General Advice – Social Impact Yodas

Challenges of “Breaking into” Philanthropy and Some Tips

People often ask me during informational interviews how to get a job at a foundation or directing philanthropy at a family office. Please comment with your thoughts, but the short answer is, it’s very hard to break in without direct connections. Foundations tend to hire people who used to work at foundations. So to break in, networking is critical.

A lot of roles at family offices and also smaller family foundations are shared by word-of-mouth, so you’d only hear about them if you were part of that network. For a family office, if if there’s only one philanthropy role, they will generally expect that this person either has extensive philanthropy experience and/or deep subject matter expertise (or ideally both) in the donor’s areas of interest.

It’s typically easier to shift into a larger foundation than find a role at a family office or a small family foundation. There are usually two kinds of roles at foundations: programmatic and administrative. For programmatic roles such as program officer, you need fairly deep subject matter expertise in the issue area that the role oversees. While you may not need formal grantmaking experience to succeed, the recruitment process is often so competitive that the top candidates have both subject matter expertise and grantmaking experience. For other types of roles, most of which are administrative, apart from grants administration, you don’t necessarily need philanthropy experience, but instead functional experience. This includes finance, human resources, etc. Monitoring and evaluation is also a great role to pivot into in philanthropy.

So, assuming you either have deep subject matter expertise and/or functional expertise, here are a few strategies to pivot into philanthropy:

Learn how to make grants: Volunteer on a grantmaking advisory council at a community foundation, or run a giving circle of your own

If you don’t have prior direct philanthropy experience, learn how to give away money in a volunteer capacity. Some foundations, e.g., Washington Area Women’s Foundation or New York Women’s Foundation, have volunteer positions where you can serve on an advisory committee to help select grant recipients. Also, sometimes local public agencies will open up grantmaking opportunities to the public to participate in.

Alternatively, you could round up a group of friends and pool your money together to start a ‘giving circle‘, where you as a group decide where to collectively give away your money. A giving circle can be very informal (i.e., no formal financial structure, but your friends collectively agree to make joint decisions on how to give away your money). Alternatively, there are organizations that formally host giving circle structures, such as Full Circle Fund as well as community foundations.

If you work at a nonprofit, network with your funders

It’s not uncommon for people who work at nonprofits to eventually migrate into program officer positions at the foundations who fund their nonprofits. So it’s important to build relationships with your funders. Perhaps even ask them for an informational interview to find out what it’s like to work at a foundation.

One funder told me that they only hire people who were previously grantseekers so that they understand what it’s like to apply for grants, so prior nonprofit experience can be very important.

Work at a philanthropy ‘intermediary’ organization (e.g., consulting firm)

If you have strong strategy/research skills, you might consider working at a firm that provides consulting services to funders, and then pivoting from there into a foundation. This would include Arabella Advisors, FSG, Tides Foundation, Bridgespan, and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Community foundations might also provide a way to pivot into the philanthropic sector, since they are also client serving.

While this is a decent stepping stone into working directly in philanthropy, it is possible to get pigeonholed in working for an intermediary and not be able to make the transition.

Identify the main philanthropy search firms in your region and get on their radar

Typically there’s a handful of search firms that focus on recruitment for philanthropic roles in each region. You can usually figure out who those are by looking at philanthropy job postings and seeing which firms pop up the most often. I’d suggest building a relationship with the recruiters at those firms. At the national level, firms like Koya Partners will often conduct searches for philanthropy roles.

Read up on philanthropy

Read the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Inside Philanthropy, Stanford Social Innovation Review, etc., to learn the latest trends on philanthropy and social impact. Check out websites such as Council on Foundations and National Center for Family Philanthropy.

Join a philanthropy ‘affinity’ group / association if they allow members who aren’t formally working in philanthropy

There are philanthropy associations, networking events and conferences, by region, by ‘affinity group’, and by topic area. For example, in the SF Bay Area, the regional association is Northern California Grantmakers. For AAPIs in philanthropy, there is AAPIP (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy). For health-related funders, there’s Grantmakers in Health. Some of these associations do allow people who aren’t funders to participate in some of their events and get on their email lists. Just note that events have a ‘nonsolicitation’ policy — i.e., do not make any direct requests for funders for grants, and I’d also say be careful about making direct requests for jobs!

So You Want to Start a Nonprofit? Five Things to Consider

Guest contributor Mo Fong raises some key questions to ask yourself if you’re thinking about starting your own nonprofit organization.

By Mo Fong

Guest contributor Mo-Yun Lei Fong is Sr. Director, Google Technical Solutions, Assistant and Search; she was previously Google’s Director, Computer Science Education, Catalyst for Equity in Education, and Chief Compliance Officer for Google Payments. She began her career as a school teacher and then was promoted to assistant principal at Monta Vista High School. She then went on to Harvard Business School and became the founding executive director of the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute, prior to joining Google.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much”
Helen Keller

As the pandemic continues to drag on, it is clear that government services and businesses alone can not provide all the products and services that are needed to maintain daily living especially for our most vulnerable populations. Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) that fill those gaps and provide vital services have also taken a hit. During the pandemic, we’ve seen volunteerism drop by two-thirds according to a recent Fidelity Charitable report. To sustain their organizations, many have to change their business and operating models out of necessity and many are updating their processes and systems. Having worked on a few HBS Community Partner projects, I’ve seen cases where nonprofits are now able to serve people outside of their local communities for the first time while others are moving from a centralized model to an autonomous regional model. Emerging nonprofit organizations have entered the fray with a fresh sense of urgency to stem the crisis to mixed results.

