|
I posted in the general BFC thread to see if there was any interest. One person said yes, and I want to complain about my job someplace less embarrassing than my group chats, so welcome to a nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO) and philanthropy thread. What is an NGO? Let’s ask our BFF Investopedia: quote:An NGO is a nonprofit, citizen-based group that functions independently of government. NGOs, sometimes called civil societies, are organized on community, national and international levels to serve specific social or political purposes, and are cooperative, rather than commercial, in nature. Nonprofits and NGOs are, well, non-governmental institutions whose function is not to amass profit but instead to provide a particular service. In the US and elsewhere, they typically enjoy tax-exempt status and do not have to pay taxes on donations. Donations made to an NGO are also typically tax-deductible. People used to call these organizations charities, but in my experience that’s slipped somewhat out of common parlance. You may recognise household names such as the Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity; NGOs also include advocacy organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Some of them have, uh, issues. If you went to college, your college probably shits in your inbox every week to ask for donations because it has its own fundraising arm in the form of a foundation. In all likelihood, though, there are also dozens of local NGOs in your area doing the human services work your government opted out of directly providing in the 1980s, providing everything from housing for the homeless to minimal-cost medical treatment to domestic violence shelters to arts and culture ... The list goes on and on. How do NGOs make money? quote:How NGOs are Funded This is where the big distinction from, I suppose, an ordinary corporation stems from. Corporations provide a good or service in the pursuit of profit; NGOs do it because it’s the right thing to do. What this amounts to functionally is a sector that grows when the public sector shrinks and the private sector doesn’t deem it profitable to pick up the slack. This means that to keep the lights on many nonprofits will have various and sundry income streams such as membership programs, merch and a department devoted entirely to begging for money. Should I work for an NGO? Saying what you do will be a hit at parties and God will probably let you into heaven, but the salary will be lovely so hopefully you just (clenches fist) care so drat much or are married to a BFC person who makes BFC bucks. The revolving door between other sectors and industry-adjacent NGOs is very real so a lot of people come thru when they’re burnt out on private sector or government work and are married to an engineer. Yeah I said it twice and I’m gonna keep saying it. Bitch How’s the NGO sector doing now? Eh ... Well, in 2016 NGO jobs accounted for about 10 percent of private sector employment in the US. 2016 was a lifetime ago. In the era of COVID, who the gently caress knows. Charitable giving always takes a hit when the market does poorly. Turnover rates are high because salaries aren’t competitive with the private sector. But the burden on social services organizations is higher than it has been in years. People who give a poo poo continue to have to learn how to do more with less. Some fun reads re: current events:
Whenever you put in hours at the food bank over the holidays you’re a nice guy, but whenever a rich person starts a foundation they are a philanthropist. This is mostly because they don’t want to pay taxes and also want something cool to be named after them. Many goons were alive in the 1990s and remember when everyone hated Bill Gates for being an annoying piece of poo poo. Well, he cured malaria actually, so gently caress you. Or did he? He didn’t. But everyone thinks he did, so he might as well have. Philanthropy is an industry unto itself and is somewhat more opaque than general nonprofit work; in fact, funders and NGOs enjoy a difficult power dynamic. I could talk about this all day, but basically: if you donate enough money to an organization to get your name on a brick on a hospital walkway, that does not make you a doctor so maybe try not to let it go to your head. Still, donating money, time or resources to nonprofits is a good way to get a tax break if you do enough of it. You may even consider joining the board of an organization whose work you support that might be able to use your connections or expertise. There are even ways to “donate” your skills directly. alright but what is the thread about really I’d like to see if anyone else works in this hell sector and how they’re doing. Barring that, I’m happy to answer questions about the weird world of NGOs, from structural questions to (general) programmatic questions. I can also talk at length about philanthropy and charitable giving, which is an even weirder world than you might think. For some brief background I work primarily as a computer toucher but have also done programmatic work in various capacities at arts and culture, political, housing and philanthropic organizations. This is good because these are all in-line with my interests, degree, life experience and professional experiences but not everyone is so lucky. I am a good fundraiser. I have a long volunteer history. I am also a leftist so I have a lot of troubled and dire ideas about the sector to begin with, but this ain’t C-SPAM or TMR so I’ll keep it civil unless asked directly about a thing that strikes a nerve.
|
#
?
