Guest contributor Hilary McConnaughey shares about her career path in the field of philanthropy, where she has worked for a decade advising foundations, corporations, and high net-worth individuals on their charitable endeavors.
Our guest Yoda today is Hilary McConnaughey, who has spent nearly a decade of her career in philanthropy, advising foundations, corporations, and high net-worth individuals on their charitable endeavors. At the Milken Institute Center for Strategic Philanthropy, she consults with high-capacity philanthropists, conducts research, and develops resources to advance the sector and individual giving. Previously, she worked at a biotech startup in San Francisco where she led community partnerships and its corporate social responsibility efforts. At Arabella Advisors, a philanthropic consulting firm, she managed charitable and social welfare projects on behalf of her clients. She also worked at the grant-making nonprofit Tipping Point Community, where she engaged in human-centered design to pilot social service programs impacting people in poverty and determine whether these concepts can be scaled. McConnaughey received her Master of Public Policy from Brown University and BA with honors from Colgate University.
Choosing a career is never easy, especially if you are moved to make a difference in countless distinct ways. During grade school and my undergrad years, nearly every news story would compel me to dedicate my life to a new cause; one day it would be prison reform, another would be campaign finance, another, income inequality. I never doubted that I would end up in the nonprofit sector, but the career paths – and issue areas – seemed limitless.
Torn between pursuing a masters in criminal justice or public policy, I chose the latter, reasoning it would provide more professional versatility. With a stroke of luck, I wound up in a class about philanthropy during my first semester of grad school, and suddenly – serendipitously – my trajectory became clear.
At its best, philanthropy promotes social change at the macro level and can go beyond the support of direct services within a single nonprofit. Institutional funders and even astute individuals can harness their assets to address complex problems, taking a comprehensive long view to tackle root causes. Philanthropists have more than financial resources to contribute; they can also play a crucial role in convening stakeholders and facilitating collaborations and other connections. The strategic deployment of philanthropic assets has the potential to disrupt current systems and generate meaningful progress.
For nearly ten years, I have spent my career in the philanthropic sector, largely advising foundations and individuals on their charitable giving, and also building out corporate social responsibility initiatives. As a generalist, I support philanthropists and their varied causes of interest, which takes the form of developing strategic plans, social impact programs, funder collaboratives, impact frameworks, legacy plans, and more. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have landed in a profession where I can think about the big picture and help shape and advance social change as effectively as possible.
Of course, the very concept of philanthropy highlights the distinction between the fortunate and those who are less so. There is no denying the power imbalance that ensues when one segment of society elects to donate resources to another. Part of my job is to acknowledge and help minimize the one-way transactionality that philanthropy is historically known for. Philanthropists tend to be one step (if not more) removed from executing social change work, so they have much to learn from nonprofit staff and those with lived experience of the issue at hand. After all, those closest to the problem are those closest to its solution, and so both donor and recipient have important roles to play in this dynamic. Thus, the most productive philanthropists foster transparent relationships and continually seek feedback from – and even collaborate with – the community. Facilitating this engagement is the most rewarding work of all.
Ultimately, my career path can be distilled into one very simple lesson: if you don’t know where to start, start at the beginning. In pursuit of an impactful, issue-agnostic vocation, I discovered philanthropy as the beginning of the social impact supply chain in that the distribution of philanthropic resources serves as the lifeblood of the nonprofit sector, sustaining the programming and critical operating support that ultimately engenders transformative progress. I opted to direct my energy upstream, enabling philanthropy to be more strategic, effective, and inclusive. I have no regrets.
With programs in Kenya and Zambia, Freely in Hope equips survivors and advocates to lead in ending the cycle of sexual violence. Freely in Hope has a three-tiered program of holistic education (through scholarships), leadership development, and storytelling platforms.
We recently interviewed Nikole Lim, the International Director and founder of nonprofit Freely in Hope. With programs in Kenya and Zambia, Freely in Hope equips survivors and advocates to lead in ending the cycle of sexual violence. Freely in Hope has a three-tiered program of holistic education (through scholarships), leadership development, and storytelling platforms. Nikole founded Freely in Hope at age 20, and as its International Director, she leads the organization’s staff development, fundraising, and implementation of new program initiatives.