If you are thinking about starting a new nonprofit organization, now is the best time to consider your “why”, how and what before diving in.

Five Things to Consider BEFORE Starting your NPO.

Why do you want to start your nonprofit organization, why you and why now?

Passion is not enough, so be sure you know your “why.” Starting any organization is extremely hard work and can be a humbling experience. Perhaps your “why” is because you possess a certain skill set that others lack. For example, Develop for Good was started by Mary Zhu and Amay Aggrawal during the pandemic because they saw university computer science students have the technical capabilities to help nonprofits with web apps and design challenges. Perhaps you have the time right now to devote to the care and feeding of your nonprofit and you have personally encountered a need in a community that has been left unfulfilled. Perhaps you are in the later stages of your career and you want to give back by setting up a charitable fund. However, keep in mind that this is not just about throwing money at the problem, but also building the infrastructure from operations to accounting, nurturing the relationships of the people you want to help, and soliciting any volunteers and partners for the long term viability of the organization. If you don’t have a compelling “why,”, please pause now as you may inadvertently be giving false hope to those who may be depending on you for longer term support.

How does starting your nonprofit align with your personal goals and how will you sustain your commitment for the long term?

We know you have the interests of others at heart, but to maintain the organization, it will require stamina and commitment. For college students who are starting nonprofits based on passion, resourcefulness and sheer will, the positive impacts may peak at the onset, but once the administrative overhead and logistics become more complex with scale, will the founders and volunteers have the resilience to continue and secure the support they need? As visionary leaders, those who start organizations may suffer from founders’ dilemma which include giving up some control for the long term viability of the organization. With a dynamic environment due to economic turbulence and fast changing social ecosystem, founders should anticipate challenges. Bringing others alongside that can provide emotional support as well as the diversity of skill sets needed to make pivots will be necessary and it will be important to start developing those networks early. You may need to consider establishing a more formal advisory board or board or directors, outsourcing logistics to third parties (e.g. accounting), and building a reliable team of volunteers or paid employees to share the load.

How will you establish your organization’s infrastructure and what will the operating model look like? How can you leverage existing nonprofits for shared services?

More than 1.5 million nonprofit organizations are registered in the U.S., according to the National Center for Charitable Statistics. Rather than starting from scratch, some of these organizations can provide a benchmark for how to set up your operating model. Conduct simple online landscape research to see what nonprofits already exist in your space, to ensure you’re not duplicating efforts. Consider whether there exists a nonprofit organization that has a similar mission as yours and whom you could partner with and gain economies of scale by utilizing existing infrastructure. For example, instead of going through the hassle of registering your nonprofit with the IRS, consider first having an existing nonprofit act as your fiscal sponsor. More here on the pros and cons of fiscal sponsorship. There also may be existing playbooks on fundraising, board governance, co-marketing opportunities, and advisory networks to help you scale.

How will you mitigate the risks of your business/operating model including financial, operating, and brand/reputational risks?

If you are dependent on volunteers as your operating model, there are no guarantees that they will stay with you especially when times get tough as we’ve seen during the pandemic. You may need to provide safeguards including knowing what you can downsize in products and services immediately, ways to call on your volunteer alumni reserves, and potentially even some funds set aside to pay for interim support. There are also brand and reputational risks for the organization as well as yourself if you make promises that you can’t deliver.

Is it dependent on volunteers?
What would happen if your funding runs dry?
What is the succession plan?
What does your exit strategy look like?

Lastly (or firstly), how will you know if your organization has been successful?

Evaluating the success of your nonprofit is not only a prerequisite now for funding applications, but it is an important step to understanding what is working and what is not. Your key performance indicators (KPIs) can include absolute numbers of users reached, volunteer membership, devices/products disseminated. As a starting point, the Urban Institute and The Center for What Works have compiled common outcome and performance indicators used by nonprofits for 14 program areas, such as transitional housing, youth mentoring, and advocacy. Specific organizational examples include Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which has an aspirational goal of “Zero deaths. Zero injuries. Zero families impacted by impaired driving.” Another example is the Spark Program, which has behavioral outcome-oriented KPIs, such as the measures the percentage of students who grew in social emotional skills and “improved in critical competencies for successful classroom engagement.” Lastly, KPIs can also measure the effectiveness of your organization from fundraising efficiencies, donor attrition, to social return on investment. Setting milestones and clear objectives and key results for your organization will help you stay focused and guide you when making difficult decisions about where to spend your resources. As you map out your KPIs, also consider how you will collect, store, manage, and analyze this information on a regular basis.

If you’re still convinced you should start your nonprofit, it’s time to bring others along to help guide, encourage, and support you on your journey. Test out your ideas with a few trusted friends and family and as your positive impact grows, there will be a multiplier effect as more people seek out your services. Through it all, you will not only help change other people’s lives for the better but also your own.