May 12, 2020 04:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 20, 2024 02:20 |
|
|
Hi, I wanted to stop in. I changed board seats/roles for a small non profit I helped run. It was unpaid because our budget was about $500 when we started actually running it, but also wasn’t a huge time demand until later. It’s an interesting world there with COVID, we are figuring out what our summer fundraisers look like in this mess as we usually do a golf tournament.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2020 04:41
|
|
|
I'm a computer toucher for an INGO and lead a global team of technicians. Travel for work since coronas has gone to zero but on the flip side migration projects of pushing everything from on-site to cloud and video conferencing has accelerated so I'm basically working from home all hours of the day for about 2/3 market rate and a shoestring budget. During normal times I love the autonomy and the culture is much more relaxed than private sector (there's no up-or-out pressure and any assholes that just want a do-gooder ticket on their CV tend to get weeded out quickly) and being a very mobile workforce with users in the field constantly we have managed to be ahead of the curve by issuing new starters with proper laptops instead of desktops or zero clients for the last 5 years. I also second myself to Nethope from time to time who are a conglomerate of NGO partners and Tech firms pushing solutions to the sector and enable really fulfilling projects - probably my most useful two weeks on this earth were when we speed-installed 20 refugee camps with wifi during the European migration crisis. Also get the opportunity to join UN training sessions and play with fancy satellite tech that pure office worker sysadmins don't usually see so there is that side benefit compared to being a six figgie earner at an SP500 or ""stock"" holder in a startup
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2020 11:08
|
|
|
crazypeltast52 posted:Hi, I wanted to stop in. I changed board seats/roles for a small non profit I helped run. It was unpaid because our budget was about $500 when we started actually running it, but also wasn’t a huge time demand until later. Neat neat neat. Yeah most people who run big party fundraisers are hosed right now and it's difficult to pivot that kind of hype to virtual programming. A lot of groups here are tentatively just postponing things like golf tournaments, but I'll let you know if I hear any interesting ideas. How big is your board and are y'all brainstorming together? Doccykins posted:I'm a computer toucher for an INGO and lead a global team of technicians. Travel for work since coronas has gone to zero but on the flip side migration projects of pushing everything from on-site to cloud and video conferencing has accelerated so I'm basically working from home all hours of the day for about 2/3 market rate and a shoestring budget. During normal times I love the autonomy and the culture is much more relaxed than private sector (there's no up-or-out pressure and any assholes that just want a do-gooder ticket on their CV tend to get weeded out quickly) and being a very mobile workforce with users in the field constantly we have managed to be ahead of the curve by issuing new starters with proper laptops instead of desktops or zero clients for the last 5 years. This is really neat  I have no experience with international big-names. All my work has been metropolitan and regional, where there's a dearth of tech talent willing to accept NGO salaries in my area, so I'm always relieved to see other computer touchers doing great work in the civil sector. Unrelated, I talked about this a little in the COVID thread but I manage arts funds in a regional philanthropic organisation and performing arts groups seem pretty hosed for the time being. Would encourage folks to support arts groups where possible RN as they aren't particularly prioritized by response funding at the moment. Right now we've got a big firm out trying to assess when people will be comfortable returning to both movie theaters and THE THEATRE and the outlook is quite bleak.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2020 14:38
|
|
|
hi, just found this subforum. am a grantwriter in the US with six years experience, primarily write state + foundation proposals with very positive annual reviews and if i may say so, really good performance at an institution that is pretty unaffected or even helped by COVID, so good job security. plus i'm the only grantwriter they have managed to retain for more than a year in the past 5-6 years due to a 'difficult' CEO (aka a CEO with high standards who i actually like and connect with). anyway, i think i'm a little underpaid- it's a $10m+ org with 100 employees, i make ~$50k/year with extremely bad insurance, my proposals raise $3-4m a year and i've been there 2.5 years. while i've gotten the standard COL 3% raise each year and decent bonuses (bonuses at a nonprofit are pretty incredible, i'll admit) i think people in my role in comparable positions in my area make around $60k/year. I like this org a lot but I have observed and experienced that the only way to get a substantial pay bump in my area is to transition orgs. I don't want to leave, though- this org feels meaningful, and, unlike every other nonprofit i've worked