Nikole is releasing her first book, Liberation Is Here: Women Uncovering Hope in a Broken World, on September 22nd, available for pre-order here.
Q: What inspired you to start Freely in Hope?
As a documentary filmmaker, I traveled in and out of countries to meet people briefly to collect stories for my short-term assignments. I befriended women who were survivors of sexual violence (SV) in Kenya, where I filmed my thesis film (I was in a college program for film production), and observed these women fighting against cultural and familial oppression simply for being born a girl, in order to go to school. All these women desired was to use their education to ensure other girls vulnerable to SV wouldn’t endure the same pain. I began to observe a correlation between SV and the lack of access to education.
As I edited my thesis documentary film, I felt God asking me, what are you going to do about it? The film I was making would build awareness of SV through storytelling, but simply telling their stories was not enough. I was so inspired by the beauty, compassion and community orientation of their dreams, that I wanted to contribute tangibly to helping achieve them. I started to think about founding a nonprofit for this purpose, but I didn’t know how to start one from scratch. I had to Google it. And this was the beginning of Freely in Hope.
Q: How has Freely in Hope evolved over time?
We began by providing scholarships for a couple of girls to attend high school and university. After receiving their first scholarships, these girls rose to the top of their class. We soon began supporting other survivors. The girls shared that, now that they were in school, they realized the power of their voices and they wanted to educate their communities about SV prevention. They wanted to become leaders in the fight for justice. We built out our programs into the three tiers that we have now, based on their guidance, feedback, and dreams. We pride ourselves as being an organization for survivors, led by survivors, designed by survivors. All of our program staff are survivors of SV. We hope to build a strong support system for young women who believe that they can transform systems of oppression into places of freedom and liberation for all women.
Q: What do you find fulfilling about your work?
Our survivors, both scholars and staff, recognize the power of their voice. These are huge milestones when they lead a meeting for the first time, tell their story for the first time, or recognize for the first time how a trigger was connected to a past trauma. It is incredibly fulfilling to observe how these moments lead towards transformation.
When they first join our program, many survivors can’t even say their own names because there’s so much shame and trauma attached to their identities due to rape, incest, and violence. They lost a sense of who they were. Through Freely in Hope, they go through a process to reclaim their identities, to the point that they can say their names publicly and tell their stories in front of others.
Q: What challenges have you encountered in your work?
The biggest turning point in my leadership was when I burned out in my third year with Freely in Hope. I felt it was personally up to me to pursue this mission of ending sexual violence, and that I had to control all our organizational outcomes in order to succeed. I ended up hospitalized in Zambia due to the stress: I was physically ill, unable to sleep, and had migraines.
In the hospital I came to terms with my lack of control. I wasn’t God. I also realized that I was suffering from secondary PTSD and through my recovery, I began to recognize that the community already knows the solutions they need and my role is to leverage the community’s knowledge and support system, and not to control and dictate.
Nikole Lim
Q: What do you wish you had known before you started Freely in Hope?
I wish I had known how hard it would have been. Actually, I retract that. If I had known, I would have not done it and missed out on all the gifts of this work. Where there is pain, suffering and darkness, there’s an abundance of light, hope and healing. You can’t properly experience light without experiencing the darkness.
More practically, I wish I had more academic knowledge about nonprofit management and creation. But as a result, I’ve had to rely more on the wisdom of survivors which is what makes our programs incredible—beyond any theories I could apply.
Q: How do you measure your success?
My measurement of how we’re doing is based on our survivors’ experiences and our staff perspectives on how we’re impacting our community, and not as much focused on what our donors think or what activities have the most fundraising potential. Ultimately we gauge our success on being attentive to the survivors’ needs and implementing their ideas.
Q: How do you elicit honest feedback from the survivors?
It’s taken us a long time to build a culture of trust. We have two retreats a year to bring all girls together with our staff. Our scholars fill out program assessments and have opportunities to share feedback with staff members. We also have an anonymous feedback system.
