My quick thought on this article is that Not For Profits are often a joke. They are poorly run with loose objectives and lots and lots of development work. Asking people for money sucks, its begging really. Why choose a career that is often unstructured, with colleagues that do not share one's professional aspirations and where begging is a large component of the job requirement?
TFA is an interesting example. Many people hate TFA and are frustrated with its unrealistic goals (throw inexperienced overachievers in the poorest schools in America for two years and watch nothing happen). Worse, however, it is soul sucking. The poverty of the ambition comes from having the life sapped out of you every single day. The poor pay (in many NFP) just exacerbates the problem.
The bottom line is that when there is a bottom line things tend to run better and be more demanding. That is why they attract Ivy Leaguers.
(Just as a disclaimer, though my former employer in a NFP, it is run rather well.)
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
12 years ago
6 comments:
TFA is not the best example. working in bad schools sucks. working for TFA itself on the orgnizational side can be fine. i think i actually met someone who did that and had as fine a time as anyone has at a NFP that interfaces with the govt...
You're right insofar as TFA is a NFP. However, I stand by my comment that it can be soul sucking. And not in the way of 'my soul is being sucked, but at least little disadvantaged children are better off' either.
right, but it's soul sucking due to attributes that are atypical for a nonprofit. or, rather, it's soul sucking b/c it is a particularly hard sort of direct service. you seem to be talking abt the office side of NFP work, not the direct services side. Teaching being soul sucking is only marginally related to fundraising being so.
Miriam
That's what I conceded by saying, "you're right insofar as TFA is a NFP." I.e. it is not the poorly run, begging kind. The objectives can, however, be unrealistic because it is driven mostly by goodwill. If TFA were a business and the profits were tied to performance, would it still be a success?
through fair treatment and opportunity I believe anything can be successful. In your work or your life, when you get older do you judge your health based on your past performance or your future performance. which one can you control? which one can you change? If you cant change what you cant control then how do you determine your performance? How can you judge your profits only from a success standpoint. you have to be able to stand and point point before you can decide where your standards lie.so is this success or is this success. which way is profit before its a success. if your profits are marginally lower than you normal produce yet still profitable is it still not considered a success? if you have everything you need and want nothing more without sacrificing more then is that something the tfa is worth fighting for to determine how much profit we much achieve before we feel success? so if you where never satisfied does that mean you where never successful? or is that just not what profits equates to as success?
wait you said Miriam!!
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