at, is very effective at its mission, and, as I mentioned, I think is a place to stick with long-term. if i don't go whole hog and ask for a raise, at the very least i would like complete flexibility to work remotely, because of a possible upcoming out-of-state move, and also gently caress going in and catching COVID. currently HR has on the books a schedule for me that is 3 days at home, 2 days in office which I negotiated during most recent review. I don't think my boss actually gives a gently caress and is too busy to care about what I actually do, BUT i basically interact with nobody when i'm there, and nobody is around anyway, so it feels so pointless and soul-draining to sit in a small office for an arbitrary reason. it's also a bit stressful to think about how I'm stretching the 'rules' or whatever when I don't go in at all some weeks. (yes I am square.) it's been a boon to my mental health to be able to work at home, i'm more productive, and my boss seemed rattled when she wrongly perceived that i was trying to leave the org based on misinterpreting a random question i'd had. so i definitely have motivation and leverage, and i know negotiation is a skill that needs to be honed (i'm pretty inexperienced at it though), but i feel there are some elements of this kind of situation that are unique to the nonprofit field. i wonder if gaining a sense of meaning from your work is what they counter with to an 'ask' like this, and i know that feeling a sense of meaning from one's work is in some senses a perk, but still, i deliver results, and i am an asset to the organization. plus the job market is insanely hot in our area. last, we're starting a huge multi-year campaign and it would be extremely poor timing to lose your grantwriter at this point. ANYWAY, any ideas? when i mentioned wanting complete flexibility my boss said 'i'd have to think about that, there are a lot of considerations', which i get because i don't think any employee here has ever been fully remote. but i sense i'm going to have to continually bring it up and push for it if it were to ever happen. she's overextended and pulled in eight directions at once- i want to make this easy for her and a no-brainer for the org. global tetrahedron fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Jan 14, 2022 |
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2022 02:00
|
|
|
I used to work at a nonprofit and now I work doing the same work at a government agency making 50% more than I did at the nonprofit. The only downside is I had more vacation time at the nonprofit. My partner works in fundraising at nonprofit, and is dealing with a lot of performative DEI discussions where the white males in charge of the org talk about DEI issues but have no interest in self reflection about power/privilege or changing work practices to be more inclusive. So I guess it's the same as almost any US-based employer but with lower pay.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2022 20:07
|
|
|
Oh man, I had no idea this thread existed! I'm YP and I have been in the nonprofit field for basically my entire adult life. I was a Peace Corps volunteer, I did some teaching in Japan, I worked at a very small educational programming nonprofit doing programs and development, and now I am on the opposite side working for a grant making foundation. I also have dual Master's Degrees in Public Administration and Non-Profit Management. I'm by no means a lawyer, but I have a fair bit of knowledge on legal practices and the history of nonprofits in America. I'd love to gab about anything nonprofit with any goons who will listen! I will say I'm in a rare position because I actually make pretty good money at my current job. I'm in a pretty low cost of living city, so I'd be drowning in L.A. or New York, but I make enough to support myself and my dog. I've only spent slightly less than a year of my adult life working in the for-profit sector. Right when Covid hit my little nonprofit that survived entirely on independent donors was in a bad place. The CEO/Founder was basically my mentor, and I knew that he would do everything he could to keep me on, even though I wasn't the most valuable member of the team. I ended up finding a job at a megacorp doing project management and so I took that, partially for the security and pay increase, but partially because I thought it was the best move for the organization. My CEO was sad, but he knew it was time for me to go. I worked for about a year at the megacorp, and it was miserable. I have to work because I'll starve if I don't, but I began to really understand what people mean when they say they are in a job "for the money". Everyone was pissed off and constantly backbiting and cutting corners to make themselves look good. It made me realize how important it is for me to work for a mission, not so someone I'll never meet can make another million dollars this quarter. I was making about 50k there, and honestly even if I was making 150k I think I would still hate my life. I can't complain though, because that job helped me land my current gig, which is as close to a dream job as I'll ever get. I've never dreamed of labour, but my current position is one where I genuinely improve the lives of those who need it most. I also love my team. It's such a massive difference going from a corporate