Q:What are you doing to take care of yourself during this time of COVID? What gives you joy?
In the first week of sheltering in place, there were constant calls because everything was blowing up. I burnt out. So now I only schedule 3-4 calls per day. I start the day with a morning meditation and I take a mid-day yoga break. At the end of my work day, I do some cardio kickboxing as my workout, which gives me joy and energy. I then cook dinner for my family, which is a replenishing therapeutic act of service and gets me away from my computer. I take the night off and try to maintain work / life separation.
Joy is about experiencing the gifts of the day – as mundane as they may be. At night, I sit in silence and solitude to pray the Daily Examen, an Ignatian spiritual exercise. Through the Examen, I observe my gratitudes for the day and write them down. I also observe the desolations I felt during the day and bring them to God in prayer.
Q: Life lessons learned: Any other general advice you’d like to share about careers?
Put people first. Lead with compassion and empathy. Learn to listen to the voices of your community to inform your leadership. Move into this space with an open heart. What you learn in academia and articles can supplement your work, but the people you’re serving know best. Come up with a community-oriented solution – this is what justice looks like. Share power, ideas and resources.
Understand how culture and family systems and trauma can impede change. Holistically serve staff and beneficiaries so that the change can evolve from the community. As a leader in social impact the change doesn’t come from you. The “social” in “social impact” at its core implies the ownership and involvement of the community.
I feel a little funny calling myself a Social Impact Yoda, but I was recently featured on the PCDN Social Change Careers Podcast, and here’s the summary from their page. [They are also a great resource for social impact careers — please do check them out!] Please listen to the podcast here.
The heart wants what the heart wants. Even if you graduate from MIT as an electrical engineer. Nancy Chan found her way into the mission-driven field of social good.
In Episode 11 of Season 6, Nancy shares her interesting career trajectory. From working for a while in the tech world to ultimately discovering her passion for good and starting a super comprehensive a search for her graduate degree to graduating with a Master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University [McCourt School of Public Policy].
Post graduation, Chan applied her analytical skills with her passion and excelled in the worlds of nonprofits, philanthropy, ultimately working for tech companies for social good.
She currently works in Strategy and Evaluation at the Justice & Opportunity Initiative of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Our yoda and guest contributor, Julia Wuench, MBA is a leadership and career coach, corporate trainer and keynote speaker with a mission to enhance human connection and fulfillment at work and in life. Using positive psychology and her blueprint The Authenticity Guide, Julia provides critical “soft-skills” training to individuals, corporate and university teams. As a graduate of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Julia focuses on the 3 C’s of culture: connection, communication and collaboration. She is a regular contributor to Business Insider and some of her clients include Marriott, Lenovo, Cisco, Women Business Owners Network, Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and more. Julia holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics (magna cum laude) from Brandeis University, and a Masters of Business Administration from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and is credentialed as a strengths coach from The Marcus Buckingham Company through Cisco.
No two people’s social impact journeys are alike, but there are certain archetypes or patterns I’ve seen over the years. I believe I fit one very specific archetype: and that is of the person who moved away from social impact as a paid career, and leaned into social impact as community engagement. I’m going to tell you about my journey and I’ll share some things I learned along the way.
Low-stakes trial and error
I went to college at Brandeis University, a small liberal arts university in Waltham, Massachusetts. I planted my activist roots at Brandeis. The student body comprised so many smart, studious, curious, liberal, open-minded people and it opened up my world.
I studied Economics and Gender Studies and spent four years trying different activities, internships and jobs to see what I liked. (A smattering of said roles were: intern at the university’s office of investment management, economic empowerment intern for South Asian survivors of domestic violence, advocate for custodial workers’ rights, writing for a microfinance publication, a weird internship at major bank, making PowerPoints for a boutique public relations firm… you get the idea.) At the time I remember having the sense that I was aimlessly meandering, indecisive and lost. I felt passionless and professionally behind my peers. In hindsight — I was doing exactly the right thing. Trial and error is often the best way to find out what we’re passionate about and good at. And, these low-stakes trial and error gigs can be a great way to find out if you hate something too (a data point just as valuable as loving something).
