Mere weeks after starting in her role, Donna-Marie Edmonds sat down to talk with Melissa Moody about her new job as CEO of The Clink Charity.
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Often, when speaking to chief executives, they’ve been in the role long enough to be established; to talk about the charity’s successes, challenges and everything that goes along with it. But this isn’t the case for the new CEO of The Clink Charity, Donna-Marie Edmonds. When I speak to her, she’s been in the role less than three weeks – a busy three weeks at that.

The Clink Charity reduces reoffending by training prisoners in hospitality, providing real work experience and qualifications to support rehabilitation and employment after release. “All the acronyms, all the new language, the new semantics that you’ve got to learn…” Edmonds says, “it’s a whirlwind; a steep learning curve.” But her two-decade background in education means she’s prepared for the challenge.

“I am an institutionalised person. I’ve spent more than two decades working in schools and many people would say school is like a prison. I wouldn’t, I love my schools, but all of that routine and regulation… I’m used to that, this is my comfort zone.”

All about education

The urge to educate has been something she recognised from a young age. From an Irish immigrant family, it was evident to Edmonds that education wasn’t something her family valued. “It was really clear to me that if I didn’t get educated, I was going to be stuck in a cycle of poverty that had been pretty institutionalised within my family unit and I wouldn’t get off my estate.”

Growing up on a ‘notorious’ estate in South London, teaching was something that interested Edmonds. “The support that I perhaps wasn’t getting from family would certainly come from teachers. So when it came to career choice, it was all about education.” That path led her to a career working in schools, specialising with young people with neurodiverse needs, disabilities and special educational needs – until the pandemic hit.

Edmonds worked in a school that was open throughout the various lockdowns and it had a significant impact. “I got to the point where I felt that I needed to take a step away from teaching,” she explains. “But I didn’t want to not lean into those things I’m most passionate about – working with people that face barriers, challenges and have the least opportunities and access to things.”

Naturally, that led to her asking how she could transfer those skills to the charity sector. Her first role was in an arts organisation before becoming CEO of Farms for City Children, an organisation she already had a connection to, before now ending up at The Clink Charity.

So what attracted her to the role? “At its core, it’s an education charity,” Edmonds states, believing that she was a good fit for the job (and evidently the board agreed). The type of work the charity does and the people it helps, was a pull for Edmonds. “I like to work in organisations that have growth mentality, growth mindset… so the role just seemed really exciting.”

But the successes of the charity does not mean that there isn’t room for improvement or changes, one Edmonds is well prepared to tackle. “The Clink has been through an enormous, accelerated evolution, but there is still more it could be doing. There is still more impact it could be having, and it could have a slightly different demographic. The fact that The Clink wants to work with more young people is really exciting to me.”

Keep evolving

The people, Edmonds adds, have been the standout so far. She highlights the commitment of not only the people within the charity, but others she’s met within the prison systems and Ministry of Justice. “It’s full of good people trying every single day to have servant hearts, to give back to the society that they’re in.”

Edmonds reiterates how good the people are when talking about the challenges she’s faced coming into the organisation. Getting up to speed in a new organisation can be daunting, and it’s the help from others that can be so valuable. “[I am] learning from the people that I work with, that have been doing this type of work for years… they’re better placed, they have better knowledge than me, better experience, better expertise and knowing when to defer to them is critical.”

But, she adds, by coming from a different system, she can bring fresh ideas, push back and challenge things to keep things evolving. The prison system, much like schools and NHS, face significant financial pressures. “The biggest challenge is going to be staying on the balls of my feet, pivoting, understanding that some of this stuff is not going to work… because of timing. The public purse is not in the right place.

“There are going to be big challenges ahead for an organisation like ours. But there are opportunities, too. There’s a strong feeling that we’ve got an administration at the moment that wants reform, wants change and doesn’t want to manage the prison estate in the same way.”

Those opportunities don’t mean Edmonds is immediately going to make sweeping changes. After settling in and making an appraisal of the organisation, she intends to think about what serves the mission of the charity, “ensuring we don’t have mission drift on things we take on.”

She acknowledges that the charity has already made a step forward on that, focusing on its work in the community “and I’m just going to really push forward on that.”

Edmonds also intends to scale up other programmes, including a gardens project and the work the events team does: “Growth and support in that area will only benefit more people in the prison estate so my role is to make sure that can continue to grow.”

Leadership is lonely

Despite all the positives, Edmonds is not unaware of the challenges facing the wider sector. “I’ve felt the dip in optimism,” she explains when asked about the changes she’s seen since she’s joined the charity sector. “You don’t choose to work in this sector unless you are a relentlessly positive person. You have to be, because you’re dealing with the biggest problems in society… but people are overwhelmed.”

She notes how a number of other charity CEOs are deciding to give up their jobs and find other work. The work is all consuming, she says, with other leaders working 80 or 90 hours a week “and that’s getting worse.”

The funding crisis is having an incredibly damaging impact, she adds. When foundations and grant givers pause, or reset agendas or close down “it causes chaos”.

“You’ve got to take on a project just to get some funding, and then the project comes to an end and you’ve got to make these people redundant. That’s no way for our sector to be running.”

Edmonds tells me she’s had messages and calls from colleagues in the middle of the night who have called her in the midst of a panic attack because they’re so overwhelmed.

“We’ve got a network where we’ll phone each other,” she adds: “Don’t be alone, call someone, because leadership is lonely. You absorb all that responsibility on your shoulder and I think that CEOs… are in real mental and physical health crisis themselves.” It worries Edmonds, notably because the third sector is being used to prop up many statutory services and without these CEOs, those charities will close.

But what can be done?

“It’s not even realistic to say that the government needs to be funding this because there is no money… there have been reckless political decisions in the last five years that have not been good for our sector.

“I think what is absolutely imperative is that those in power respect this sector… that they understand the social value and how much more we would have to be picking up as taxpayers if the sector wasn’t doing this work. Charity leaders need respect, they certainly don’t need to be bashed by the Charity Commission… there should be less worrying about what charity leaders are saying, and more funding of charities and support for those leaders to do their work so they don’t need to make overtly political statements.”

Edmonds feels like she’s fortunate because she has a network of support she can lean on, but not everyone does. “It’s just making sure that we all talk about it, and we encourage CEOs and leaders to understand they’re not alone; that we’re all going through these same things, and that maybe we could lean into each other a little bit more, share resources, pull things together, write joint bids, collaborate more.”

It’s evident from speaking to Edmonds that she has plans - not only for her future, but plans that the wider charity sector can learn and benefit from, too. Despite only being at the start of this new role, Edmonds is already shaping a future worth paying attention to.

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