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Grad school for social impact? Do this math first…

If you’re going to invest considerable in graduate school to get a degree so that you can pivot into a social impact career, I strongly advise you count the cost before you do so. This advice actually applies to any type of grad school and career. Here are some considerations for your calculations about whether grad school is worth it:

How much are you paying (or will you eventually pay) out of pocket for your graduate school program? If you’re going to take out a loan, what are your monthly loan payments going to be once you graduate? Are you eligible for loan forgiveness? Will you plan to work part-time during grad school to reduce the loan size you need?
What is the opportunity cost? For example, what would you have earned had you not gone to graduate school? Are you OK with giving up this income? And are you sure that you can’t find a job to get the experience you need to pivot into the social impact job that you want? If you’re unemployed and struggling with finding work, and you can afford to go to graduate school, this might be a good time.
Can you go to grad school part-time and work full-time? Many employers have a professional development benefit / tuition assistance benefit. However, in some cases, it’s better to go to grad school full-time, e.g., MBA programs are set up for networking with classmates, so might be better to do on a full-time basis.
What type of standard of living would you desire/expect after finishing graduate school? Create a mock monthly budget for yourself based on your projected living costs. Housing: Do you want to live with roommates or alone? Do you want to live in a nicer neighborhood? Do you want to live downtown? Do you want to own or rent? Transport: Will you need a car? Add in monthly car payments, parking fees, gas, maintenance, insurance. Savings: How much do you want to save? Other: food, entertainment, travel, clothing, cellphone, internet/cable, etc. Add that all up. Then add in your estimated monthly grad school loan payments (see #1 above), and any other loan payments. Then add on 35% on top for estimated income tax. Multiply by 12 and that’s your targeted annual income.
What is your estimated salary when you finish grad school? And what types of jobs would you be likely to get? You can look at average salary data for your grad program at the school you’re interested in, and what types of jobs people are getting. Does the average salary roughly match your desired annual income (calculated in #3)? If not, this is problematic and you may want to reconsider your plans.
Do you actually want any of these jobs? What job do you want? Is grad school critical to getting that job? Or at least, will it help increase your likelihood? Keep your end goal in mind. I talk to a lot of people who want to work in impact investing, corporate social responsibility or philanthropy. To be honest, all those are incredibly competitive and hard to get into, and usually a graduate degree won’t increase your chances all that much. Most of them can rely on having the right connections, prior relevant work experience, and/or just dumb luck.

Other considerations include the reputation and quality of the graduate school. For some careers/jobs, the rank/tier of the school is very important (for example, I was told that if you actually want to be an attorney who practices law, you need to go to a top law school). The problem is we’re flooded by advertising from for-profit schools, online programs, bootcamps, etc. and graduate degrees are real moneymakers, so BE CAREFUL. Graduate school is not a magic bullet for employment.

Anatomy of the Perfect Informational Interview Request

This LinkedIn message is the most compelling cold request I’ve received for an informational interview.

I receive numerous cold requests for informational interviews from people to whom I have no prior connection. This LinkedIn message I received from Christian Morales is the most compelling cold request I’ve received, and I did give him an informational interview. He gave me permission to share his message here as a good teaching tool. In general, here’s what makes his request effective:

Overall it’s obvious he spent time and thought crafting the message – both in reading on my employer’s website, reading my profile, and writing a personalized message. He did his due diligence. You get back what you invest in an info interview request b/c we are wired for reciprocity. In contrast, it’s painfully obvious when someone spends 30 seconds jotting a quick LinkedIn message, “Hi, I’d like to learn more about your work. Could you spare 30 minutes to speak?” Nope. Better to spend 30 minutes strategically crafting one really compelling request, versus sending out 60 short impersonal messages with a “spray and pray” “strategy”.
He provides a thoughtful case as to why he’d like to speak. I often get generic requests, e.g., “I’d like to hear about your social impact work.” Not compelling.
He only requests a 15 minute call, demonstrating respect for my time.
The message is the right length. Too short would indicate thoughtlessness. Too long would be too much and I wouldn’t even read it.
The tone of the message is very respectful. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s flattering.

[By the way: If you’re looking to hire, Christian is looking for opportunities in social entrepreneurship, peace building or organizational development. Actively seeking to network with mission driven professionals and apply his previous experience in driving new levels of business and team performance at Morgan Stanley to a socially conscious accelerator, think tank or organizational development consulting firm. Outside of work, you can find him on five mile runs, watching the Dallas Cowboys or volunteering for B Corps. You can send him a friendly LinkedIn message here.]

I’ve pasted Christian’s original message here, and then below that, I break down the elements that make it compelling.

I’m inspired by your work
I became aware of your work after navigating [your employer’s] webpage and find your professional journey inspiring. Within your LinkedIn page, you share you are “adept at serving as a cultural translator and creative connector between people and ideas.” Similar to you, I have served as a “cultural translator and creative connector” through my travels and working abroad, most recently in Argentina and Spain.
I’m passionate about philanthropy and social impact, currently exploring which career path will help me have the greatest impact. I’ve used [your employer’s website] as a launching point to better understand the intersectionality between philanthropy and social good through tech, but I’d really like to ask you a few questions to get an in-depth sense of what it’s like to work within this space. I’d love to hear more about your experiences and pick your brain on how you think social impact and philanthropy will evolve in the next 10 years.
Can we set up a time to get on a quick call for 15 minutes or so? Let me know what works for you and I’ll accommodate to your schedule. I know you may be busy so if I don’t hear from you, I will follow up next week.
Kind regards,
Christian

Here is the message with my commentary/analysis interwoven throughout:

I’m inspired by your work
I became aware of your work after navigating [your employer’s] webpage and find your professional journey inspiring.

He indicates he actually did research on my employer’s website — many people who reach out to me don’t even bother to read the website ahead of time.

Within your LinkedIn page, you share you are “adept at serving as a cultural translator and creative connector between people and ideas.” Similar to you, I have served as a “cultural translator and creative connector” through my travels and working abroad, most recently in Argentina and Spain.

He read my LinkedIn profile closely and then drew a connection between my skills and his own experience.