I graduated from Brandeis in 2011, and the job market wasn’t exactly burgeoning at that time. Inspired by a class I took my senior year of college, I wanted to work for a foundation or philanthropy. In said class, we (a group of 10 students) received a $25,000 grant from the Sunshine Lady Foundation (Doris Buffet’s foundation). Our charge was to spend a semester acting like a family foundation and ultimately give the money away in its entirety to a nonprofit in the Boston area. Giving someone else’s money away to a good cause was, well, awesome — why wouldn’t I want to pursue that as a career? The other thing I loved about philanthropy was that I didn’t necessarily have to pick a cause I cared most about. Many philanthropies gave towards lots of different issue areas.
But, as it turned out, there were 0 jobs in philanthropy for new college graduates at that time. It turns out I wasn’t the only one who wanted to work in philanthropy. So I made the decision to leverage my economics degree and took a job as a financial analyst in corporate finance at a large healthcare organization. I did that for two years and learned a lot, but admittedly it wasn’t a fit. I learned that I can be a “quant,” and I can do data analysis and I can nail Excel but it didn’t bring me any joy or satisfaction. I started paying attention to the activities that drained me versus ones that energized me. By the end of those two years, waking up in the morning was the worst part of my day. When my alarm went off, I would check my phone and pray for a “snow day” like an elementary school kid. I would pray for snow days in August. I was existing, not thriving.
I ended up switching jobs within the company. My new job was in outpatient ambulatory operations working for the chief operating officer. I had a great six months in that role, and then the other 18 months were pretty miserable. I was working for really toxic men who were just given more and more power by other men in the company. By the end, I felt cast aside by leadership: I wasn’t given important work and I was bored. I knew I needed a break from New York and the healthcare industry: I needed a reset.
The funny thing about those years post college: there’s no roadmap. For me and for my circle of friends, it was a given that we’d do well in high school, go on to good colleges where we’d get good grades, and then get good jobs. But, after that? No instructions.
Since I didn’t know what my next steps should be I embarked on what I would call an informational networking extravaganza. I essentially cold emailed CEOs of cool companies, executive directors of nonprofits I liked, family, friends, and anyone who I respected professionally. What I wanted to gain from these conversations was an understanding of how to pivot from healthcare into the social impact space. My goal was to collect diverse perspectives and data points, and then make a decision on what to do next.
Get a master’s degree
Interestingly, most of the advice that I got was to go to graduate school. When I applied to jobs in the impact sector around this time (and got turned down for every single one), I asked for feedback. The response most of the time? Get a master’s degree. I received mixed advice on what kind of graduate school was the right decision, though. Some people said an MPA was great for the nonprofit sector. Some people said I should double down on healthcare and get an MPH. Others said MBA. I had a particularly pivotal conversation with Deborah Brooks, co-founder of the Michael J. Fox Foundation. (I couldn’t believe she agreed to talk to me; she was amazing.) Brooks went to Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and she was sufficiently compelling about how an MBA is crucial for careers in the impact space — enough so that I was signing up to take the GMAT the following week.
Fast forward about a year, and I was moving to North Carolina to attend Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. (As a New York Jew, you better believe I never saw myself ending up south of the Mason-Dixon line… but read on for some fun twists.) I ended up being attracted to business school because of a belief that business is a critical lens through which social change should occur. I was interested to learn more about how businesses were contributing to bettering people and the planet. I also felt like I could easily leverage an MBA to work in the public or private sector. And, in the unlikely event of going back into healthcare, I could use an MBA there too. I was impressed by Fuqua largely because of The Center for Advancement in Social Entrepreneurship, founded by the late Greg Dees. Also, the students were genuinely down to earth, unlike some other top business schools that will remain unnamed.
