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Reflecting on the challenges of a career in nonprofits

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a simplistic drawing of a wizard

I’ve been working for nonprofits, as a professional or as a volunteer, for 47 years, starting when I was 13 and volunteered in the office of a hospice where my mother worked. I’ve always been drawn to nonprofit organizations – to mission-based organizations. It’s more than the charitable nature: nonprofits work to create appreciation for things I hold dear, like the arts or a clean, natural environment or walkable, livable cities. They push for causes that are core to my own values, like human rights. Whether it’s encouraging people to spay and neuter their dogs and cats or encouraging young girls to play sports or providing shelter to people experiencing homelessness or promoting the idea that web sites should be accessible, nonprofits play a crucial role in making life worth living.

But working for nonprofits – or charities, as they are called in the United Kingdom, or non-government organizations (NGOs) in other countries – is not easy, and having devoted most of my professional life to such, I’ve been reflecting on those challenges:

  • Despite our vital, necessary work, despite the level of responsibilities we have, despite the experience and expertise we bring to our work, and despite the expectations for our work, nonprofit professionals are grossly underpaid. I work with employees receiving SNAP benefits because they are paid so little – EMPLOYEES!
  • There are people actively encouraging funders NOT to pay nonprofit professionals competitive salaries. There are people that don’t believe nonprofit professionals should get to be homeowners, or send their children to university, or drive a new car. These people don’t believe a university degree, including higher degrees, are necessary for the complexities of nonprofit work, and therefor they think it’s ridiculous that nonprofit employees have degrees and the debt that comes with such. There are people that believe those that work at nonprofits should never expect to financially prosper from their work.
  • Many from the for-profit world don’t believe nonprofits are experts at anything. They believe that nonprofit staff are people who couldn’t get jobs at corporations or other businesses. They think nonprofit staff don’t know how to do basic business functions, like accounting or project management. They believe they could figure out how to do any job at a nonprofit in just a few minutes (if that). I cannot count how many times someone from the business world has talked down to me because I work at nonprofits.

  • Many from the for-profit world think volunteers are just free labor, and the reason to involve volunteers is because there’s too much work to do for employees, or that it’s a great way to eliminate paid positions. They never see volunteer engagement as a way to reach potential new donors or other supporters, and get angry when they have to work with volunteers. These for-profit business folks also have never taken any course nor read any material on how to work with volunteers and scoff at the idea that they need such.
  • Many from outside our industry think that solving an ongoing community or environmental problem is just a matter of inventing a tool. How many times have I seen yet another design for a simple home for the homeless or for refugees – ignoring the fact that the challenge is WHERE the homes will go, not what they are made of or how quickly they can be assembled? Or all the people that think the challenge to more people volunteering at nonprofits is recruitment, not the reality that most staff have no training in working with volunteers and the resources needed to adequately support volunteers are out of reach for most nonprofits?
  • Too many people ignore what nonprofits are trying to achieve and that most of what we do is NOT charity. Absolutely, people are in need of things like free food, temporary shelter, blankets, etc. But most nonprofits are trying to create and improve community, promote social cohesion, address inequities, improve public health, help more people access education, jobs and more, and on and on. And these activities aren’t just nice; they are necessary. They affect housing prices, property values, the quality of public schools, public safety, crime rates, the profit margins for small margins, and employee recruitment for large corporations.
  • The idea of being a mission-based organization, rather than a profit-focused organization, is completely lost on most of corporate America. Promoting the arts in prisons isn’t meant to be an income-generation activity – it’s meant to teach people how to understand the range of their emotions and their connection to other humans, with the hope that they won’t harm other humans or themselves. That something isn’t financially stable through income-generation doesn’t make it somehow NOT something worth having.
  • Our industry is dominated by women professionals except at the executive level. And most major conferences will have a slew of men as speakers and trainers disproportionate to the number of women who staff nonprofits and NGOs. Women leaders are still seen, primarily, as pushy, not as the innovators and amazing managers that they are.
  • There are people actively trying to disparage and undermine our sector. Some are angry that nonprofits have been successful at curbing business activities that harm the environment or that have been harmful to certain groups of people – and therefore curbing their personal profits. Some are angry that nonprofits have successfully advocated for marginalized people, thereby eating into the power of men, especially white men. Some are angry that nonprofits are advocating for equity – also known as fairness – for all people which, again, eats into the power of men, especially white men, forcing them to work as hard as others.

