Close encounters of the third-sector kind: charities are feeling the pinch just as much as businesses, Elaine Bentley explains why offering them your services for free will also benefit your career.

Picture this: you arrive at the interview for your dream job just as the previous candidate, Mr Slick Suit, swaggers past you on his way out. Your mouth goes dry, doubt starts to kick in and you think: "He's got the job. I just know it. Why would they pick me over him?"

Well, many reasons, actually, but here's one to be getting on with: has Mr Slick Suit just spent the past year coaching a local charity in how to build a business plan so that it can grow and teach more disadvantaged children to read? Or could he say that, while serving as a trustee for a small hospice, he has just negotiated the 5,000 [pounds sterling] in funding that it so desperately needs? We will never know, but what we do know is that any employer is bound to be impressed if you can show how you have volunteered your business skills to support worthwhile causes.

Volunteering is a fantastic way to give something back to the community while enhancing your CV. It can also form a valuable and enriching part of your CPD. Financial pressures are making it increasingly hard for professionals to gain approval for training and development activities. Volunteering offers the chance not only to share your expertise but also to refine your skills in a different setting. Potentially, it's an enjoyable and hugely rewarding experience.

According to a survey conducted jointly by recruitment firm Reed Executive and TimeBank, a UK-based volunteering charity, 73 per cent of employers would hire candidates with volunteering experience over those without any.

"Volunteering helps to highlight your motivation, teamwork and leadership skills, which are all positive attributes to a potential employer," says Ryan Edwards, marketing manager at Cityjobs.com. "At a time when some City firms are becoming increasingly selective about the number of people they hire, volunteering could be the one thing that makes you a memorable candidate."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The recession has led to a decline in donations to charities at a time when demand for their services is growing. As a result, many are finding it increasingly hard to keep their heads above water. Many people who work in smaller charities have had little or no business training--which is where you can help. Management accountants have a wealth of skills that can help them to further their causes. Many of the most sought-after skills are strategic thinking, business planning, project management and financial guidance--a perfect match for any CIMA professional. But it's not only about using the technical expertise you already have; it's also about honing softer skills such as problem-solving and negotiation.

"Studies have consistently found that voluntary work for charities is a real win-win activity," says Angela Ellis Paine, director of the Institute for Volunteering Research. "The organisation that you help benefits from the skills you provide. You benefit from the opportunity to gain new skills or to fine-tune existing ones. The chances are that you will also come away feeling more confident, with a great sense of satisfaction. And you'll have had an enjoyable time in the process."

As businesses become ever more reliant upon technology, employees are getting fewer and fewer opportunities to develop their interpersonal skills. According to a 2006 survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and KPMG, two-thirds of employers reported that their younger employees were lacking in communication and other soft skills. Likewise, a survey in the same year by Robert Half International found that having soft skills was at least as important to accountants as technical financial expertise. It listed communication, management and leadership among the top skills desired by employers.

Volunteering doesn't have to be something that you do in your own time. Your company can help you by engaging in an employer-supported volunteering scheme. This can also be done as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) objectives. Pilotlight is one of many organisations worldwide that can match employers with suitable third-sector bodies. The UK-based charity specialises in creating small teams of volunteers with business skills to develop community projects. Indeed, as part of CIMA's ongoing CSR initiative, two senior managers from the institute have volunteered with Pilotlight to help local charities. The benefits to the recipients are clear: Pilotlight reports that its partner charities have grown by an average of 22 per cent annually, compared with the voluntary sector's overall growth rate of three per cent.

There are benefits for the volunteers' employers, too. The most recent report on competitiveness in the EU by the European Commission made links between businesses' CSR activities and their competitiveness. When it was published, Gunter Verheugen, one of the commission's vice-presidents, commented that, at a time when CSR budgets were usually the first to be cut, the biggest competitive advantage would be gained by those enterprises that integrated CSR into their core strategies.

Further information

The Institute for Volunteering

Research: www.ivr.org.uk.

TimeBank: www.timebank.org.uk.

Pilotlight: www.pilotlight.org.uk.

Reach: www.reachskills.org.uk.

Donate your grey matter to a good cause

Doug Hutton, a former CIMA member, spent most of his career in the manufacturing and engineering industries, rising to the level of divisional finance director at a large plc. Having worked through a series of mergers, he decided it was time to go. Volunteering appealed to him as a new direction.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"I had some time--and a brain--and I was keen to find a different mental challenge. I also wanted to give something back to a worthwhile cause," he explains.

Hutton spotted an advert for Reach in a national newspaper. This UK-based charity helps volunteers with backgrounds in disciplines such as finance, IT, strategic planning and project management to find volunteering opportunities where they can use their skills and develop them further. It has more than 6,000 volunteers helping charities nationwide.

Reach put him in touch with a range of organisations that urgently needed the particular financial management and strategic planning expertise he could offer. Over the following years he chose to work with a number of NGOs, including Sign, a charity for deaf people; Toc H, which supports disadvantaged individuals across the UK; and the Berkshire Business Education Alliance, which provides links between companies and schools to improve the employability of school-leavers. He worked on several projects where he played a key rote in reviewing strategic options and improving operational effectiveness.

When asked what he gets out of his assignments, Hutton says: "I love the challenge and the satisfaction of using my brain. I didn't want to be gardening and playing golf all day. I believe strongly in the Reach concept, since it enables professional people like me to use their business knowledge in helping charities. It's good for all concerned, since the charity obtains the benefit of professional management at no cost and the individual is able to use their brain in a stimulating way. I'd recommend any CIMA professional who's thinking of developing their skills and experience to consider volunteering as an option."

Elaine Bentley is a project specialist in CIMA's professional standards department. If you are a CIMA member who already does voluntary work, she would like to hear your story: [e-mail].