I got my MBA (full-time program) from Duke with a concentration in social entrepreneurship. I did my summer internship at a well-known nonprofit in Boston working on social impact bond deals related to healthcare, particularly in the pediatric asthma space. I thought the work was interesting but it still didn’t feel like a fit. I had the same feeling of dread every morning about going to work. During my second year at Fuqua, I threw myself even further into the social impact world. I intentionally pursued roles wherein I could mentor first-year students who were interested in the social impact space. (I loved and was good at mentoring and coaching, a fact I conveniently ignored for a few years — this will come into play later.) I was the Careers Co-Chair for the Net Impact Club and I loved that role more than anything I had done at b-school.
Social impact consulting
After graduation my husband and I decided to stay in North Carolina, to the chagrin of our family and friends back in New York. (We could do things in NC like buy a house and open a restaurant, things we wouldn’t dream of doing in New York.) I went to work for a social impact consulting firm. The firm was based in New York and I was charged with heading up the North Carolina office. As director of the North Carolina market, I had ten consultants working for me on projects ranging from portfolio analysis for impact investing firms, to developing metrics and measurement for nonprofits, and lots of projects in between.
I enjoyed the work more than any job I’d held previously, but again was confronted with the idea that I loved mentoring and coaching my team far more than I enjoyed the consulting project work itself. As these feelings were becoming more of a reality for me, the CEO of my company cut my salary because of a lack of funding to the organization. I took this as a sign: I needed to hit pause, resign (the first time I ever quit a job without a Plan “B”) and figure out what I wanted to do next. It feels crucial to mention I would not have been able to take that time off if I didn’t have a partner with an income who was supportive of my choice.
The “feel good tax”
And perhaps this is also a good moment to mention what I call the “feel good tax:” the idea that the social impact sector pays less than other sectors because of the feel-goodness of the work, or lack of funding, or some combination of the two. For me, this wasn’t talked about enough in business school. Professors and mentors never told me point blank: “You will make ⅓ of what your business school peers make post-graduation. Start thinking about that now.” So, I’m telling you now! You’re essentially paying a premium to help the world — in the form of your salary cut. Yes, the work felt good, but getting paid so below the market rate for my value felt like absolute crap. It wears on you over time. Anyone who says that money doesn’t matter is either lying or is independently wealthy (I’ve learned this from experience).
“What do you really want from your life?”
During the one month I took off, I did a lot of deep thought work. I embarked on a second informational networking extravaganza. I challenged myself with the question, “What do you really want from your life? NOT, “What do you think would be impressive to other people?” It turns out they were two totally different answers, and that was profound for me. Chasing the latter brought me misery, chasing the former was the first time I felt authentic joy.
My coaching firm The Authenticity Guide (TAG) was born from this time of deep introspection. TAG works to enhance connectedness and fulfillment at work and in life. I have individual clients as well as corporate clients. My sweet spot is in empowering emerging female leaders to come into their potential. I do workshops, I speak at conferences, and I write for Business Insider. I’m my own boss and it’s the best.
You may be asking yourself, did she completely forget about social impact? Is that just not a part of her life anymore? And, something I think about often… what happened to that expensive business school degree with a concentration in social impact? My answer to you is simple. It took me years to learn that I will always be passionate about social impact and it will always be in my life in a meaningful way, but… wait for it… it does not have to be how I earn my income.
To say this realization was groundbreaking for me is an understatement. I am still very involved in social impact in my community: I am board chair of an organization called Helius that works to give free business classes to necessity-driven entrepreneurs and help them gain financial independence and earn a fair living wage. I do pro-bono coaching for low-income business owners. I shop locally when I can. My husband and I co-own a restaurant that gives away money to various charities and we pay ethical wages to our employees. I personally give a lot of money to charity. There’s lots of other ways that I have conceived of other than my 9-5 to have a significant impact on the world and on the community. And, I actually feel better about the impact I’m having when it’s divorced from a salary. I find that I’m less bitter and more enthusiastic about the impact I’m having.
