Doing business with Quakers
Kevin Redpath reflects on his experience
It is not much fun, sometimes, doing business with Quakers. I say this lovingly as a birthright Friend who is immensely proud of his Quaker inheritance, is challenged and inspired by its testimonies, and happily gives his time voluntarily to the Society as a central committee member, prison visitor and trustee. However, when I’m asked to use my professional skills in helping a Quaker charity or business promote their work then I hope to be paid fairly for my contribution, my experience and my skills.
Two years ago I was invited to give a presentation to an Area Meeting some distance away – a round trip of 295 miles. I prepared my slides in advance, drove up and gave the talk. After tea, the clerk rushed over to me to thank me and offered me £24. I gently explained that it had cost me £40 for the petrol. He returned smiling saying that he had talked to the treasurer and they now wanted to offer me £30 as a fee, which would need to include my travel costs.
Recently I was approached by a trustee from a large Quaker charity. Would I be interested in designing a month-long training programme? I was delighted to be asked and was paid for the initial research. When it came to preparing a more detailed budget and timetable, it was made clear that the team needed to deliver this project would not be paid except for our travel and accommodation costs. I’d have accepted this as a student, but this wasn’t going to pay my mortgage or utility bills and I certainly wouldn’t have dreamed of asking my colleagues to work for free. The charity concerned has assets in the millions but did not seem to understand that it needs to pay a fair wage to the people it commissions. In their defence they probably find it easier commissioning work from solicitors with fee structures or plumbers with rate cards than negotiating budgets and proposals with creative types, be they designers, artists, writers or filmmakers. And yet this creative community can make great contributions to promoting the Society.
I’ve been puzzling over this. Quakers were renowned for their business acumen, their integrity in financial affairs and the fairness with which they treated their employees and suppliers. Over the last two hundred years our Society has moved from wealth creation to wealth and asset management with many Friends working in education, government, academia and the charity sector. Our links with the coalfaces of industry and commerce are more distant now. But that doesn’t mean that those working there shouldn’t be valued and respected.
On my desk I have a couple of multi-media projects in various stages of post-production – three short films for a NHS project in Hammersmith and an educational DVD on the impact of climate change on the Somerset coastline. Each project was pitched for in a competitive marketplace with demanding deadlines. At no point did either client expect the work to be done at cost. Over the last few years I have happily worked for small family-run businesses, national charities, blue-chip companies and government departments, but it is only among Quakers that I feel like a character trapped inside a Bateman cartoon: ‘The Friend who dared to ask to be paid fairly for his skills and time.’