I’m passionate about philanthropy and social impact, currently exploring which career path will help me have the greatest impact. I’ve used [your employer’s website] as a launching point to better understand the intersectionality between philanthropy and social good through tech, but I’d really like to ask you a few questions to get an in-depth sense of what it’s like to work within this space. I’d love to hear more about your experiences and pick your brain on how you think social impact and philanthropy will evolve in the next 10 years.

He lays out his reasoning and makes the case for wanting to talk to me. Very thoughtful.

Can we set up a time to get on a quick call for 15 minutes or so?

He asks for a very short call, which is reasonable for someone I don’t know.

Let me know what works for you and I’ll accommodate to your schedule. I know you may be busy so if I don’t hear from you, I will follow up next week.

Smart to indicate that he’s going to follow up because I am busy and often don’t respond right away. Takes the mental burden off of me to remember to come back to this message. If he actually does follow up, it demonstrates that he’s serious and intentional about connecting.

Kind regards,
Christian

If you’ve written or received compelling requests for info interviews, please share tips via the comment section.

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Raising funds for your new nonprofit

In this post I share about my general advice on fund development. It’s not easy.

I’ve been getting many questions lately from fledgling nonprofits about how to raise funds. Some of it is not rocket science and just requires a lot of work. And some of it is a matter of access and that’s been an ever-present equity issue in philanthropy. It’s not fair who has access to high-net worth donors. I’m writing this blog off the cuff, so it’s not comprehensive. I’m not, for example, discussing getting public funding since typically more well-established nonprofits receive that type of funding. I encourage you to Google search as well!

Lead with the Point

To start, work with a friend who is in marketing/communications (or is a strong communicator) to help you create a crisp 30-second elevator pitch to summarize your nonprofit:

A problem statement. Clearly articulate the problem you’re trying to solve. Why is this a problem? How many people does it affect? Why does this matter?
Your proposed solution. How exactly does your proposed project address this problem? Why is your solution is better than existing solutions?
Your expected outcomes. What would success look like for your project? What will your impact be? How many people will be served? How do you expect to change their lives?

I’ve met nonprofit leaders who spend 15-20 minutes trying to describe their nonprofits, and I still don’t understand what they do. Clear communications is key.

There are thousands of nonprofits out there. You’re basically competing against them for funds. You must have a compelling message.

Individual Donations – General Strategies

Start with friends and family. These are naturally your biggest supporters, so ask for donations from them first. Also ask them to introduce you to others.
Strategically recruit board members who are well-connected. Perhaps they can introduce you to high-net worth individuals who’d be interested in your cause. Your board members should all expect to help with fund raising and should themselves make at least a token donation to your nonprofit, so you can say that 100% of board members financially support your work.
Create an email and snail mail list of all your donors, volunteers, any people who are interested in your work. Ask them to refer people to add them to your mailing lists. Send out fairly frequent and short email updates (not too often as to be annoying, not too seldom so that they forget about you). Updates with stories, photos, and results of your work are important. Do a snail mailing in November, before Thanksgiving, with a donation request — this is when people start thinking about end-of-year donations.

Individual Donations – Virtual Options

During COVID and sheltering in place, it will be more challenging to raise money since you can’t just throw a big gala.

Try raising awareness via Facebook Fundraisers. Try to find someone with a lot of Facebook friends to host a FB fundraiser for you. This is effective if someone has a birthday or special occasion tied to the fundraiser.
Host virtual information sessions via Zoom. For example, this could be a small group event where you ask one of your board members or volunteers to invite 5-8 of their friends to attend to learn more about your work. Have the host make the ask for donations on your behalf.

Individual Donations – In-Person Options

Ask volunteers to host happy hours (where a small % spent on drinks might go to your nonprofit) or small group dinners so you or they can present about the nonprofit to their friends.
A lot of larger nonprofits like to host annual marquee events like soirees, galas, auctions, etc. I do NOT advise this for small nonprofits because it’s risky to pay a lot of money to rent a space, pay for food, without guarantee that you will more than break even. If someone can offer you a free space/facility, that might be an option.

Philanthropy and Grants

Check out Candid / The Foundation Center and use their database to search for foundations that fund nonprofits similar to yours.

Look at your region’s community foundation to see if there’s a contact that you can reach out to, to see if there would be any grant opportunities. Sometimes community foundations might have small grants available. Sometimes when there’s a disaster (natural or otherwise), they offer rapid response funding.

A lot of foundations don’t accept unsolicited grant proposals. In other words, nonprofits have to invited to submit a proposal (or a letter of intent). Unfortunately, due to access issues, you may need an introduction to a program officer at a foundation in order to have them invite you to submit a grant proposal. This access issue is an equity issue: the people who tend to know philanthropists are probably themselves well-resourced.

Check if you have connections to people who work at foundations (especially those you identified via your search on the Candid website mentioned above). One way is to search via LinkedIn. Another way to meet foundation staff is to attend philanthropy events. For example, different regional foundation associations (e.g., Northern California Grantmakers for the Bay Area region) have free events open to anyone. There are also associations of foundations focused on similar issues (e.g., Grantmakers in Health) – I’m not sure if there are events open to the public, but at least you can look at which foundations are members on their website for funding ideas. Also, philanthropy “affinity” organizations might have events open to both philanthropists and nonprofits. An affinity org is typically a foundation membership organization comprising of people who share a certain affinity, such as race. For example, Asian American Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP) is geared towards AAPI philanthropy professionals, but, while AAPI-focused nonprofits cannot be formal members, they are invited to become affiliates and can attend some events. However, please note that if you do attend a funder-focused event, they typically have a “non-solicitation policy” — i.e., you cannot make any direct asks for funding at these events. These meetings should be “safe spaces” for funders because they are constantly being asked elsewhere for funding. But know that funders always know that nonprofits are looking for funding, so you don’t need to say anything explicit. Be tactful.