position to an intimate and friendly team. It's like how every corporation says "we're a family!", but what they mean is "We're the parents and we expect you to do everything we say and make sacrifices that we would never reciprocate". The place I'm at now genuinely is like a sort of family, and the leadership is really big on making sure we have a flexible work environment. One of my coworkers basically does all her work from like 8PM-2AM because she has several young kids. It really is amazing. So yeah, you'll get paid less in the nonprofit field. And honestly, almost everyone I know who has been in the nonprofit field for a long time is in a situation where they are like "Oh I love my job and I would never go to the for-profit sector!", but they are married and their partner makes 200k a year in finance or whatever. So if you really want to do it, my suggestion is to marry someone wealthy. global tetrahedron posted:ANYWAY, any ideas? when i mentioned wanting complete flexibility my boss said 'i'd have to think about that, there are a lot of considerations', which i get because i don't think any employee here has ever been fully remote. but i sense i'm going to have to continually bring it up and push for it if it were to ever happen. she's overextended and pulled in eight directions at once- i want to make this easy for her and a no-brainer for the org. You mentioned your boss is kind of hard-to-please, but as a grant writer you really do have a very concrete list of success you can present in the form of grants obtained. If you're bringing roughly 40% of your entire organization's annual income, that's a lot of leverage. You could argue that the benefits of having a free WFH schedule will outway whatever benefits your boss things will come from you being arbitrarily forced into the office at certain times. My leadership is very results oriented, and I have basically had carte blanche to work from home or office since I started. I personally like to go into the office most afternoons, but it's just cause my desk at home is lovely. Yorkshire Pudding fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Feb 15, 2022 |
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 19:03
|
|
|
I’m the finance director of a 501(c)(3) I have 7 direct reports with accounting and HR and I’m taking over our program tracking department / reporting department. I’m actually trying to build out development since it doesn’t exist in this org, I would expect to pay an entry level grant writer out of school maybe 50-55k, and then for it to go up with experience. Actually I don’t know what market you’re in but I have several pay surveys as I’m doing a compensation analysis right now.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2022 21:22
|
|
|
Yorkshire Pudding posted:You mentioned your boss is kind of hard-to-please, but as a grant writer you really do have a very concrete list of success you can present in the form of grants obtained. If you're bringing roughly 40% of your entire organization's annual income, that's a lot of leverage. You could argue that the benefits of having a free WFH schedule will outway whatever benefits your boss things will come from you being arbitrarily forced into the office at certain times. fortunately my observation that she is pulled in 8 directions constantly meant my proposal for 100% WFH was a non-issue, and they even needed my office, so it was a win-win. what i'm realizing is frustrating me is that my performance is basically assessed on how much private philanthropy i bring in. those numbers always look good, which means i have quality annual reviews. however, i play a lead role in generating and submitting most of our government contracts, and the financial tracking on that functions differently, and falls outside of our department. that's why i'd said i raise $3-4M a year- so on paper i raise $2M/year from philanthropy but i've probably pulled in $1-3M a year from contracts depending on the year. with a lot of federal money coming down the pipeline from ARPA this will not change and contracts might even become even more of a demand on my time. we've had a gradual leadership transition at the top, and apparently they are going to be reevaluating SOPs across the org. i'm definitely going to bring up that the organization needs to handle contracts differently and that i am happy to take on more of a defined role- overall, generation and submission is a mess every time. as our org grows i think what was once the easy-out afterthought of 'dump contracts on the grantwriter' needs to be seriously rethought. and i should absolutely be compensated more for playing a major part in those submissions. they're not just a financial boon for the organization, the ability to speak about federal/state/county support lends more credibility to the organization pseudanonymous posted:I’m the finance director of a 501(c)(3) I have 7 direct reports with accounting and HR and I’m taking over our program tracking department / reporting department. i make 52k with 6.5 years of grantwriting experience in multiple fields, (workforce development, vocational post-secondary, out-of-school-time, healthcare) not sure if this is an asset or a liability, on the one hand i can adapt easily, on the other, i could see this coming across as a jack-of-all-trades situation last, my job title has been grants coordinator or grants writer for my last four positions. it is getting a little stale, and while i could find better pay transitioning orgs, i'm wondering if this is the time to apply my experience and skills to a different type of position altogether. the only thing i know i absolutely do not want to do is deal with individual donors. beyond that i'm easy. i'm open to anything at this point