Nonprofits – mission-based organizations – aren’t without fault, and there are many that could, and should, be run better. But the same is true of many corporations.

I have no regrets at the career I’ve chosen. But I’m sad to see a lot of my work disappear from the web, and a lot of initiatives I’ve been a part of and that were making a difference for certain communities get defunded and abandoned. I am sad to see so many nonprofits fighting to continue to exist and under attack from political and corporate forces.

As nonprofits shrink and their work disappears, the loss will be for everyone, not just for the nonprofits.

What funding volunteer engagement looks like

Disrupting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Corporate employees are often not successful at virtual volunteering. Why?

Are charities “stuck up” – or the corporate volunteers offering help?

Corporate volunteers can be a burden for nonprofits

Corporate Volunteer Programs: What Do Nonprofits Want From Them?

Deriding the monetary value of volunteer hours: my mission in life?

The problem with volunteer matching platforms isn’t a software issue

Donors offering feedback on humanitarian projects & proposals

The Upsides of Working for a UN Agency

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Since early April, I’ve been writing and publishing my thoughts and advice related to a career in international humanitarian development. I think this will finally wrap up that series of blogs, though I’ll probably have more to say later.

To end this series, I’m going to share an answer that I posted to Reddit in response to this question:

Is there any thing that makes the UN a good place to work at? The upsides of working for UN agencies?

This question also asked lots about the “best” United Nations agency to work for, the “best” country to work in, etc. And, of course, that’s impossible to answer.

Here’s what I posted:

The UN isn’t a monolith when it comes to workplace environments nor the kind of work you do. And an office that everyone loves working in now can change drastically when a new person takes over.

Working at UNICEF isn’t the same as working at WHO. Working in the field isn’t the same as working at an HQ. Working in Kosovo isn’t the same as working in Congo. Working in procurement isn’t the same as managing a program focused on maternal health.

What I liked about working for UNDP the three times I did so:

  • I prefer working in organizations that are focused on a mission, as opposed to those focused on working for a profit. In that sense, I found it as satisfying as working for any nonprofit.
  • I loved the kind of work that I did. I worked in communications. I love writing reports. Yes, really. I love interviewing sanitation engineers about what they did last week. I love reading proposals and making them better. I love digging into data and finding things we should highlight or otherwise pay attention to. I love taking photos or going through the photos someone else took and picking the best one for a report. I love meeting with funders and “selling” what we’re doing. I love editing other people’s writing. And I loved that all of this very non-glamorous work was in pursuit of a mission to make people’s lives better, to make the environment cleaner, etc. I don’t know that I could do this kind of work for a company that makes toasters.
  • I loved working with local staff. I always considered them the real reason I was there – to build their capacities so they wouldn’t need me or anyone like me eventually. The best was in Afghanistan, when I got to work with federal government workers. I loved their energy, I loved their curiosity, I loved how much they wanted their country to be better, and I worry about them every day. Every. Day. Especially the women.
  • I loved working with the communities we were serving, on the RARE chance I got to be in the field and really experience that.
  • I really liked a lot of my co-workers that were also from somewhere else. Many were incredible workers who helped me SO much in my work. Many inspired me. Many got me through the rough times of the work.
  • I loved learning about development, and seeing what I learned about in a Master’s program really happening in real life contexts. I loved learning that a government-led community meeting in Ukraine is a heck of a lot like a government-led community meeting in Oregon.
  • There were two heads of mission that I ADORED and I am grateful to have worked with them. They were tough, they were inspiring, they were frustrating, they were demanding and they were utterly supportive. And it’s interesting to note that a lot of staff did NOT like them for all the reasons I did.
  • Yes, sure, absolutely, at times, it was a kick to get to say “I work for the United Nations.” No question.

I think that, because I was a seasoned nonprofit professional, I didn’t go into my first UN job with stars in my eyes. I also at that point had worked for a Fortune 500 company, so, altogether, I already knew the frustration of bureaucracies and encountering staff who were on power trips or who actually didn’t know what they were doing and didn’t care except for the paycheck. What sector does NOT have this? I get frustrated with people acting like the UN ecosystem is SO unique in these “negatives” – it’s not.

One last thing: I am so disappointed to be one of the few former UN workers who actively, deliberately gives career advice online to people that want to work in international development. When you take the elevator up to a higher floor, you should always send it back down. That’s common courtesy.

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