I spoke to a bunch of people who attend Charity Freelancer Chat, and this is what I found.

I feel like I keep on banging about this, but in case you aren’t aware, I run a monthly Zoom meet-up for freelancers working in the charity sector, called Charity Freelancer Chat.  It was set up by accident in March 2023, and 15 months later, we have 500+ people signed-up for email updates, and regularly get 30-40 people turning up each month - newbies and regulars.

Since day one, I’ve taken the approach of “do something and make it better later” – partly because I don’t have oodles of time to devote to this. But also partly because, rather than agonising over the perfect way to do things, it’s just easier to create stuff now and promise to improve later.

Earlier this year, I found myself with a bit of time, so to keep my promise to myself to try improve things, I decided to invite people signed-up to email updates for a 1-on-1 chat about Charity Freelancer Chat.

I was overwhelmed with the response to my invitation (a running theme of CFC!) I ended up speaking to 19 people about what they like, what they’d improve, and so on.

I’ve collected the responses and tried to make sense of them, and put them together in a FigJam board (RIP Google Jamboard 🕊). Here’s the main findings:

WHY DO PEOPLE COME TO CHARITY FREELANCER CHAT?

1) Connection and community. Overwhelmingly, many people said they came just to talk to another human being, particularly people in the same situation as them (freelancers working in charity sector). Key quote: “You can’t underestimate the importance of other people who ‘get it’.”

2) Building their own networks – finding other people to refer work to, or who could refer work to them, or start some sort of collaboration.

3) The discussions themselves were also useful – comparing notes on the state of the sector, picking up tips about freelancing etc. But they were often secondary to the reasons above.

WHAT DO PEOPLE LIKE ABOUT CHARITY FREELANCER CHAT?

1) Relaxed, informal, casual environment. Many people didn’t really like ‘traditional’ networking, characterising it as high-pressure, superficial, and maybe with a hidden agenda. Equally, other online meet-ups (e.g. webinars) are often highly structured, and while they’re useful in their own way, sometimes, people just want to have a chat. CFC was seen as hitting that Goldilocks zone of ‘just structured enough’.

2) Variety of people. We’ve an open door to any freelancer or consultant working in the charity sector: whether they’re just starting out or have been doing it for donkey’s years; whether they only work with charities or they also work with other organisations and individuals. People appreciated the variety, the randomness of it all, as it provides an opportunity to chat to people they would have never met, and broaden their network.

3) Nice, caring people. Related to number 1 I guess, a lot of people mentioned that there was a nice atmosphere, and people are generally just good people – willing to listen, offer support, and friendly.

WHAT WOULD PEOPLE IMPROVE OR CHANGE?

Mostly people were very happy with the format. There were a few aspects of the Zoom meet-ups which people mentioned a few times (and have mentioned in the past) – a common one is the desire to be able to choose your own breakout rooms. Another one is having more guest hosts. Another is an opportunity for ‘notices’, anyone piping up about something they’re looking for help on.

Others said they’d like to have better quality conversations, get to know people on a deeper level.

'The Google Doc' came up a lot (our list of attendees, places to find work, and communities to be a part of) – it’s great, but a few people found it unwieldy.

WHAT NEW STUFF WOULD PEOPLE LIKE TO SEE?

As well as tweaks to the current format, there were plenty of suggestions for new ways of doing things, but three things came up often:

1) A space for discussion outside of meetings – some sort of forum, where people can continue the chat in written form. Options suggested include Slack, WhatsApp, FB Groups, LinkedIn Groups, Circle, Discord etc.

2) In-person meet-ups, particularly local.

3) Discipline specific meet-ups – e.g. a meet-up for Trust fundraisers, a meet-up for PR people, or web designers etc etc.

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS? 🤷♀️

It’s a great question. And honestly, right now, I’m not sure.

From the suggestions I’ve had, I’ve tried to implement the easiest ‘low-hanging fruit’ – For example: we’re going to have more guest hosts, I now share the conversation topics in advance, and I now make it super clear CFC is a ‘no sales zone’.

But as for the rest, I'm not sure how to implement.

The big one for me to consider is the ‘discussion forum’.  On the one hand, I totally get it – it’d be really nice to continue the conversations from the meet-ups, and provide more opportunities for people to connect, discuss, and just chat. Providing that forum would also be essential to facilitate other suggestions, like in-person meet-ups, collaborations/referrals, discipline-specific meet-ups, etc.

On the other hand, there’s a few things on my mind:

• Practically, where? Everyone’s got an opinion on where they’d prefer to have a community (for example, I hate Slack). 'Build it where people are' I guess, but what if that’s not the right place? I already feel myself agonising over this decision.
• How much time and effort am I, personally, willing to put into this? It takes a lot of time to even just moderate and curate a community, let alone stimulate discussion. I have no intention of making this a paid-for thing right now.
• There’s already a lot of other overlapping communities out there – Third Sector PR & Comms & Fundraising Chat FB groups came up a lot in our conversations, as well as others. Do we really need another one? I’m keen to not step on any toes or duplicate efforts.

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So. There we have it.

I’m sorry I don’t have any great answers right now, or a 5-step plan for the evolution of Charity Freelancer Chat.

I guess you could call this ‘building something in public’, but really, I see it as sharing some thoughts as they come. If this has sparked a thought for you, or you want to offer advice (or warnings!), I’d love to hear it.

A HUGE thanks to everyone who gave me some of their time to share the thoughts I’ve summarised here – I hope I have done our conversation justice. I’m always happy to get further feedback from anyone.

And as always, thanks to everyone involved in Charity Freelancer Chat in different ways – whether you come to the meet-ups or not. It’s a privilege to provide a space for good people doing great work.