Mindnumbingly dull versus overnight sensation?

Setting up Children Unite has, so far, felt more like setting up a business than a charity….but in a good way. From step one, when Jonathan and I realised there was no international organisation that focused solely on the issue of child domestic work, an old friend of ours has been there to guide us through.

Charlie is now a business communications coach for Think Feel Know. He has been coaching us every month for the past year and a half. We had a coaching session with him this week where we looked at Children Unite’s ‘positioning’. Charlie uses a business model that he is adapting to the charity sector; ‘positioning’ is about figuring out, in a nutshell, what Children Unite is and does - Market, Service, Product and Value. Charlie has translated this into Who, How, What and Benefit.

A year and a half ago we found it hard to articulate exactly what Children Unite is and does because we weren’t doing it yet. I realised that a lot of people involved in ‘charitable’ work (including myself) are easily able to talk about ‘why’ we’re involved in this sector but are less articulate on the rest – particularly the ‘benefit’ (added value) of people working with us as opposed to working with another charity. This benefit issue adds an element of competition to the whole game and we don’t really like to think we’re in competition with each other in the charity sector.

This time however, when we went through Children Unite’s positioning we were clear and fast about the who’s and what’s and we had a breakthrough with ‘benefit’. Charlie has helped us to be clear in our communication and our thinking behind this communication. This has taken time and I’m very grateful that we have, what now feels like, a solid foundation to Children Unite.

Although I’m naturally more spontaneous than Jonathan I never wanted to set up Children Unite overnight. Many people have an attitude of ‘just get going, start up anything…just do it!’ But I’m pleased we haven’t done this. This is mainly because of professional pride – I don’t want to be part of an organisation that is not well thought out, or doesn’t really do what it says it does. It is also because I don’t want to let down people who have encouraged us or who are investing their time and energy (and money) in Children Unite.

For the last two days I’ve been looking at the role of Trustee and have written a briefing for our Trustees on their duties and responsibilities. I’ve been putting off this task as I assumed it would be mindnumbingly dull (and some of it was) but strangely enough, I now feel quite empowered that I KNOW what the role of Trustee is. I was rather vague about it before.

So, what do I learn from all this? I guess I can widen this point out to Children Unite as a whole – there will undoubtedly be more mindnumbingly dull tasks ahead. But, if I can put the work in, do them thoroughly, it is much more satisfying and empowering than ‘blagging’ it and letting people down as a result.