Life as a Dialoguer

This post, is to put across my experience working as a charity fundraiser / dialoguer / chugger. I went for this job because I was sick of my labour going to large organisations. Yeah work is work, but ultimately the one that profits from your work is the organisation you work for. I no longer wanted to do this.. I wanted to do charity work, work that actually means something, but i need to be paid.

The answer came in the form of street fundraising. I had met friends over the summer who worked in this way, and although I was doubtful that i had the confidence I certainly wanted to give it a try. It was not what I expected. The work firstly was fantastic - I loved being out on the streets, in the open air, yes it was november, it was cold and usually raining.. but theres something liberating about spending all day outdoors. I loved talking to people.. Alongside the weirdos and scientologists, I met some of the most unusual and amazing people doing this job, like the guy in Leicester who was homeless, living off his bicycle but the happiest guy ive ever seen, he spent 10 minutes telling me how he just loves life, and loves people, and how everything is amazing, he was awesome!

The lifestyle was something else aswell.. living and working in teams of four or five, in random country houses, driving between sites in possibly the shittiest car ive ever seen. Saturday night we would literally cross the country for a house party somewhere like Southampton where i ended up sleeping in a ball pool in someones front room. It put student life to shame... other Dialoguers were in general amazing people too. You have to be friendly, funny and relentlessly positive to do the job in the first place, and people were obviously passionate about the charities and all had a favourite.

So what went wrong? Targets. Its a target based job.. where the charities have paid the company for a certain number of sign-ups in a certain amount of time. So targets are high, and If you dont meet them then you get the sack pretty much instantly. I didnt meet them.. I was good at stopping people, good at talking, but when it came to getting people to give out their bank details I struggled. But nevermind, it was a great experience while it lasted and ive learnt alot and gained a huge amount of confidence.

And to everyone i met on the streets, i love you all. x