Jo's story

When Jo O’Sullivan, Legacies and In-Memory Volunteer, started looking for volunteering opportunities, she wanted something she could do outside her home.

Now my children are a bit older, it was important to me that I actually went into an office and did something with other people – I wanted that external stimulation.

She enjoys the buzz of Shelter’s Old Street office in London where she volunteers twice a week.

The legacy team, Jo explains, is in charge of bequests left to Shelter in wills as well as donations made in memory of a loved one who has died.

People don’t send flowers so much anymore for funerals and will often give to a charity instead. Sometimes people even want to remember someone who died five years ago—that’s really lovely.

Jo helps the team with the administration which comes with receiving legacies and donations.

When someone uses the free will service to leave us a legacy, I send them a welcome pack and enter them in the supporter database. On the in-memory side we send people information on donating and I update various internal documents, so we know what’s happening. And I write to thank them.

Jo was drawn to Shelter because she wanted a role with a charity that she would find relevant and interesting.

I really like buildings and houses, but I’m also interested in that sense of home and what people do to make that. I wanted my children to know how lucky they were to be able to come home and talk about their day and not worry if this was where they’d come back to tomorrow.

When Jo’s two children were young, she had a taste of the poor conditions that can come with rental properties when her landlord refused to replace a boiler that was not powerful enough to heat the house.

In the end the children didn’t go into the kitchen because it was too cold.

The experience gave her a sense of how the ‘skewed power dynamic of renting works—the landlady held all the cards. Since beginning her volunteer role, she’s seen just how much desperation the housing crisis is generating

Some people email the legacy inbox for help because they think that’s a way in—you know they must be sitting up late at night really looking for help.

One of the best experiences Jo’s had since starting her volunteering role last August was fielding a call from a donor who wanted to leave his estate to charities.

I was able to help and send him the information. And it was great to see the message has been correctly communicated—he felt his children were more than catered for and he wanted to help people who really aren’t.

Jo would like anyone who has thought of volunteering for Shelter to know just how enriching the experience can be.

If someone had told me that I was going to be working on a database—and seven months later be a database superuser—I would have been surprised, but it’s such a welcoming and supportive environment that even if you don’t have particular skill sets the opportunity is there to learn them.