Do your homework. If you reach out to a foundation that you don’t have a prior relationship with, be sure to do research on their funding priorities to check if your nonprofit is in alignment. Foundations often have issue areas (e.g., education, climate, workforce development) that they are committed to giving to, and in those cases, it is rare they will deviate from those priorities. Foundation staff are approached constantly with funding requests, ranging in relevancy. It doesn’t present well if you approach them without spending 10 minutes browsing their website to understand their focus areas.

If you can’t afford to hire / pay for a contract grant writer, see if you can recruit a volunteer to help you — ideally someone who has written grants in the past, but if not, at least someone analytical and results-driven who is a very strong writer. Grant writing is a profession and large, well-resourced nonprofits can afford to have grant writers on staff and therefore have a natural advantage to writing strong grant proposals.

When you write a grant, make a clear case for how your grant proposal fits the foundation’s stated priorities. If your proposed project doesn’t fit their priorities, I wouldn’t even bother submitting a proposal unless you’ve already spoken with the program officer about this and gotten a nod from them to proceed. Include these components:

A problem statement. Clearly articulate the problem you’re trying to solve. Why is this a problem? How many people does it affect? Why does this matter?
Your proposed solution. How exactly does your proposed project address this problem? How do you know that your solution is better than existing solutions? Do you have any data/evidence? Have you piloted this approach? Do you have any promising results? Have you consulted with the impacted community you’re trying to serve to see if they believe this is the best solution?
Your expected outcomes. What would success look like for your project? What will your impact be? How many people will be served? How do you expect to change their lives? How will you measure your progress?
You/your team. Why do you have the right team to implement this solution? Why not someone else? Do you have directly impacted people leading on or advising this work? In other words, if for example you have a program to serve formerly incarcerated people (FIP), do you have FIPs on staff? Do you have FIPs on your leadership team / board of directors?
Your sustainability plan for this work. Are there other funders you’re approaching to fund this work? Even if you’re able to implement this project, what are your plans for sustaining the work after the grant expires? Don’t expect funders to perpetually fund your work — many of them may not renew your grant. But the good news is, once you get funding from one foundation, it may become easier to get funding fro other foundations. The first foundation helps to serve as validation for your work. Also your program officer should be willing to introduce you to other funders.

More Resources

Use Google to search for fund development advice. There’s lots out there.

Learn about the nonprofit sector and philanthropy:

I invite you to add any other advice, resources, or perspectives on fundraising below in the comments.

Power and Practice of the Patient Pivot: Strategically Move toward Your Desired Social Impact Role

As part of my transition from technology into philanthropy / social impact, I enrolled full-time in a public policy graduate program with a nonprofit management concentration. My classes piqued my interest in working in philanthropy, but also helped me to realize how hard it would be to pivot into that field. People ask me all the time about how to get into philanthropy, and in summary: it’s hard and very competitive, especially to get into a mid-level position!

After many years, after a long succession of pivots, I now work for a grant maker. Here’s my career path in brief:

strategy consulting
-> Silicon Valley tech
-> inner-city and campus ministry
-> master’s in public policy
-> policy research, strategic planning, evaluation at think tanks
-> evaluation, strategy, and grant making in philanthropy consulting
-> community partnerships and social impact for tech company
-> (current) evaluation and strategy for a tech company / grant maker

It’s been a long journey into philanthropy (and of course, the journey hasn’t ended yet!). I can’t pat myself on the back for making it all happen – many transitions were due to the grace of God: a chance encounter with a kind person at a conference (whose next-door neighbor happened to work at a place where I was applying for a position); an old college friend (who isn’t in the social impact field) who introduced me to someone she met in Asia, which resulted in me pitching and getting a job; and meeting someone at a church (that I had never attended) who happened to be exactly the right person to help me partner with her nonprofit on my master’s thesis and research (I was visiting that city and leaving the next day, and had been wondering, how on earth I’d meet someone at this particular org to ask to partner on my thesis!?).

Of course, many opportunities arose from following conventional wisdom. I did my due diligence: in two years, I conducted 70+ informational interviews to understand the social impact landscape, what type of graduate program to apply for, and which school to attend. I went to presentations and connected with the speakers, one of whom introduced me to a researcher at a think tank, who ended up offering me a summer internship. I alerted my network when I was looking for job opportunities (my professor connected me to my think tank job out of graduate school). A classmate from grad school referred me to my 3^rd role at a think tank. It’s also helpful that I had tech industry experience prior to my transition to social impact, which has helped me obtain social impact roles at tech companies.

But also critical to this journey is being strategically patient with slow pivots.

I’m not a patient person, but after a series of mis-steps, I learned the hard way to wait. Early in my career, I was very impetuous and if I didn’t like my job, I’d just switch. The tech industry is forgiving of this, especially for younger people in a boom economy, but I realize that I jumped around too quickly because I would jump “out of the frying pan, into the fire.” I’d think, “I don’t like this job!” and then take the next thing that came along, with better pay and a better title, without understanding what it was that I was looking for, how this next position would advance my career (and to what end), and why I disliked my job(s) at the time. When you’re in a tough situation where you’re disliking your job, it’s tempting to snatch the first thing that comes along. However, I came to realize if you don’t bide your time and carefully consider options, the relief from making an uninformed switch is only temporary, and then you may soon be seeking another position. I’ve learned to develop a stronger tolerance and often swallow my pride (usually regarding feeling under-compensated, under-titled, and under-appreciated). Now I advise folks to stick it out till the right next move comes along, as long as the current situation isn’t abusive or unethical (or seriously detrimental to mental health).

