Hope on Remand life after college

Working at a Non-Profit in the Middle of a Recession

When I graduated from college just over a year ago, I had no job, and only the vaguest of ideas as to what I wanted to do with myself.  I decided that I wanted to work at a nonprofit organization, and after just under three months, I started work at a wildlife conservation organization not far from my house. The pay was low - but not as low as it could be - and the organization made up for it in benefits. The position provided health insurance, lots of vacation, sick time and paid holidays, and even a 401(k). Sure I couldn't get a place of my own (at least, not unless I rented a studio with four other people), but it was better than some salaries I'd seen.

Then the recession struck. Suddenly our donors were hemming and hawing about whether they would continue their giving, and the organization's endowment lost far too much. In January, the head of the organization announced that we would have to cut staff, and proceeded to detail the plans for voluntary and involuntary separation.  We then proceeded to sit on our hands for several months while the powers that be decided how best to go about the whole thing in practice rather than theory.

I survived the layoffs in part because it isn't worth it to cut the position of someone so low on the proverbial totem pole. Someone still needs to do the mailing, the filing, the phone calls and database work. What I learned, however, is that an organization like this one has never dealt with the realities of cutting back in a significant, long-term way.  The Development department in particular was incredibly ill-prepared to handle a sudden loss of staff - who was going to order supplies when the office manager left?  Who would handle everyday database support when that person retired?

The answer is that we learned to make do, and when we were shuffled around a little, the remaining staff members picked up the slack where possible, and let other things - anything that didn't directly relate to the business of raising funds - slide until someone could be hired to fill one position with the responsibilities of three.

For a while, things were exceedingly negative. We'd just had 20% of our workforce cut, our yearly goals for fundraising were cut, and the department's events team scrambled to keep everything on track for our big yearly events - because it was more profitable for us to say that "the show must go on" than to cancel.  Some of the staff members had been promoted and switched around, and despite how I hate to admit this, working in an office of mostly women meant witnessing and trying not to participate in a lot of cliquish behavior, with middling success. Things like ordering office supplies became difficult

Over time some of this negativity faded; people became used to the changes and settled in to try and raise as much money as possible before the end of the fiscal year (like most not-for-profits receiving government grants, our fiscal year is July 1-June 30).  Despite the economic collapse, our giving was actually up - slightly - by the time we closed our books.