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2022 19:16
|
|
|
Wow I totally forgot I had this thread. Glad to see some folks in here Trying to secure a remote job with a new NGO right meow because I've burnt out hard at my current one and that in combination with MH issues is affecting my performance badly. I am sitting on 300 unread emails right now so that's fun. Being a tech guy is fun. I hope everyone is on the prowl for a wealthy partner at this very moment.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2022 22:21
|
|
|
It's funny, after 14 years on and off (mostly on, and full-time for the past 8) of development work, I am absolutely burned out on wealthy anybody. I usually don't even deal with them directly (and, for every nonprofit job I've had, I'm the only contact most "regular person" level donors have with the org), but I see people give us tens of thousands of dollars a year (or more) for decades and the exposure to all that wealth inequality is starting to get to me. Yes, I know it's better for us to have it (I really do believe in the cause) than for the rich fucks to keep it, but I'm being more and more bothered by the fact that they have it at all. Why yes, it IS Gala season, how can you tell...
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2022 06:32
|
|
|
After The War posted:It's funny, after 14 years on and off (mostly on, and full-time for the past 8) of development work, I am absolutely burned out on wealthy anybody. I usually don't even deal with them directly (and, for every nonprofit job I've had, I'm the only contact most "regular person" level donors have with the org), but I see people give us tens of thousands of dollars a year (or more) for decades and the exposure to all that wealth inequality is starting to get to me. Yes, I know it's better for us to have it (I really do believe in the cause) than for the rich fucks to keep it, but I'm being more and more bothered by the fact that they have it at all. Just seeing the heinous amounts of digits that get thrown around chips away at you, for sure. I was thinking about the services community foundations and donor-advised funds provide. Basically, they facilitate philanthropic giving both logistically and supposedly in due diligence terms - theoretically the foundation I worked at would do "homework" on a nonprofit and then theoretically show donors that, yes, this is a good place to put your money because we looked into it all. But there's genuinely very little that qualifies people at foundations and the admins at DAFs to make those assessments. The kind of metrics that funders ask for are often difficult for small organisations to generate or calculate accurately. So they fudge the numbers, and then funders fudge giving a poo poo about those numbers and make relatively arbitrary decisions about how to allocate resources. The idea that both a nonprofit and a funder have to run like a business has functionally made the fundraising process something of a smoke-and-mirrors situation, to me. The due diligence obligations that nonprofits have to funders are mostly nonsense. The push for equity in philanthropy (which in itself is a nonsense phrase) has made some more progressive funders pull back on their due diligence or means-testing. But that really only goes to show how bullshit it all is.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2022 19:28
|
|
|
I work for an agency that helps people with disabilities plan for the future, and I volunteer as a board member for another agency that runs an art program for people with mental health challenges.  It's good, though I wish I had more hours/made more money. Working on my grant writing skills since that seems to be a highly employable skill in the sector, volunteering here and there. I was able to wrangle 16k for a very small mobile food bank group a few months ago and feel good about that. It's a drop in the bucket, but it does buy an awful lot of food for people who are struggling right now.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2022 19:59
|
|
|
Doc Fission posted:Just seeing the heinous amounts of digits that get thrown around chips away at you, for sure. The obsession with admin and indirect takes up a huge amount of my time that could be spent improving operations and accomplishing the objectives funders claim to have.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2022 20:43
|
|
|
Please tell me if I’m on the right track before I spend untold hours diving down the rabbit hole. My extended family cares for a number of properties in Upper Michigan totaling a considerable acreage. (bought by my grandpa in the 50s) We’re currently trying to figure out how to establish an org. for looking after them that is independent of any one family member. (But control still stays wholly within the family in perpetuity) I started looking at trusts and LLCs at first, but would establishing a nonprofit work? Nobody lives on them full-time, so would it count as environmental stewardship or 501(c)(3)? Property taxes are starting to be handled by regular monthly family member contributions, and it’d be awesome if I could figure out a way to qualify them as fax-exempt too. Valicious fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Sep 26, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 21:54