Also, more than a decade ago, my career mentor encouraged me to create a 20-year strategic plan for my career, and while my life hasn’t quite followed that trajectory (surprisingly some parts have), that exercise taught me to think strategically about my pivots. I realized how one job can serve as a stepping stone to the next, so even if a job isn’t the exact desired role, as long as I could see it leading to and being aligned with my career goals, it was worth exploring. I also realized that we might think, “I’ll just work in this role for 2 years and then pivot elsewhere,” but usually we can’t predict the timing (could be quicker or usually slower than expected) and have to be patient in that vein. Also, being a foreign national taught me patience: I was limited in terms of which employers I could work for based on who would sponsor me for an H-1B visa (tip: nonprofit research orgs / think tanks / universities have no quotas on H-1B visas!), and eventually who would sponsor me for a green card. The road to US citizenship was also a very long one for me.

Finally, if you’re mid-career and looking to transition into social impact, there can be this seeming urgency to work in the exact org or role that you want right now! But a huge consideration is whether you’d have to take a drastic pay cut and start at entry level in order to do so. Depending on how far advanced you are in your career, I don’t think it’s worth it. I’d recommend doing a series of pivots instead so that you don’t have to “start over”, but it requires a lot of foresight, strategic planning, education, and patience. Volunteer for different orgs so that you get social impact experience outside of work. Serve on their board of directors. Take online courses for additional exposure. Read a lot to get a deeper understanding of the issue area you’re passionate about. Job shadow. Do informational interviews. See how your current role and skillset translates into a role at a social impact org; even if you don’t enjoy your current role / skillset, it could be worth investing a few (even possibly many) more years by pivoting into a similar role at a social impact org, and then pivoting within that org into other roles that you do want.

Reflection on Yoda#4 “Your job already has social impact” … but it might not be the impact you want, and how do you shape that?

I’d like to respond to Yoda#4 Mo Yun Fong’s post, “Your Job Already Has Social Impact” by saying YES AND… “it may not exactly be the impact you want – and here are some thoughts on how to shape your impact”.

As Mo wrote, most or all jobs have some social utility, whether at a large or small scale. It is a privilege to have a role where you create products and manage platforms that could potentially impact thousands or millions of people. However, what’s challenging is if you desire to impact a different demographic of people than the current end users of your product.

For example, I had found myself at a crossroads, deciding between two entirely different roles at two companies. One role was internal facing and had strong potential to impact the company’s global workforce of >100K workers. The other role was more external facing, and could impact as many, if not more, people across the US – and one key difference was the potential beneficiaries in this latter case are historically marginalized, as compared to the former case of high-tech workers. Both roles had the potential to create social impact, but, given the fact that I’m a Myers-Briggs “NF” (intuitive feeler), I’m an idealist and gravitate towards roles which most closely, explicitly, and directly align with my passion to empower communities who have been disenfranchised. You can probably guess which role I ended up choosing.

However, not everyone is quite as idealistic and I think there are many ways to be creative in how you shape your social impact. I personally have a bias towards promoting equity, so I’m framing my solutions with that bias in mind.

Adapt Products and Services to Benefit More People

Say you work on a large tech platform that reaches millions of people. You have a voice to speak for subgroups who traditionally may have no voice in product design. Can you think of ways to adapt the product so that it serves a wider range of people? Is the product culturally responsive for different groups? Can people with disabilities access the product? On the flip side, are there ways that the product might be biased against certain subgroups of people? There are lots of subtle barriers and features that prevent people from using products and platforms, and we need people inside companies who have this awareness and can correct for this type of bias in design.

To demonstrate how subtle this bias can be, here’s an example. On LinkedIn, for 3^rd degree connections, they hide the “connect” feature under the “…” button on the webpage. At first glance, it looks as though the only way you can reach out to a 3^rd degree connection is if you send a Premium InMail by purchasing LinkedIn’s Premium membership. However, in reality, you can still “connect” with that person for free by clicking “…” to select this option. I did confirm with a LinkedIn employee that they hid this feature on purpose to encourage you to purchase their membership. Why this is a big deal? (1) People who have less social capital, are less connected, and are more likely to have a lot more 3^rd+ degree connections and relatively fewer 1^st and 2^nd degree connections. (2) People who are less tech savvy may not realize they need to click on the “…” button to find the free “connect” option. And I posit that people who fall under conditions #1 and #2 are more likely to be less educated (and less tech savvy) and possibly lower income — if there is a correlation between income, education, the ability to use technology, and the size of one’s professional social capital / networks. So, if this is true, then LinkedIn may be unintentionally disproportionately targeting lower-income individuals to purchase their Premium membership, which is an inequitable policy. If someone can’t afford to purchase the membership and doesn’t realize that they can “connect” with folks for free, then they face barriers to developing their professional network. The simple solution would be to move the “connect” button back to the main page. It would be amazing if there was a social-impact-minded LinkedIn product manager out there who could make this happen!!

Adapt Your Work Processes

Not all of us work in roles where we have direct influence on how products are designed and implemented, especially if we are in more junior positions and/or not working at a product company. However, I believe that we can find ways in most of our jobs to promote equity and social impact. For example, when I worked in philanthropy, I had developed recommendations on how to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion in how foundations give away money, and there were some recommendations that need approval from senior leaders for implementation. However, there were many administrative recommendations that junior staff could potentially implement without explicit approval – small things such as removing character limits on written responses on grant applications. You may scoff, but nonprofits claim that 50 percent of the time that they spend on their grant applications, is spent editing their responses so that they fit the character limits.

