Why do I do what I do?

Last night, my husband and I had a few friends over for dinner.  He works in the banking industry and she is a teaching assistant.  After dinner, we got chatting about work and how it’s going and I shared a little bit of what FaithAction is up to at the moment.

As I was chatting, I discovered that our visitors didn’t really know much about the voluntary sector and after a few minutes, our friend stopped me and asked ‘But why do you do it?’  He then asked about voluntary sector funding and I shared about how sometimes it is only for one financial year (if we’re lucky) and that means every February/March it becomes slightly uneasy! Now his question seemed more relevant!

I shared how I have seen members of FaithAction grow, develop and strive hard to serve the communities they work in.  I’ve seen members go from no funding, to funding and back again.  Even though it affects the staff, the service and passion is relentless.  I’ve seen systems changed because of one person’s involvement and I’ve seen communities completely transform.

I then got asked ‘But why FaithAction – why can’t local authorities or central government run your programmes?’  There is something about the voluntary sector and particularly the faith sector which is different from any other mobilised ‘machine’.  Daniel Singleton refers to Faith groups being the first in and last out, and we are that.  We know communities, we know what’s happening on the ground and we know how to access people.  At FaithAction, our aim is simple – we aim to support these types of groups and people; whether it’s training, funding advice, changing central Government policies or now with Together in Service we can offer grant funding.

Let us make a case for what you do.  If you want to want to share about your organisation/services/projects and even the hard parts and the good parts please get in touch.