philanthropy manager

administrative assistant

career counselor

director

community manager

United-Way

In my last position (where I served for three of my seventeen years at United Way), a typical day would include:

 - Acting as lead technology staff for the Community Building and Agency Services divisions.
- Designing, developing and implementing divisional strategic technology plan.
- Responsibility for development and implementation of a $5 million technology project focused on building technological infrastructure within 100 nonprofit agencies.
- Staffing volunteer board committee.
- Designing, developing and implementing the Community Technology Training Center, a computer training facility that was used by United Way and other non-profit organization staff.
- Interfacing with other organizations that provided services to United Way’s agencies.  This included asking for free or reduced fee assistance in areas including project management, technology budget planning, technology training, and others.
- Traveling throughout Minnesota and the country to meet with vendors, other organizations and serve on the Board of Directors for a national organization.

I had several other positions within United Way (which are detailed on my resume) and was fortunate to work for an organization where I was able to advance and further my skills.

I enjoyed the management and my co-workers very much and the relationships were mutually respectful and we worked very much as a team.

The hardest part of my job was the last position I had (detailed above) in that I knew it was something that was going to be eliminated by United Way because of budget cuts, but was desperately needed by the organizations we served.  In terms of day-to-day hard things, the need was much greater than the resources available and a lot of time needed to be spent on prioritizing needs and ensuring success with the outcomes.

The best part of this job was that we were providing a service that was not available in other places but much needed in many of the organizations.  Technology upgrades, training, etc. was not a part of many organization's budgets because they spent the majority of their money on client needs, but we were able to help them include technology as a way to simplify administrative tasks in their organization making more time for their staff to work with the people they served.

An organization you're excited for when you start, and six months in begin to wonder what you missed when interviewing.

The staff is generally friendly, easy-going and diverse. You can and will make friends here. Salary and benefits are very good for non-profit standards, and job security is fairly high. Also, you're not going to wonder 3-6-12 months in if you're working for a scam, UW is a legitimate charity and everyone's intentions are in the right place.

You'll start to wonder what's wrong with management though, if you've never worked in non-profit. Management is incredibly top-down, and at non-profits your Board are the ultimate decision makers. They've never worked a day in non-profit, but they're a MP at a Big 4 firm or CEO of a major bank, so obviously their experience translates...right? With this volunteer leadership changing every year, every project becomes a mix of fire-drill and DOA as messaging, market strategy and sometimes even community investment plans are ripped up every year. With decision making out of the hands of senior leadership, and little budget for them to really manage staff development, you find your bosses doing your job to stay relevant.

Also, as a small organization, promotions/development is tough. There's little to no money for real skill development (PMPs, 6sigma, programming certificates...or for that matter regular sales training skills). Senior management likes to find outside staff for VP and above positions.

United Way is a great place for a young, fresh-out-of-college kid who wants to work in non-profit. The brand is respected across the NPO world still, and you can get a good sense of office work, operations, networking and so on. It's also not bad if you're looking to downshift your career, as the workload is not unmanageable and there's stability. Between that, though, UW is frustrating. You're bombarded with the sense that the organization is in decline and no idea if there's a real strategy to fix anything. You also feel like there's no development for you, and you're not sure your skills will translate outside of the UW business model.

If you are a robot, they will love you! There is absolutely no work life balance, and they will work you to death. They do not give you enough time off in a calendar year. They expect you to never have emergencies where you need to call out with less than 24 hours notice. You only get 5 sick days per calendar year and the job is 24/7/365. It takes 4000 years to earn a measly 4 hours of PTO unless you do OT and you may get 6 hours in 4000 years. So basically, it takes an entire month to get one day off and they take your PTO hours from you if you say no to mandated OT or any hours of the on call shifts. You have to be available to work for the on call shifts for 24 hours on your scheduled day to do the monthly on-call and they can make work 16 hours during that 24 time period. And they will get their money’s worth out of you. Being tired?! What is that?! Management doesn’t care about you being tired. Remember, you are a robot. Robots don’t accidentally oversleep or get sleepy when working mandatory OT shifts. Also, big brother is always watching you. Management doesn’t allow breathing room for normal basic needs such as bathroom breaks. Management expects you to announce restroom breaks from taking calls to all staff using our communication software and then they time your bathroom break. For example, any time over 2 minutes away from taking calls for using the bathroom is supposed to be taken out of your two 15 minutes breaks or you can try to time your need to use the bathroom during your lunch/dinner time or during your two minute breaks. Who is able to walk to the bathroom, use the bathroom, properly clean their bodies/hands and walk back to their workstation in 2 minutes or less? You can’t! If you can, I am concerned about your cleanliness. Though there are so many other issues, I’ll stop here, management is not supportive to staff. When callers are incredibly disrespectful to staff, they don’t do much of anything to correct the issue. In fact, the management will blame staff for the caller’s outburst or management will tell staff to be mindful of their tone when staff uses professional tones to ask callers to be respectful during calls. 