Use Your Influence Internally in Other Ways – Start Small!

There are small and large ways to influence your work environment with social impact in mind. There are stories of employees starting diversity & inclusion programs, recycling programs, employee volunteer programs, charitable giving programs, etc. I even know people who have started apprenticeship programs to provide pathways for people with no college degrees to work in technology. However, starting an entire program might sound overwhelming, so start small. For example, if your team is hiring a new person, can you influence how the job description is developed? Does the role really require a college degree? Can you ask the recruiter to look for candidates from other sources than the usual elite colleges – maybe local community colleges? Would you be open to hiring someone with a criminal background, as a way to give a returning citizen a second chance? If your company has a policy against hiring people with criminal records, find out why – and press them to really understand if it’s a blanket policy or if they’d be open to hiring people with certain kinds of criminal backgrounds. You could also encourage your company towards supplier diversity (food, office supplies, consulting services). Or do the cleaning/ janitorial and other staff get paid a living wage? Do you treat all staff with respect?

I hope this smattering of concrete examples might help you to think more creatively about how to enhance the social impact your job has.

Please share other thoughts, ideas, and anecdotes on how to shape your social impact through your work!

Breaking into a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Role

I’ve gotten this question a million times about how to break into a corporate social responsibility job. [CSR roles can include managing or coordinating corporate philanthropy/giving, employee volunteer programs, community relations, corporate sustainability programs, etc.] Overall, it’s pretty hard to break in. I recommend working at a large company that has a strong CSR department and pivot your way into it.

Based on my observations of people who work in these roles, here’s how it generally happens:

1. Transfer internally within a company

CSR roles are often prized within a company because you get to “do good” while making a decent corporate salary. It’s not uncommon for an individual to work at a large company for a number of years, and then transfer into a CSR role (often a good place to retire). I was trying to apply to work for the philanthropic arm of a well-known corporate foundation and was told that none of their job openings are ever posted externally because they fill all their vacancies internally.

2. Develop your own CSR role within your company

If you work at a company that does not have a CSR function (but has enough resources to support one), you could be intrapreneurial and start your own CSR initiatives on the side, e.g., an employee volunteer program. Over time, as you build critical mass and support, your company may see the value in staffing such programs. I was once offered a role at a large company where two employees had started the CSR initiative but they didn’t want to take it on themselves, and had made the business case to create an FTE to hire someone.

3. Be recruited because of your specialized knowledge / expertise

If a specialized skillset or domain knowledge is needed (e.g., sustainability and supply chains), then a company will recruit externally for such a role. I just referred someone to a social impact role at a company and she got it for this reason. However, a lot of CSR roles don’t require such a specialized skillset — e.g., the skills needed to run an employee volunteer program or a charitable giving program can be learned on the job.

4. Be recruited because of prior CSR experience

It’s easier to get a CSR role when you already have CSR experience. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, there’s a closed networking group, the Corporate Community Relations Consortium, for CSR professionals and they share job openings within the network. That being said, even after I ran a corporate foundation, I still found it challenging to get interviews for CSR roles at other companies. A lot of times companies can be picky about recruiting CSR professionals who worked for companies in their same industry.

5. Be directly connected to the hiring manager

Not to knock employee referrals to open positions, but these roles are often so competitive that the referral may not really make a difference — unless your referrer actually knows the hiring manager personally and can put in a good word for you. I’ve even had a few senior-level people at their companies refer me for CSR roles and still didn’t even get a phone screen because the hiring managers were flooded with applications so the referral from employees they didn’t know personally didn’t make a difference. I still think it’s worth it to get an employee referral, but it may not give you a significant competitive edge.

6. Dumb luck

I know someone who didn’t have any prior CSR / philanthropy experience who filled in as a temp for someone on maternity leave, who was in a corporate philanthropy role. Through that temp experience, she was converted to a full-time permanent worker.

There are certainly venues for learning more about CSR that are open to non-CSR folks, if you’re willing to pay a registration fee. For example, I’ve attended the Northern California Grantmakers’ annual Corporate Philanthropy Institute a few times. Other regions may have similar events. If you know of other networking venues, or have advice for folks on how to break into CSR, please post in comments, or email me and I can list them here.

Choosing the Right Career Coach

The coaching industry has blossomed overnight and now you can find a coach for virtually anything. It seems that anyone can bill themselves as a coach and charge $150-$200+ per hour, whether they are qualified or not. I’ve had 9 career coaches, some of whom I paid, and the quality has ranged significantly. At times, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the insights that my coaches uncovered. I’ve also been severely disappointed. (I sometimes cynically think some coaches just spew random, off-the-cuff advice for an hour — what stake do they really have in your success as long as you can pay them? They’re not on the hook for finding you a job.) I find that people (including my past self) find a career coach through a friend’s recommendation, without doing much due diligence. STOP!