What I get paid to do now (leadership and career coaching) — is far more fulfilling to me than tying my salary to social impact. That might not be true for everyone, but it was true for me. What I’m doing now is where my passion and zone of genius meet. And, while coaching is not “tried and true” social impact necessarily, I feel like I’m making significant differences in people’s lives. When I help people get more in touch with their passions and get closer to work that aligns with their values — to me, that’s impact. It might not be impact investing. It might not be case work for survivors of domestic violence. But for me it feels impactful at this time in my life.
Sometimes I wish I had known sooner that social impact could be in my life without being my job. But mostly, I’m just grateful for where my journey led me. I wouldn’t have learned this lesson without all the steps I took along the way. And, I’m even more grateful that I get to guide others on their unique journeys. Boy does that feel good!
A lot of us have mandatory (or highly recommended) work from home mandates, out of deference to public health guidance. Our business travel and attendance at conferences and other external meetings have been canceled. Some of us might be really busy with childcare b/c of our kids who are at home from school. But some others might have some slack in their schedules and might be climbing the walls for social interaction; there are only so many hours of streaming video we can endure from Netflix before we get antsy.
So… given all these factors, this might represent a good opportunity to request an informational interview via phone or video chat! Take this time to explore other careers that you’ve always been interested in. This might also be a good time to sign up for virtual career coaching because you’ll have time to invest in all of the different exercises.
Here are a few quick tips on requesting an informational interview — we’ll have a couple of other guest bloggers write more guidance in detail, but here’s some basic advice. A lot of it is common sense, but you’d be pretty surprised at how often people do NOT follow these pointers:
Conduct thorough research on the organization and the individual before you approach them. Identify the right person/department within the organization to speak with.
Make a clear and compelling case as to why you’d like to speak to them. How exactly does your background or interest relate to what they do?
Especially if this person is very senior, ask if you can speak to one of their colleagues, if they don’t have time to spare.
Give a flavor of the questions that you plan to ask them. Prepare questions in advance of your informational interview. Assure them that they’re not wasting their time in speaking with you.
Be clear about how much time you’re asking for from them, e.g., 15-20 minutes.
If you don’t get a response, follow up in a month. Persistence can pay off.
An early-career person just sent me a message cold via LinkedIn requesting a brief informational interview. It was a very thoughtful message in 2-3 paragraphs — he had clearly done research on my background and my employer, and made a compelling case for a conversation. I was happy to oblige. Also, in deference to the 100+ people who have granted me informational interviews, I’m happy to pay it forward, time allowing. The rule of thumb is that people are busy. Show them that you’ve done the work to show that you respect their time.
On the flip side, it drives me crazy when I get a LinkedIn message from someone whom I don’t know, asking for an informational interview, but it’s clear that they are just trying to find anyone to speak with who works at my organization. I’m not even in the department they’re really interested in. They also may not have done much research on my organization to understand what we do. It’s just scattershot. I think some career coaches would say to take a scattershot approach to requests for informational interviews –the theory is you increase your odds of getting an informational interview if you just randomly send out requests. I disagree with this spray-and-pray methodology — if you’re not doing the work to send out thoughtful, well-researched requests, it can be harmful and backfire on you because it shows you’re thoughtless and sloppy. Don’t do it. It’s a different story if you put in the work and send out 100 thoughtful requests, vs 100 random requests with no thought!
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 3rd 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.
We haven’t had a recession for 10 years and we are overdue. While the jittery stock market from last week may not indicate we are entering a full-blown recession currently, it’s probably in the not-too-distant future.
As a result, I would be wary about taking a corporate social responsibility role at a company right now.
In times of recession, it is normal for most companies to pull back on “nonessential” spending and cut cost, which may include parts of their CSR, especially if CSR is not part of their core revenue strategy. Even if they maintain essential parts of their CSR department, you always have to worry about the “last-in-first-out” phenomenon which occurs during layoffs. When I worked in college recruiting, our tech company went through a downturn and had a layoff eight months after I was hired, and my position was eliminated, especially since it was in a cost center (HR in this case, not CSR) and not a business unit, which generates revenue. My layoff was totally predictable.
If you have a fairly stable job right now and are trying to break into CSR, here are a few questions I’d consider if I had a CSR job offer:
How large and financially stable / profitable is the company? A smaller company may have more pressure to generate revenue and as such, its CSR function may be more vulnerable to economic shifts.