Work would start at nine in the morning, upon entering the workplace the team would meet in a conference room and review what has been accomplished and what needs to be done in the short term and long term future. Employees would brief others on current projects and any other necessary information. There was great teamwork between the employees. I utilized my marketing and communication skills to uniform the organization's key goals and values. Using various methods of media including Facebook, and Microsoft to promote the ideas and visions of the company. I had the opportunity to lead many different projects, some included setting up booths for conventions to further promote the organization. I used my leadership abilities to put different teams of people together that would lead to the best efficiency. I was able to achieve this by evaluating other employees strengths, weaknesses, and personality traits. From the evaluations I could properly put together teams of employees who worked together well and could let their strengths show while using the help of others to improve weaknesses. During my time I was able to fulfill the duties of the communications coordinator of the company. I used communication skills, leadership building, team building skills, interpersonal skills, computer skills, marketing and promotion skills. The hardest part of the job was making sure everyone was using the same type of language when they used media to promote the company, we had buzz words that we all used to promote a uniformed company. This was important so that we would be a consistent company with everyone agreeing what our organization's main goals, values, and language was. Part of my job was reviewing other employees writing and work to make certain it was consistent with the company's language and values. The best part of the job was using tea, building skills and evaluation skills to put together effective groups of employees to achieve common goals as a team.

The agencies and charities with whom United Way of the Desert partners are highly deserving. Involvement at this United Way therefore creates a gratifying work environment on some levels.
However, the local board oversight has been extremely recalcitrant in terms of modernizing the community impact model of fundraising and marketing.  This newer, more productive and responsive model is strongly advocated by the national United Way and hundreds of local offices around the country. This newer model has been established in an effort to combat the sharp decline of the workplace support structure which is an enormous imaging issue for all United Ways since people prefer to donate directly more and more.
Locally, there is a total disregard for the vital linkage between public relations outreach and fundraising, a disconnect which continues to limit the funds raised each year and thereby penalize the population who are most in need, the program and funding recipients..
In addition, the uncomfortable staffing structure and small number of staff members compared to every other United Way makes it virtually impossible to reaistically meet fundraising goals, especially with regard to divisions between major gifts, leadership gifts, and annual renewal gifts. 
New ideas to improve relationship building and grow the major donor's group (Tocqueville Society) is, unfortunately, not welcome at this United Way. These events which incorporate high levels of reward and recognition for these high level donors are not valued. The lack of board vision and wilingness to introduce the national model of fundraising combined with marketing and programming has stunted the growth of the organization and cultivated a very unfriendly work environment for anyone wishing to better recognize donors and incrementally modernize the non-profit.

My direct supervisor was wonderful, as was the support from other staff.   My favorite part of my job was helping marginalized children and their parents resolve some of their barriers getting their children to school on time.  We had a wonderful volunteer base that was really beginning to become self-sufficient at one of the schools.  The hardest part was recruiting enough volunteers and having to limit the number of children we could help attend school on a consistent and timely basis.  I had wonderful networking opportunities.  The most progressive and protective of ensuring that diversity was worked into our staff and ensured that no discrimination or office back biting was ever allowed, however I was part-time.  Due to a situation beyond the United Way’s or my own control I was suddenly unable to work due to physical injuries and there was no FMLA protection for any employee due too few staff members at this location.  They were patient and waited as did I to find out what my prognosis and time off requirement would be which was at least 6 months and is still unknown 9 months later.  We came to a fair parting agreement and felt supported by other staff there.   Great place to work other than lack of short term or long term disability to part time employees which is very typical for part time workers anywhere.  Best 401K matching program I’ve ever seen even for part-timers.  

