Your colleagues
What's it like to work here? Meet a few of your new colleagues
Helen Handzel
Relationship Manager
Strategic/ Relations/Charity Development
Started at StepChange in 2004
My average day...
..is always very varied! Charity Development is the department responsible for growing and managing relationships with external organisations. We have a particular focus on increasing referrals into the charity and growing and diversifying the charity’s funding streams. We manage a large variety of organisations across the advice and financial sectors. My relationships are mainly other charities or statutory bodies but the work I do with them can vary significantly due to the partner’s size, structure, length of time we’ve been working with them and depth of the partnership. My role involves a mixture of new partnership development and established partnership management. Both can be at an operational and strategic level. As a team, we want to ensure as many people as possible know about us to extend the reach of our service. A typical day might involve a review or scoping meeting with a partner, either face to face (at our office or theirs) or over the phone and will usually require further meetings and some follow up actions. These could involve speaking to operational colleagues to kick start a new project with a partner, getting clarity on a specific advice process or working with an internal team to develop a case study to illustrate the features of the partnership. A typical day may also involve meeting with colleagues in my team to update each other on important developments with our relationships. As an external facing team of the charity it’s essential we have a good grasp of each other’s work and the wider environment – a lot of which is gleaned from discussions with our partners. Our team also attends a number of regional and national events. These are great for networking, discussing industry issues (which can vary from illegal lending to consumer duty) and valuable industry insight.
How did I get here?
Since joining the charity 19 years ago I’ve had the opportunity to work in several different departments. I began as a debt advisor in Client Support and from that moved into the training team delivering training for new starters, continual development courses and training to external organisations. From there I moved into partnership work and have done various roles in this area but now focus on partnership work with other charitable organisations. I’ve also had the opportunity to complete a number of external courses which have aided my development. The most recent ones were a post graduate module on financial exclusion through Liverpool John Moores University and a six month course on supporting vulnerable clients through UK Finance and the Money Advice Trust.
I am busy with...
One of my main projects is with another large national advice agency. We have a multi-layered partnership with the organisation and I work as the conduit to ensure all the elements of the partnership run smoothly, operational and strategic goals are achieved and liaise regularly with internal and external stakeholders.
I also work with a number of national health charities. They are all great examples of partnership development where two organisations are able to work together to help clients with multiple issues. We can offer clients intensive support for their debt problems and the partner organisation can offer bespoke support for their health condition.
I love it here because...
There are lots of great things about working at StepChange. For me, I feel privileged to be working for a national charity that has such a tangible positive impact on society. I also get to work with some fantastic organisations across the UK who share similar views and aspirations to our charity. By working together we are able to help lessen the burden on households coping with financial difficulties. The team that I work with are pretty fantastic too – always there to support each other and learn from.