|
|
|
I've been in this biz a long time, and lemme tell ya: nobody's fax-exempt. Fax machines ain't going nowhere, our cyborg bodies will still be picking up piles of paper off the floor every morning in the distant future
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2022 22:30
|
|
|
Pay your faxes.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2022 00:44
|
|
|
Valicious posted:Please tell me if I’m on the right track before I spend untold hours diving down the rabbit hole. There's a difference between nonprofit and not-for-profit. You're looking at possibly a community benefit association or something, but "to benefit a family" isn't typically the kind of community that the IRS supports. Do you allow orgs like the boy scouts or whatever to use the properties at below market rates or something? How is your family not paying taxes on their land benefiting a community? I'm pretty sure if you're sufficiently adroit with the paperwork and careful with how you phrase things, you might get away with it. But really we're talking, like, the Trump Org here. The Trump org really existed to benefit Donald Trump and his family, and claimed tax-exempt status. So is that what you want? To be the ______________(your family name) Org? If you're actually committing to never selling or developing the land, you might be able to be some kind of environmental trust that is a nonprofit. Having seen your posts in various threads, I'd say your desire not to pay taxes on your property does not meet a tax-exempt purpose under the IRS code.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2022 01:01
|
|
|
pseudanonymous posted:There's a difference between nonprofit and not-for-profit. You're looking at possibly a community benefit association or something, but "to benefit a family" isn't typically the kind of community that the IRS supports. Do you allow orgs like the boy scouts or whatever to use the properties at below market rates or something? How is your family not paying taxes on their land benefiting a community? Absolutely never going to sell or develop the land. It’s a couple hundred acres of pretty heavily forested land. A sizable portion does border DNR land if that’s applicable in any way. As property taxes continue to rise over the years, we’ve had to sell disconnected snippets just to pay the taxes on the rest. An environmental trust is about what I was thinking in order to continue to ensure its never developed/forested. (I’m pretty sure all the old hardwood trees would be gone pretty fast otherwise.) Valicious fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Sep 27, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2022 09:44
|
|
|
Valicious posted:Absolutely never going to sell or develop the land. It’s a couple hundred acres of pretty heavily forested land. A sizable portion does border DNR land if that’s applicable in any way. As property taxes continue to rise over the years, we’ve had to sell disconnected snippets just to pay the taxes on the rest. An environmental trust is about what I was thinking in order to continue to ensure its never developed/forested. (I’m pretty sure all the old hardwood trees would be gone pretty fast otherwise.) So, it's a hideous amount of paperwork to be a nonprofit, you probably want to consult an attorney and or a CPA who specializes in that sort of thing, and is familiar with the laws in your state (I am not, I am familiar only with OR, NV and WA) being a nonprofit is a federal tax designation, but getting property taxes exempted is a state process that relies on your federal tax filing status and whatever the state has set up. In Oregon, we have to file 10 different property tax exemptions because property taxes are handled at the county level. The level of scrutiny ranges from rubber stamp to me having to answer 20+ questions across multiple emails (which is inversely correlated with the population density of the county, I think some of the rural county tax assessors are just bored or whatever or really want the revenue).
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2022 16:27
|
|
|
gently caress YES. i love to HELP PEOPLE
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2022 16:25
|
|
|
ELTON JOHN posted:gently caress YES. Sure sounds like management every time staff starts murmuring about unionizing.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2022 21:52
|
|
|
ELTON JOHN posted:gently caress YES. i love to HELP PEOPLE thank you elton very cool
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2022 23:55
|
|
|
Giving Tuesday is so dumb, for real. Glad it's over so I can get annihilated by CYE instead
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2022 11:52
|
|
|
Doc Fission posted:Giving Tuesday is so dumb, for real. Glad it's over so I can get annihilated by CYE instead could you expand on this? is it just that the volume of calls/emails spike this one day?