I truly enjoyed working with volunteers who met with companies to achieve employee campaign funding to be distributed to select non-profits in this geographic area that provided valuable services to the community.  The volunteers' employers and they, themselves, were professional and enthusiastic to do well for the community.  As Resource Development Director, my job was to motivate and assist them in raising funds while creating new programs to enable them to be successful.   This position introduced me to the world of non-profit organizations and I have been involved on some level either as a Rotarian or board member to 2 other organizations. 

After working for a very professional organization in Hewlett Packard for 11 years, moving to a small non-profit organization was a challenge.  I've been in Abilene, now, for 11 years and have finally acclimated to a smaller town work environment where there is clear delineation between the bosses and employees.  This organization was well-run for decades.  My co-workers were hard-working.  I made some good and lasting friends there.  I left after a 7 months to seek an environment where I could "run" and not be stifled by a management culture I didn't understand.  I wasn't willing to adapt and take very low pay at the time. I would be much better prepared to contribute today in this role than I was capable of then.

Typical day at work:
I handled most of the calls coming into the Call Center.  I answered anywhere from 50 to 150 per day.  My duties were making sure I forward the calls back to 211 from the backup 211 Call Center.  I would zone clients to the nearest pantry to their residence and track this information. Handled the problems that clients had with the pantries. I would check the call records from the Call Center the night before, if there were any problems report to my Manager to handle.  I would do monthly reports on how many calls came in and where the clients were referred to, along with reports of the number of clients that were sent to the pantry during in a month.  I also would assist clients with children for various reasons with gasoline to medical appointments or assist with prescriptions, etc.  At the end of the day I then would transfer the calls to another 211 Call Center.

What I learned:
New tracking system through Bowman's.
Iris 3.0
Iris 4.0
ABC's of the Alliance of Information & Referral

Co-Workers
Were really nice and helpful when needed

Hardest part of Job
Was telling clients there wasn't assistance available when they were in need of help.
Explaining to the Director why we should keep some programs.

Most enjoyable part of job
Being able to make a difference in a client's life that was needing assistance.

I was only able to work for Oshkosh Area United Way for six weeks. Things started out well enough; I was tasked with helping the company's marketing and events objectives. My coworker was very helpful and, despite having a lot on her plate at any given time, was always willing to answer questions. The president and CEO, however, is another story.

Never in all my life have I worked for such a toxic, myopic, manipulative person. She was condescending, terrible at communicating what she needed from me on any given day, and was a perfectionist to such a degree that even simple mistakes that one would expect from a new employee were made to feel like a large-scale disaster. It got to the point where, when she was gone for a few days, the energy in the office felt more upbeat, productive and open than it ever had while she was there. Additionally, she seldom took responsibility for mistakes with which she was involved.

Could Oshkosh Area United Way be a good place to work? Probably, with a better CEO at the helm. The benefits are robust and the pay is good. However, the Board of Directors seems reticent to admit they made a mistake in hiring the CEO, so I would stay away for now unless you want to risk dismissal six weeks into your employment for petty reasons. She's lost at least four people in the last year, myself included, and I suspect the high turnover will continue unless she either genuinely reflects on herself and her abilities as a manager or leaves.

United Way of Bucks County is dedicated to improving lives by mobilizing the caring power of communities.

We believe that we are all connected and that we all have a stake in making Bucks County a healthy and prosperous community.  We know that when we work together to advance the common good, we create a better life for all.

To advance the greater good, we focus on three key issues:  access to a quality education, a stable income, and good health – the building blocks of a great life.

All of our work is done in collaboration with diverse partners. Depending on the issue and how the community chooses to address it, United Way of Bucks County works with schools, government agencies, businesses, organized labor, financial institutions, community development corporations, voluntary and neighborhood associations, the faith community, and others.  The bottom line?  If you bring the passion, resources and expertise to help us get things done, we want to work with you!

Although there are approximately 1,300 United Ways Nationally, each organization is autonomous. Because of the unique conditions in diverse communities, the issues United Ways address are determined locally, governed by a local Board of Directors. What holds United Ways together is the brand: a common belief in our approach to solving community problems and our commitment to accountability and transparency.
- See more at: http://www.uwbucks.org/who-we-are/mission/#sthash.LYKmuI4y.dpuf

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Philanthropy manager 34 salaries reported	$64,855 per year
Administrative assistant 14 salaries reported	$19.36 per hour
Career counselor 26 salaries reported	$49,981 per year
Director 20 salaries reported	$79,331 per year
Community manager 12 salaries reported	$50,554 per year

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