Is this role a “nice-to-have” or “need-to-have” within the company’s CSR department? In other words, can the CSR department function without this role?
Is this a new role or an established role that has been around for some time?
If the role were eliminated, how transferable are your skills to other roles and departments/business units within the company?
How long has the CSR function existed at the company? How did it fare during the last recession? Did they lay people off?
How committed is the company to CSR? (Hard to gauge since all companies are going to say that they value CSR)
A Silver Lining
So one possible silver lining about a recession is if a company is truly committed to its role as a corporate citizen, it might actually increase its CSR activity to accommodate increasing needs in the community. (In the last recession, many foundations increased their giving, for example, to offset declines in individual charitable giving.) For example, a company might increase and redirect its charitable giving to supporting individuals and families struggling with unemployment. Or it might increase employee engagement around volunteering or giving. In that case, there could be a potential increase in CSR activity and job security.
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 3rd 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 3rd 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 3rd+ degree connections and relatively fewer 1st and 2nd 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!
Our yoda today and guest contributor Mo-Yun Lei Fong is currently 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. After graduating with her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford, 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.
Every job has an impact on society – it’s a matter of mindset and how large a scale and direct an impact you want to have.
Coming out of undergrad, I decided to defer a career in chemical engineering because I had a strong desire to teach and give pay forward what my teachers had poured into me. The idea was to teach for a couple of years, go back to engineering, and maybe retire as a school teacher. Two years turned into three as I wanted to see my sophomores graduate, but in that third year, I was already starting to get the itch to do more. If only I could start a school and not just impact 180 students a year, but an entire student body of thousands? I got that wish, as I became an assistant principal at the school, the same year I applied to business schools with the intention of opening up my own girls school focused on STEM. I chose to attend Harvard Business School, which has a lofty mission to “educate leaders who make a difference in the world.” At the time, I translated this to literally make a difference in the entire world, setting expectations high and the pressure was on to figure out how to do just that.
Upon graduation, I thought, “If only I could help restructure the entire school system, I would really start to make a difference in the world.” When I was offered the role as the first executive director of the Stanford Educational Leadership Initiative, I was convinced “this is it!” Combining the amazing resources and thought leadership from Stanford Graduate School of Education and Stanford Graduate School of Business, we set out to transform the complex US school system to better serve students. Working with the largest school districts, we developed executive education courses and research to help school leaders bring back best practices that could potentially impact hundreds of thousands of students. For me, though, something was still missing. If only I had more direct business experience, I could be even more credible in this intersection of business and education and have even more impact.
My pivot to the corporate sector was fortuitous. I was responsible for the “acceptable use policy” for the allowable goods and services sold using a payment platform. This drew from my experiences not only working with policymakers but setting up the enforcement operations. Although far removed from the world of education, my mindset was on protecting the public from physical harm, fraud, and risk. Users at the time were in the millions and my responsibilities continued to grow. With each career move, it pulled me further and further away from direct social impact. I was no longer in the classroom helping the individual students with their math problem or writing college recommendation letters, but the policies that were set had economic implications on small and medium business owners. Similarly at Google, my role as the Chief Compliance Officer was protecting a global user base from money laundering and terrorist financing after 9/11. It was then that it dawned on me that every job has an impact on society – it’s a matter of mindset and how large a scale and how direct an impact you want to have.
I knew that my work was playing an important role in society, but it didn’t stop the desire to get back into education. I remember my original purpose in wanting business experience which was to help more students attain the education they deserved and need to be successful in the 21st century. I started asking everyone I knew both at work and in my social circles if they knew any organizations that could use some help. Again, the stars aligned and I for the next four years, I led a team to bring the importance of computer science education to the national stage and helped spark the imaginations and learning for millions of students globally. And now in my current role working on Google Assistant and Search, I have the privilege of providing information and technology to sectors beyond education and to billions of users. This is an opportunity that would not have been possible, if I hadn’t started talking to people about my dreams to change the world for the better.
