An honest account of my 2020.

January

After a year of celebrations, I began 2020 feeling positive that this would be a great year. Having lived in Cardiff for a decade, my husband and I found a house we loved and set upon aiming to buy it. At work I project managed the review and redevelopment of the membership programme at Wales Millennium Centre, resulting in a 20% increase in members and income.

February

I secured my 6th major gift in 9 months, totalling ￡160,000 for the year from local and international philanthropists, which grew philanthropic income within the organisation by 220% on the year before. I attended a conference in Bristol where I met many inspiring women, doing good in the world by working on multiple projects at once, this sparked something in me, that I hadn't thought of before.

March

I attended the Centre's International Women's Day event with some of our wonderful donors and finished the financial year by exceeding our ambitious Individual Giving annual target. Then Covid hit, where like so many others I switched to working from home, in the living room in my tiny flat and focused on the wellbeing of my colleagues, supporters, friends and family.

April

Nothing was business as usual and everything was challenging. I made sure to constantly reach out to Wales Millennium Centre's members and supporters by phone and email to keep everyone connected and informed during a really tough month.

May

I was furloughed, which initially, I really struggled with, as I felt like there was more I could be doing. With hindsight, furlough gave me the gift of time, which after working solidly throughout my 20's I needed far more than I realised. I used this time to think deeply about what I wanted to do with this flicker of life we're given and how my career could work better for me to achieve balance.

June

While on furlough I started volunteering for a handful of incredible charities, all of whom were going through a really difficult time financially, but whose services were needed more than ever due to the pandemic. This helped me to realise I love working with different organisations and teams to help them flourish and thrive against adversity.

July

While still furloughed, I went on lots of beautiful walks in Wales to help my mind and build my resilience. My voluntary fundraising transitioned into freelance work. I worked with charities to develop their major gift strategies, supported bid writing and provided individual giving interim support for local, national and international charity clients.

August

I was made redundant from Wales Millennium Centre, due to the Covid19 pandemic. I will greatly miss the many wonderful people I had the pleasure of meeting and the truly momentous events and performances I experienced. This was particularly challenging as we were in the middle of purchasing our first home and we were so worried that this wouldn't be possible.

September

I started a level 5 ILM course in Coaching and Mentoring and a part-time role working for Frank Water who fund safe Water, Sanitation and Hygiene programmes in India and Nepal. Thankfully by the skin of our teeth, we managed to secure our mortgage, relocated from Cardiff to Bristol and moved into our very own home, after saving for 10 years.

October

We settled into our new home, explored the surrounding countryside and I finally got to meet all my colleagues at Frank Water socially-distanced but in person, which was wonderful. I also made the huge decision to set up my own coaching business, which I will be launching officially next year.

November

I worked freelance for two amazing charity clients, helping to plan and deliver their Christmas Fundraising Campaigns. I am continuing my coaching qualification and really enjoying coaching clients to help them to build confidence and overcome work and life challenges.

December

I built relationships with over 170 supporters of Frank Water through emails, letters, video & phone calls, resulting in achieving our original Big Give Christmas Challenge target of ￡20,800 in the first 2 days of the 7-day campaign. After securing an additional ￡5k of match funding, we increased our target to ￡30,800 and ended on ￡38,625! I could not be happier to be ending the year with this achievement.

As challenging as this year has been I am so so grateful for everything it has thrown at me because to be completely honest, I wouldn't have been brave enough to create the portfolio of work adventures I have now without being put in a really difficult situation.

I now have a flexible career where I get to help incredible charities and amazing people, in many different ways. I’m thrilled with the new journey. It’s bloody hard work, but I wouldn’t change it.

Thank you to the many many people who have supported me to thrive against adversity this year, you know who you are and I will forever be grateful.

Stay tuned for 2021, the year I turn 30, there are some super exciting things on the horizon.

Thank you for reading.

Best wishes, Bethany Helliwell-Smith