“I love all my volunteer work and I’ll never stop that, ever – I don’t care how busy I am.” – Natalie Scanlon
Natalie Scanlon has a heart as big as the south-east she calls home. All she wants to do is make a difference in the lives of people doing it tough. The Clyde North mum recently sat down with one of her former university classmate RUSSELL BENNETT to tell her story.
Natalie Scanlon just wants to help.
Whether it’s young mums doing it tough or small businesses or local residents facing hardship, all she wants to do is wrap her arms around them and help them move forward.
And that’s exactly what drives Written Communications – her professional writing business that she hopes will ‘change the corporate world, one word at a time’.
Put simply, through Written, Natalie cuts through the jargon that exists in professional documents such as contracts, terms and conditions, and hire agreements.
In doing so she helps take the fear, miscommunication and intimidation away for individuals and businesses.
She previously studied journalism, international development and law at Monash University and has used that as a basis to create a business that fills one hell of a need in the community – particularly in a growth corridor such as the south-east.
Now 28, Natalie is married to champion Narre Warren footballer Nick Scanlon and together they have an adorable little girl – Gracie.
It almost seems as though her role as a mum is perfectly suited to her desire to just help people.
Having worked for the financial ombudsman and in legal firms before, one of Natalie’s biggest issues surrounds the extraordinary fees lawyers often charge to prepare professional documents.
Not only does Written provide a solution to that, Natalie also donates her own time to help local people with writing difficulties prepare their own resumes so they can find work.
“I started this online volunteering, which I’m about to roll out at every single community centre in the City of Casey,” she said.
“It’s an opportunity for people who may be a little bit embarrassed or are unsure. If they want to apply for a job and need a resume or cover letter, I’ll do it all for free.
“I love all my volunteer work and I’ll never stop that, ever – I don’t care how busy I am,” she said.
“I don’t care if it takes from 2am to 3am to do that, I’ll do it so that people can apply for jobs.”
And then there’s the time she pours into St Kilda Mums – a volunteer not-for-profit based in St Kilda that rehomes new and pre-loved baby goods and nursery equipment to families in need.
“I woke up one morning at five. Gracie wasn’t sleeping and I just imagined if someone woke up but didn’t have their baby in a cot or couldn’t go and get what they needed to, or didn’t have a partner like Nick,” she said.
“Without him I couldn’t do any of this – I’m just so lucky.
“I cleaned out my whole house and I said I’d go and take those things somewhere. I just Googled and found St Kilda Mums and thought OK, it’s a little bit further away – I wonder if anyone else has anything they want me to take.
“Soon my whole house was just full – every single room.
“Poor Nick! He couldn’t even watch the footy on Friday night because there was just stuff everywhere.
“But people are so nice once you put the word out – especially in our area.”
Now, Natalie is a permanent St Kilda Mums volunteer and her house has become a drop-off point.
“Everyone donated these bits and pieces and I just sat and made them into nice packages in gift bags and wrote little cards with motivational notes and just popped them in,” she said.
“People will find them and open them and I just hope they look and realise they’re actually valued.”
Just like with Written, all she wants to do is help.
“That’s all it ever will be,” she said.
“If it gets to the point where I don’t want to help anymore, I won’t be able to do it.
“Making money is just not my main motivation.
“I originally wanted to be a lawyer and I got into communications and journalism
“I got to the end and got this internship in Sydney and thought – do I go for it, or do I do what I wanted to do originally?
“I just realised they (lawyers) rip people off – they rip vulnerable people off and I’m going to change it.
“I thought I was going to change it through being a solicitor but that wasn’t the way – this is.”
During her time at the ombudsman, Natalie worked with a range of ‘high-needs’ clients – some of whom were suicidal.
“They were in serious trouble and they were on the phone in tears telling me they were about to do awful things,” she said.
“Either the bank was going to repossess their home, or it was some other life-changing event. I just spoke with them and it all just came down to one word in a contract. I just thought it was ridiculous.
“A lot of it was due to errors on the banks’ part. People just don’t know, but I knew it had to stop. I just ended up drafting a lot of the correspondence we’d send to banks and to applicants and it all just started from there.”
She’s come to realise that – as cliched as it sounds – everything does happen for a reason.
“My dad died in 2013 and it was just after that,” she said.
“I’d been working at the ombudsman for a year and it was a light bulb moment.
“It was just one of those experiences in life where I just thought I couldn’t sit down and do nothing. It just came to me that I had this area of expertise, this is how I could help people.
“I had the idea and I wrote it down and just put it away and never looked at it again until I had time to look at it after I had Gracie, which is three years later.
“I just notice things with families and notice that they need help.”
Recently, Written was at a crossroads. It was growing at a rapid rate and Natalie was forced to make a decision – to throw everything she had into it, or walk away.
In stepped renowned leadership coach and speaker and the former chief executive of the Richmond, Fremantle and Melbourne football clubs, Cameron Schwab to make her decision clearer.
“Nick and I sat down and had a chat and I came across Cam Schwab on LinkedIn, just for mentoring,” Natalie said.
“I needed someone to tell me as it is, be honest, and be straight to the point.
“I called him and we had a chat. He was the nicest person and got me to come into his office – he allocated two hours where could discuss the business and where I wanted to go next to see if he could help me.
“I just wanted him to tell me if it was profitable. Because I hadn’t been in business before I didn’t know, but it was going faster than what I knew and I didn’t know what to do next.
“He sat there with me for two hours and came up with all these different business strategies and only spoke to me in football language so I could understand it.
“I couldn’t believe someone was actually taking a chance on me – no one had ever taken me seriously before. It’d always been me telling people they should do this or that, but no one had done that for me before.”
She made the decision to go full-steam ahead with Written, and now she’s looking at the next step.
Not only does she write content for Written, Natalie also provides content for a range of blogs and other professional websites.
“I’ll do this forever,” she said.
“I won’t stop doing this now – I don’t think there’s any other option.
“I knew that what I was meant to be doing was writing – and this has confirmed it.
“There’s always been a need, and there always will be. This should have been done sooner, and it makes me angry it hasn’t been.
“People are being taken advantage of. The amount of people who don’t have access to it is something I need to start thinking about – how can I get it out there more and expand this. Hence the online volunteering for all the community centres. That’s a big project and something that’ll take time, but that will happen.”