If you’re looking to pivot into the social impact sector (or at least explore what that might look like), here are some tips on finding the right career coach for you (and a lot of these tips would apply to finding a career coach regardless of sector):

Clarify why you’re looking for a career coach. A lot of people generally have a sense that they want coaching, but can’t concisely articulate why. Set clear goals if you can; otherwise, when you engage a coach, ask them to help you set clear goals. For example:

Social impact landscape scan: Are you looking for a coach to help give you ideas about what types of social impact careers out there? Then select someone who has deep and broad experience in the social impact space (usually you can get a sense for this by scanning both their LinkedIn profile as well as looking the number and types of connections they have on LinkedIn). I had this coach whom I assumed had broad exposure to the social impact sector for various reasons, and it turned out she did not — so she kept referring me to the same three nonprofits she was familiar with. Very frustrating and unimaginative. Ideally you want to find a coach who’s very well-networked, which means 500+ connections on LinkedIn, especially connections that you’d be interested in speaking with. However, it may be challenging to find a coach with strong social impact experience because the social impact space is rather new.
Tactical help with your cover letter, resume, and interviewing skills. This is pretty standard in some ways. Find a coach who has very strong communication (verbal and writing) skills, prior experience doing recruitment for social impact roles (so they’ll know how to best position your experience), and/or has had a lot of success with getting job offers. (On a side note, a career coach suggested taking an improv class to help with interviewing skills — really helps you to learn how to speak confidently and increase awareness of how you sound — no uptalking!!)
General motivation and strategy development to find a job. Maybe you already have the right network, but you need motivation to get started with tapping that network. Find a coach who can help you develop a manageable strategy and also can provide encouragement and accountability to implement your plan. In this case, I’d suggest that you find someone you “click” with given that the focus of this coaching is motivational/cheer-leading and probably personality-driven. You may also want to find someone who has some training in therapy, since many motivational blockers may be tied to deeper, underlying issues.
Advice to address your current work situation. You need a coach who probably has significant managerial experience and very strong interpersonal skills, and can navigate relational dynamics. (In contrast, if your coach has been an independent consultant for most of their career, I don’t know if they’d really understand workplace dynamics.)
Career advancement. Select a coach who has been able to successfully advance in their own career, and has strong interpersonal skills and relational savvy (can navigate politics). Here it also does help to have a coach who has broad knowledge of the social sector, so that they can give you ideas of what career advancement might look like, beyond your current organization. The problem is a lot of social sector orgs don’t have clearly articulated career paths for more junior staff or succession plans for their leaders, which is a real painpoint for junior staff looking to advance.

Ask your potential coach if you could speak to previous clients, especially those who had similar reasons as you do for seeking out coaching. More generally, ask your coach how many previous clients they’ve helped with similar goals (and what percentage of their clients have these goals). Also, ask for samples of past work products, if you’re asking for help with improving your resume and cover letter.

Ask your potential coach what their strengths/specialties are, as well as their gaps. First, this will give you a sense of whether they are able to address the issues you’re dealing with. Second, if they’re unable to articulate gaps, then I’d be a little suspicious about their competence, self-awareness, and/or integrity. No one is good at everything. In fact, you may need to get a couple coaches depending on your goals for coaching.

Ask your potential coach if they’ve personally addressed similar issues that you have. It isn’t always necessary that your coach has had personal experience, but it may be helpful. For example, if you’re looking for executive coaching, and your coach has never been an executive themselves, I would question the quality of their advice. Or, if you’re struggling to be motivated to transition / find a job, and they’ve also personally been in a similar rut and successfully navigated out of it, they would potentially have empathy and additional insight for your situation and how to best motivate you. However, on the flip side, sometimes having had a similar personal experience can bias a coach towards prescribing that you do what worked for them… which may not work for you! In that case, make sure your coach is a flexible thinker who can think of different strategies, instead of using the same tired one over and over.

Do you have other advice you’d offer to people looking for a career coach? Please comment or contact me!

Grad School as a Stepping Stone to Social Impact?

A lot of early/mid-career folks ask me whether it’s worth it to go to graduate school to transition into social impact. In my opinion, the answer is probably NO (and I welcome any of you to write a blog post rebutting this blog post!).

I have a lot of friends who have graduate degrees and who work in social impact, and don’t use any of the training they used from graduate school in their current work. Many of them also say they regret going to graduate school, especially those who have multiple graduate degrees. The issue is that terminal master’s degrees, certificate programs, and other similar programs can be very profitable, and so schools will churn out compelling marketing that a graduate degree is a necessary ingredient for career success.

I was chatting with my friend Maureen (who is profiled on this site) and we agreed that people should only attend graduate school under 1 of 3 conditions:

You are independently wealthy and can easily afford the entire expense of graduate school (or your family can).
Someone else is paying for it. Either your employer is paying or you get a scholarship that will cover 100% of your graduate program costs.
For the career you want (and first make sure you actually want that career), the only way you can get into that career is if you get this particular graduate degree. E.g., if you want to be a physician, you really have to get an MD.

Graduate school bears a large opportunity cost. You are investing 2+ years of your time into a degree where you could have been getting valuable work experience otherwise, and you are also incurring a lot of debt. On top of that, most social impact jobs don’t pay very well and so it will be challenging to pay off your school debt, unless your school has a loan forgiveness program. Also given how competitive the social impact space is, if you don’t go to a school that is fairly highly ranked, your chances of getting a social impact job may be more limited.

I would recommend figuring out what kinds of jobs that you want, and talking to people who work in those positions. Ask them how important it was to go to graduate school to get into their current position, and whether there are other pathways. I’ve conducted dozens of informational interviews and many people will say that they got their current position almost due to serendipity — they happened to be at the right place at the right time / happened to know exactly the right person (and they might not even have had the exact qualifications needed).

So think hard about graduate school. Are there other ways you could cultivate the needed skillset through your job or volunteer work? Or can you go to graduate school part-time while you continue to work?

Tread carefully.