hiding it as if its a top shelf magazine that no self respecting person would have in the office.
• Everyone in my small team here is working for the organisation because they have a passion for what we stand for and are convinced that there is real value in what we do. We could all earn more elsewhere, but that’s not the point.