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2022 14:34
|
|
|
Well, for my own side, it's become a huge deal over the years with plans for messaging months in advance. And it's so omnipresent that anyone who supports more than one nonprofit will get dozens and dozens of emails and texts all day, which is downright obnoxious. But, even more fundamentally, I don't like that we're all competing for the same dollar at the same time. Fundraising shouldn't be a Battle Royale with whoever has bigger ad budgets edging out smaller and regional orgs.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2022 07:57
|
|
|
Yorkshire Pudding posted:Oh man, I had no idea this thread existed! I'm thinking of breaking into the field during/after getting an MPA. What level of responsibility are you at? In terms of assets managed, direct reports, etc.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2022 15:01
|
|
|
I just started working in a non profit and I'm not really sure if I like it so far. It seems very...micromanaging to me? The other day I got an email to earn $35 if I attended a meeting to attend a product demonstration of a new nonprofit CRM. I wasn't going to attend because we have a contract with RE and honestly we're not going to switch anytime soon, but I figured why not. I had a call today to schedule the demo. Then my coworker asked me what I was doing. I did tell her the truth, which I now regret and she told my boss. My boss is now upset at me because it was "unethical" for me to attend on the company's time to get myself a personal gift card. What should I do in this situation? I'm going to apologize and say it was a misunderstanding. Should I bother to tell my boss we should be informed as a team about new CRMs even if we don't have the intention to switch from RE? I just feel really annoyed because everyone in my office (four people including me) seem obsessed about how I appear to be using my time but they don't have any metrics about what I'm actually accomplishing or not.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2022 22:03
|
|
|
Lemon Trees posted:My boss is now upset at me because it was "unethical" for me to attend on the company's time to get myself a personal gift card. It's not something I'd rat a coworker out for, but I agree that it's a bit unethical. Frustrating when you're stuck with hazy metrics for success, though. A lot of non-profits are so worried about value that they want to know their employees are all pulling their weight, but they get bogged down in the appearance of someone pulling their weight, more than the actual outcomes. But in my experience, for-profits are the same or worse. It's a toxic red-flag when employees are policing each other's appearance of productivity.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2022 23:36
|
|
|
Pixelante posted:It's not something I'd rat a coworker out for, but I agree that it's a bit unethical. Could you tell me what is unethical about it? I feel like it is like when timeshares give away free Disney World tickets for a presentation. A lot of businesses do that. I feel a little bad for the person giving the presentation, but who knows, they otherwise might just be completely bored at work. Even if the product is aimed at non-profits I think someone working in b2b software sales is making way more than I do. That's the way I see it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2022 23:53
|
|
|
I can't really give you any advice about metrics without knowing what your role in the department (let alone organization) is, but I have been a Professional RE Toucher for a long-rear end time, and I can tell you to stay the hell away from any CRM that pulls poo poo like that. CRMs are a huge deal, and migrating from one to another is a major investment of time and money. (Small disclaimer: I have only ever dome CRM work with orgs that have decades worth of data.) Don't feel too bad about getting hooked with something like this, though, especially if you're just starting out and have been largely cast adrift by your team. Messages like that are designed to catch people who don't have the institutional experience to know how stuff is valued. (And department heads/CEOs who don't actually have an interest in what happens under them, ask me how I know.) But targeting specific employees with stuff like that is super shady, these are decisions made at a department or organizational level. Short answer is, unless you are specifically in charge of the CRM, no, it should absolutely not be your job to consider switching. Whenever a nonprofit wants to switch, they'll go shopping for alternatives based on the org's specific requirements - it will never happen based on a cold contact unless an org is very new (which is how most of these companies operate). If that's not the case for you, it's quite literally above your pay grade. Don't say anything you're not comfortable with sharing, but can you give us some specifics about your job? Maybe we can give you a little better idea of how to present what you're working on as something tangible.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 00:15
|
|
|
