Amnesty International

I will say that I am impressed with the people that do this job. It is hard work, and their unwavering positivity is inspiring. Everyone was also super kind.

That being said I personally could not do this job. I lasted about a week and I found myself counting down the minutes every shift. If you are cool with door to door and working in the rain/cold/snow then you might enjoy this job. You also have to find public restrooms in the surrounding area of whatever neighborhood you are in, which can be an issue in a *bodily* emergency. 

People will slam the door in your face. You will be rejected over and over so be prepared for that.  When they do open the door they generally don’t want to listen, even if they agree with your cause. Honestly I don’t blame them, it feels weird when people come to your door asking for money. Again this was just my experience. You also have to use a script which felt unnatural to me. 

Training was minimal we had one shift in the office to learn a very long script and the next day I followed someone for a few hours and then I was told to start going door to door alone. Although the other person I was with wasn’t too far away, it was still more than a block. Alone in the dark. 

You also clock out as soon as you’re done knocking on doors so you have to drive either back to the office with your crew or home from that location which can be pretty far from your original spot. 

The only big plus is that this job is -despite all of the cons- raising money for very important causes. Again I do applaud those that do this work, I just will never be doing it again. 

Do with this info as you will. 

Overall, I really enjoyed working for Amnesty International, but I can't say I would want to canvass for them again. The main perk was the co-workers were all wonderful people who I am still friends with today. We had morning meetings with everyone three times a week, and otherwise we posted up with one to two other people near busy places that would be likely to have like-minded frequenters. 

The job itself involved reaching out to strangers and trying to get them to talk to you, and ultimately convincing them to become monthly donors to the organization. If you have a lot of social anxiety, it's not for you. However, it can be great to help you get over those fears too and become a better communicator. 

The main gripe everyone in my office had was the lack of job security. The quota in place was often unreachable, with a swift firing process if you were placed on warning and continued to not reach your goal.  How this system was applied also varied per person and was not always fair, also because part of the job was luck.

A big upside is, if you were able to stick with it long enough, they only promoted from within.  However, unfortunately all the American street canvassing operations employed directly by Amnesty ended up being laid off at once.

If you looking for a job go for it .. you’re on the phone switching from 1-2 script throughout the day getting new donors or greeting existing donors. If you don’t mind speaking to strangers all day, got self control for the rude ones. You’ll succeed. Numbers game. It’s about fundraising. The work is stressful when you’re not hitting your numbers. There is a bigger cause for it all but unfortunately it’s most likely that you won’t see it. As for the office culture it’s pretty decent. Management and coworkers are friendly. Beware that this job can burn you out, cause anxiety, and bring a lot of stress even outside of it and nobody is truly safe no matter how long you’ve been there.

Lots of hypocrisy. Very tough job. Call for 6,7 hours, same pitch everyday, basically pressure people and guilt trip them into donating money to causes. Management constantly passively and constantly warns you about performance and getting fired. Play silly games and hear lectures about current events from people who are extremely partial. Rinse and repeat. If you manage to sell you are treated very well. If you don’t, you’re treated like dirt and reminded that Amnesty International doesn’t need you. Targets are unrealistic and a lot of luck involved. Wait around until someone gets guilt tripped and suckered into paying a monthly fee,  keywords like acceptance and diversity were thrown around but I found that we targeted certain groups and addresses for more donations.

They make many promises to canvassers, upon hire, and boast about their loving progressive environment. However, the only people at Amnesty International that pay any shred of respect to canvassers was the canvassers themselves. Upper Management actively tried to stop people from getting promoted/ raises in an already cut-throat and volatile quota based employment. I met people there with serious health issues that were not accommodated for and those people punished for missing work. Human Rights may be the focus of the organization, but they have little regard for the basic needs of their entry level employees. Expect to freeze, outside, in the winter with 15 minute breaks, expect to never be promoted, and expect to always feel like you are about to lose your job.

A typical day included going through administrative duties for my supervisors, which included booking trips, business meetings, and conferences. I worked alongside other interns and my supervisors in promoting women's human rights around the world as part of Amnesty International's theme of human rights for everyone. We did this through mainly grassroots campaigning, meetings with members of government, and promoting various pieces of government legislation aimed at protecting and promoting women's welfare. I enjoyed this internship immensely, and it is along the lines of what I would like to do as a career in the future.

The work is pretty basic. Pure numbers game. The pay is decent. The management, however, is garbage. The main manager is a joke. Every week, there's always a day or two she "works from home". On the days she's actually present, she does absolutely nothing and always leaves around 3/4 pm. The assistant manager does the manager's work except that she is not the material for a leader. Not only is she blunt, but she is also rude. It's impossible to communicate with her, as she has a hard time understanding normal logic. It's hypocritical that they talk about diversity and inclusiveness in the workplace when the two in charge constantly belittle and walk upon their subordinates.

Clark University Amnesty International is a chapter of the larger organization, Amnesty International. We focuses on human rights related issues all over the world (including the United States). For example, in the past we have focused on solitary confinement, the refugee crisis, the Dakota Access Pipeline, police brutality, and many more. Our focuses change every semester (three-four months), depending on what the club is interested in working on. 

My job is to run all of our social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram), help plan events, promote our events, and connect our Amnesty chapter with other organizations in the greater Boston area.

Instead it turned out that I was panhandling for Amnesty, standing in front of shops and "fundraising"/begging for donations. All day. And had to pay for my own transportation and parking fees.  So it was almost like I was paying to work the corner. We also had really random sales goals to meet. Like one week you had to collect a certain amount of money from people who were over 30 years old. 
Really disorganized and high turnover.  Which is sad because a lot of the other people working the streets with me were really nice.

Amnesty is a great place to work at so long as you don't expect to advance there. You will learn a lot and benefit from the experience of people that have long careers in advocacy and human rights, but you probably won't be able to take over those roles at Amnesty. That said, management does a good job teaching tangible skills to its employees and improving writing skills. 

There is no typical day at Amnesty. In advocacy, you may be writing or editing something one day, scheduling the next, and then going to capitol hill the next. You can be a bit creative in advocacy strategy which is also a fun perk.

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