Meet the Matchable Team: Sareeka, Impact Organisation Lead
The first in our new blog series introducing the matchable team. Get to know us and our roles, starting with sareeka, our impact organisation lead.
Could you introduce yourself?
I’m Sareeka, the Impact Organisation Lead at Matchable. I’ve been part of the team for over a year - I joined in January 2020 as Matchable’s first full-time employee (obviously after Foong, our founder).
How did you come to be at Matchable?
I’ve had a very varied career up until now, doing lots of different things. I started off in a FinTech company and then decided that actually where I wanted to be was in the impact space, so I worked for a social enterprise, and then a B Corp, for a while.
After losing my job I had some time to reflect, and think about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be. I came across Matchable and it seemed like the perfect merging of all of the past experience that I’ve had on both the corporate side, and also the impact side. I really felt like I’d hit the jackpot with it!. I still do!
What do you do at Matchable, and what does a normal day look like for you?
I’m the Impact Organisation Lead, so my main responsibility is to support and expand our community of impact organisations. Every day is different. The way we work has changed since I joined - the team was very small and we were building things from scratch. My job was to get impact organisations on board, and then get projects from them that we could match with our volunteers. For the first year or so it was very much about getting those projects and building up the hub that we’ve created. Generally it involved reaching out to organisations, having conversations with them and really learning what their pain points were and where they needed help, and turning those into project briefs. I also did some matching back then too…
We worked very reactively at the start, especially when Covid hit and we had a complete rethink about what we wanted to offer. There was a period of time where there were lots of different things going on; every day we’d have our team meeting in the morning and there’d be some change…
This year has been really nice, quite different in lots of ways. Our team has got a lot bigger (we’re now a team of nine) and my role has become more strategic, which is great. I’ve also started to have a think about some other aspects of the company, so I’ve been working on a Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) piece over the last couple of months and also thinking about our hiring process moving forward. I am very much still about the projects, but it’s been nice to weave some other things into my job role as well.
What’s your favourite thing about working at Matchable?
I love that I have a lot of autonomy. I’ve been able to roll with what I want to do, and Foong has always been supportive, which is amazing. I really get to take on something and feel like I own it. That’s definitely happened with this D&I piece, I just ran with it and Foong has been fully on board. I think having that ownership and ability to take on new things is really great.
For the sake of balance, what is the hardest thing about working at Matchable?
We are very small and it’s tough being a young company. Especially when we were a very small team we were working really hard, and it was exhausting at times. I think when Covid hit it was quite exhausting mentally - my brain felt fried at the end of every day. That was challenging, but we all did so well and it was really rewarding.
What are you hoping to see in Matchable’s future?
Looking back at the last year we have come so far, and grown so much, that it feels like a completely different company in lots of ways. I’m really excited to see what the rest of the year brings - what the team will look like, how many more companies we’ll have on board and the kind of companies we’ll have on board, all the cool projects that we’ll be matching. Also thinking about how we might expand outside of the UK and where that might take us. I’m looking forward to seeing how we change and grow as a company.
Outside of Matchable, tell us a bit about yourself?
I live in London, currently in East London where I’ve been for a while. I was also born in London, so I’ve been here my whole life.
In my free time, I love walking, it’s sort of saved me during these lockdowns. Especially when I (basically) lived alone in Lockdown one, going for a long walk with a podcast in was the highlight of my day. I’m really lucky that I live near Walthamstow Marshes and the Wetlands, so I try to go for a walk there most days. It’s a really nice way to get back into nature because it feels like you’re not really in London - it feels like a little sanctuary.
Finally, as the Non-Profit and Start-up Lead, is there a particular cause, organisation or project that you’re really excited about at the moment?
There are so many amazing organisations so this is the hardest question! One really innovative organisation that always sticks in my mind is Choco4Peace. They are helping ex-cocaine farmers in Columbia to transition to growing cacao, helping to support them and build peace in their communities. I think it is amazing that the humble cacao bean can create such a huge impact on so many farmers’ lives! There are so many others though, I’m constantly amazed at the work so many fantastic people are doing.
Find out more about our employee volunteering platform here.