Lemon Trees posted:Could you tell me what is unethical about it? I feel like it is like when timeshares give away free Disney World tickets for a presentation. A lot of businesses do that. I feel a little bad for the person giving the presentation, but who knows, they otherwise might just be completely bored at work. Even if the product is aimed at non-profits I think someone working in b2b software sales is making way more than I do. That's the way I see it. Using work time to hustle extra money for yourself, especially when you have no reason to be investigating other CRMs is just kinda sketchy, imo. I don't really know how to explain it more than that if you can't see it. You're wasting work time on something both selfish and frivolous, with a bonus of encouraging some shark CRM company to keep targeting your agency.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 00:22
|
|
|
If you're already using RE, you aren't going to migrate to anything that doesn't have an equivalent level of infrastructure and functionality. And whoever that is, they sure as hell aren't getting clients with $35 gift cards.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 00:25
|
|
|
Lemon Trees posted:I just started working in a non profit and I'm not really sure if I like it so far. It seems very...micromanaging to me? This should be covered in your employee handbook, are you even allowed to accept gifts from vendors? If it isn't covered there, it should be in your orgs finance policies. There's probably a threshold, either $25 or $50 tend to be common, beyond which you may not accept gifts or things of value from vendors or potential vendors. Also as to the question of it's a good use of time or not, can you articulate why it benefits your job in terms of your mission for you personally to attend that demo? If you're an hourly employee and you spend an hour of paid time doing something largely for your own benefit, like writing an article for a medium in order to make money, but say it's about your work at the nonprofit, then does that seem okay to you? Yes, it is true that you should be periodically reviewing your major contracts and vendors and reevaluating them, depending on if you receive any federal grants it may actually be mandatory, if that's the case you should have something like a decision matrix with scoring set up and be evaluating and documenting 3-5 potential vendors, is that what you're doing? All that being said I don't think it's actually a big deal, just something your boss should talk to you about and work through the issues and relevant policies.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 06:52
|
|
|
Let's put it this way: if you had NOT been offered $35, do you think you would have thought that attending this demo was a worthwhile use of an hour of your work time?
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 17:19
|
|
|
Let's put it this way: You accepted money or something from a company trying to sell something to your employer, to take time away from your job to attend a promotional event for their product. Yeah, 35$ isn't much money. It's an amount calibrated to get people to do what you do, and to get them what they want. Pharma companies gave away fuckin' pens, they didn't do that because it was fun- they did it because it worked and it circumvented the regulations.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2022 08:36
|
|
|
Ok, I can see why my employer would be pissed. I don't see what my coworker gets out of it for telling on me. I feel like I'll be more careful with what I say from now on. I play Sudoku at work too - are people going to reach out to my employer and tell me how unethical I'm being? By the way, the company that reached out to me isn't some fly by night CRM. I actually used them at a previous internship (with a way smaller organization), and it was fine. Definitely not as powerful as RE but a lot more user friendly and probably cheaper too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2022 16:02
|
|
|
I mean it depends on how much sudoku you are playing but if you can't see the difference between mental break activities that make you more productive and accepting money from a third party to waste productive working time I don't really know what to tell you. Yeah your colleague is probably a narc but I'd probably be annoyed if the FNG was taking payola to look at out-of-scope systems demos rather than you know, doing their job or learning more about how the outfit actually works. You sound pretty salty about the whole situation, which is honestly baffling to me. You hosed up, take the L, learn from it, and move on.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2022 16:32
|
|
|
Poor non profit schmucks, bound by ethics, while we get away with much worse in service to that dollar
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2022 18:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 20, 2024 02:20 |
|
|
I'm running into more issues at work. The first is that my boss wants me to clear with her every time I watch a webinar at work. Is this normal? These are webinars mostly on fundraising. She says she wants to discuss the contents of the webinar with me but it doesn't seem like she has time in her schedule to do so. The other is my coworker who isn't my supervisor said she wanted me to do some research on Friday. Today she asks me for a file so I went ahead and made a new document to paste what I had found down. However, she's now asking me why I only created the file this afternoon. Is this normal behavior? Am I supposed to respond to this?
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2023 22:12
|
|