Paul Reddish has announced today that, after four years, he will be stepping back as chief executive of Volunteering Matters.
Reddish will remain in post until a new chief executive has been recruited – a process in which he is involved. “It’s just trying to find the right person to take the work forward,” he says.
He says he loves the role and enjoys working with his colleagues but feels “it is time” to leave his current position, partly to spend more time with his family and avoid potential burnout, but also because there is a “pull factor”.
First charity CEO role ‘the making of me as a person’
Reddish’s career started in financial services, but he was involved early on in youth work and in the charity sector through other means, such as being a trustee or volunteering.
“The sector wasn’t new to me. Although I’d never actually had a job in the sector, I’d done quite a few different things at a community level.”
He “wasn’t getting the fulfilment” out of the banking job, and became ProjectScotland’s CEO in 2013.
“It took some adjusting” moving into the sector, he says, and “it was a massive learning curve, but a good one”.
“It was my first CEO role, but I would also say the making of me as a person, and understanding who I am, what my values are, what I’m about, what sort of leader I want to be.
“Only when I started to do that role did I realise that I was someone slightly different at work at the bank than to the real me.
“You’d call it ‘going in with your armour on’. You’d go into the corporate environment that banking was and you'd leave a little bit of yourself at home.
“When you start to really deeply understand the impact you can have on people when you’re just yourself, and you’re authentic and you lead through what you know to be right, it is completely life changing.
“I had developed all of these skills in the roles that I’d done, but I’d never really been myself, and I think there’s something about this sector that allows you to be yourself that maybe doesn’t exist in other sectors, and you don’t know it until you’re in it – it’s quite precious.”
Growth during the pandemic
Volunteering Matters has “been on a bit of a journey” in since Reddish became its CEO in October 2019, he says.
“It’s been emotional at points, it’s been challenging and tough to navigate through aspects of it. But it’s also been a real privilege and a sense of achievement.”
He joined just as the charity had sold a property and began to undergo a restructure.
“We needed to turn it around fast and cut some costs, and we did that. And then during Covid we actually doubled in size because of all of the work we were asked to do.
“It was hard, Covid. I worked more hours than I ever want to work again, and I asked my staff to do some things timewise that I hope to never ask anybody to do again.”
However, Reddish says that “in a way, [the pandemic] was a making of us” as it focused the charity on its redefining its purpose – “this charity is at its best when it stands alongside communities”.
“We have to take the best of what’s come out of Covid and sustain it, but we’ve also got to acknowledge that some of the things from Covid have to go. So the pace that we ask people to work at, that’s not sustainable.”
Last 12 months ‘has been hard’
The charity was rebuilding and had put a growth plan in place, when the cost-of-living crisis hit.
“A whole raft of our bills went up overnight. There was a double whammy really because it wasn’t just about cost-of-living prices, it was the impact that then had on the behaviour of government and local authorities.”
He says central government turmoil last year also disrupted its funding processes, which “hit us really hard”.
“In addition to all these costs coming in, there was a period last summer and autumn where there were hardly any tenders coming out, hardly any money being pushed out to the sector.”
The charity also had limited reserves and an “£18m pension hole” through its involvement in a local government scheme. He says the only good thing that came out of the economic turmoil caused by Liz Truss’ tenure as prime minister was “pretty much overnight, our pensions deficit shrunk”.
Now, Reddish says, the charity’s financial position is healthier.
“Here we are a few months later, all of those renewals have come in, all that money has been released from local authorities and it looks like we’re going to get no debt from the pension scheme. So ironically, as of the first of June, we’re probably healthier than we’ve ever been.
“I’m not going to lie, the journey to get to where we are today over the last 12 months has been hard. And I think it’s just a sign of how things have been recently with the sector. We seem to be going through these extremes and a sign of the things that charity leaders have had to take on over the last few years.”
‘The right time’ to leave
“I think you have to put everything into” leading a charity, says Reddish, and “it takes a lot personally to do the job well”.
“Not just all of your professional skills, your heart, your emotions, all of the things that make you want to be in this sector.
“It just means that there are points of self-care where you have to reflect on how long you can sustain that for in order to be effective.
“This feels like the right time for me. I’m not burnt out, but I might be if I keep going and it’s recognising that.”
Reddish also wants to spend more time with his family, and has three children under 10.
“This charity is amazing, does amazing work, has brilliant people, it is an absolute privilege. But I miss my kids. And I also recognise the other part about how much longer can I do it at the pace and do it well.”
“I do love this role, being able to be honest with yourself about when it’s right for you is I think an important part of the journey, and I’ll miss it, I will miss the people and miss the sector.
“I’m just feeling like it’s time to go and do something on my own, leaving the charity, and hopefully the volunteering sector, in a much better space.”
For Volunteering Matters, Reddish says his successor “has got a stable charity to do brilliant things with, some amazing partners, and a 10-year vision for changing volunteering”.
“What’s not to like? For me it’s the best job in the sector for someone who’s got the real energy and drive to take this forward. All good things come to an end.”
Nonetheless, Reddish is not intending on leaving the sector forever and has plans to continue working with campaign groups such as Running out Racism in Scotland.
‘The existential threat to volunteering is not understanding change’
Reddish says the pandemic caused a “natural disruption” to volunteering with some lifelong volunteers stopping and others doing it for the first time but he says that is now “starting to settle”.
Moreover, Reddish says young people volunteer in a different way to the over 50s, and tend to be less brand focused, and more concerned with activism.
“It requires charities to adapt to changing behaviours around how people want to interact with their communities. And I think the existential threat that some people are saying exists to volunteering is not understanding that change, as opposed to people not wanting to volunteer.”
Volunteering Matters worked in partnership with many other organisations during Reddish’s tenure, and “formed a lot of really strong collaborations out of Covid with organisations that we knew about before, but we didn’t really have deep relationships with”.
“It was just so heartening to see people leaving their organisation hats at the door and just doing the right thing for communities together.
“That’s a real moment for the sector, to give up time and space for each other, we’re going to do it because volunteering communities are important, and they’re more important than our organisations.
“I do hope it’s an irreversible trend. I think the more the sector can tackle things together and compromise and give space for each other, the more progress we can make around some of the systemic issues that have been around for a long time.”
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