Hi, my name is Sierra and I’m a graduate of the MSc in NGO Management from the Centre for Charity Effectiveness at Bayes Business School.

From a young age, my mum instilled a strong community ethos into us as kids, taking my younger brother and me to volunteer at the food bank when I was 11 or 12. She also founded a small non-profit that connected food banks and soup kitchens with leftover produce from local farms, and so my first experience of working within the sector was riding around in her van picking up crates of carrots and potatoes!

Before my master’s

Prior to joining the NGO Management course at Bayes, I had learned most of what I knew about management and leadership through experience, often being thrown into highly complex situations without any training or support. I had moved to Mexico to volunteer with Peace Brigades International (PBI), providing accompaniment and support to at-risk Human Rights Defenders. I then ended up staying on to work with PBI, first in the office in Mexico and later co-managing the International Secretariate in Brussels.

I remember thinking that I couldn’t be the only person dealing with some of the complex management issues I was facing – but the few short courses I took didn’t really leave scope for the level of reflection and learning I was after. I started looking for more comprehensive courses and found the programme at Bayes by chance. It appealed to me because of the mix of academic rigour and practical application.

The MSc in NGO Management

One of the things I enjoyed the most about the programme was the breadth of topics we covered and expertise we were able to tap into – through the course leaders as well as guest speakers and other students.

The course covered fundamental theory and practice for pretty much every aspect of management I deal with in my role. From having a deeper understanding of management accounts when I look at a grantee’s due diligence information to supporting my team members through adaptive management, the course provided useful, relevant learning applicable to my every day.

Probably the most rewarding part for me was the shadowing experience. One of my areas of study was shared leadership, and so I shadowed someone in a Co-Executive Director role. She was so open and generous with her time and gave me fantastic access – including to conversations about a leadership transition that was ongoing. It was such a great opportunity to learn from someone doing a similar role to mine, and also to reflect on what was – and wasn’t – working. That experience was pivotal in my decision to make a change in my own career.

My career now

I now am the Interim Director of Programmes and Learning at Womankind, overseeing all of Womankind’s grant making and partnerships with local women’s rights organisations and feminist movements across East and Southern Africa and South Asia.

I help guide organisational strategy as part of the senior management team, shape our grant making and programmes policy and practice, and manage a team of five. Womankind is a fairly small organisation, so the role also gives me opportunities to collaborate with other teams and contribute across the breadth of our work.

In this role, I find myself using skills from the course that are related to people and team management, for example, adaptive leadership and coaching.

I really enjoy people management and supporting individuals and teams to grow and learn. I feel the course enhanced my natural interest in this area and gave me additional tools to support team members in different ways – and I have subsequently gotten great feedback from people I manage.

My advice to future Bayes students

If you’re considering a CCE master’s, absolutely go for it!

The course is such a rich learning and networking opportunity. Of course, through lectures, reading and guest speakers, but also from the experiences other students bring to the space. The programme is an incredibly valuable learning and reflection opportunity, and you will be a better and more effective leader because of it.

Find out more about Centre for Charity Effectiveness  MSC NGO Management