Having held jobs that had direct impact at a small scale, to jobs that have indirect impact but at a much larger scale, I sometimes wonder if I’ve made the right tradeoffs in my career. But as I sat down for lunch across from Jennifer, a former student of mine who now works at Google launching devices that will be used by millions of customers, I realized that those early years of teaching had just as much meaning and social impact as my current day job. Every life we touch makes a difference, so at the end of the day, there is very little tradeoff. Even HBS recognizes that though they can “ touch only a few thousand directly each year, we can indirectly influence many more.”
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, Mo. Reactions? Please comment below!
Keoke, thanks so much for being willing to share about
your career path with us. Please start by telling us about your current role
working in social impact at your organization, Participant Assistive Products.
I am co-founder and CEO of Participant Assistive Products.
We have been bootstrapping for 2 years and have completed 9 iterations of our
prototype, a wheelchair for children in lower income countries. My day-to-day
involves a lot of Q&A with investors, coordinating our R&D team, and
marketing. We have letters of intent for ~4,000 units and have raised about
$400k. It looks like we will have production in May and then my role will shift
towards sales and building the team.
We chose to start Participant now because this is a pivotal
time in the global story of people with disabilities. Because of aging and
chronic disease, the population is doubling. At the same time, many nations are
adding assistive technology to their national healthcare systems, so there is a
viable market opportunity. And, new technologies are opening affordable
solutions. All this put a sparkle in my entrepreneurial eye and we set out to
democratize assistive products so that none are left behind.
Please briefly share your career path prior to
Participant.
I’ve been working in the disability field since I finished
my MBA 10 years ago. My work has taken me to many corners of the world, and I
have had the opportunity to work with many passionate and highly skilled
people. I’ve worked on bigger projects in Indonesia, Nicaragua, and Georgia.
I’ve always worked in small companies with less than 50 employees and in
dynamic market environments. I’m familiar with a startup environment where
decisions are made quickly, and staying in my specialty isn’t practical because
there are many different needful things. I really enjoy the marketing and sales
aspects of being an entrepreneur, especially where they overlap with product
development and teasing out user needs.
What do you find fulfilling about your work? Why did you start
Participant?
People with disabilities are the largest minority group on
the planet and often the most overlooked. At the same time, working in this
space is exhilarating because there are exceptional outcomes available with
very little input. One of my favorite moments was following along on a
motorcycle behind a guy named Purnomo. He lives uphill on a volcano in
Indonesia and rides his wheelchair down to his artist studio. With that income,
he has bought his family home, and his kids are on track for lives filled with
opportunities in rapidly growing economy. This is a very different story line
than that of the 70 million people who need a wheelchair and don’t have one. It
is next to impossible for them to be productive. And in otherwise challenging
situations, their families often don’t fare well versus the average. I’m
delighted to see people achieve so much after becoming mobile and going where
they want. With our new for-profit company, we expect the added delight of
disrupting our little part of the American medical device industrial complex.
It is bent towards extracting dollars from the government, not serving users.
Our work abroad, where Medicare doesn’t exist, gives us an advantage in
reimagining a lean supply chain that delivers high value to users.
What are the most important skills to succeed in your
job? And in your career in general?
Is grit a skill? This work is exceptionally
challenging, especially for someone with a preference for social enterprise
versus traditional charity-oriented solutions. That’s because disability, even
in ‘developed’ countries like ours, is either a charity or government-funded
area. Up until recently, few lower-income country governments were buying
assistive products for their people. The lack of local government leadership, lack
of trained professional clinicians, and lack of funding has made solving
problems more challenging. At times the little funding and government
leadership available has been unstable, and we’ve seen years of work collapse.
But, most things worth doing are not easy.
After grit, I’d say networking skills, speaking and writing,
and a human centered design approach to product development.
What advice would you give to others who are looking to
work in social impact careers? Should they go to graduate school to make the
transition?
No. Please don’t. If you do, go somewhere cheap.
Seriously.
Whoever it is that you want to help, my advice is, go
over there, move in, and listen. You can get reading lists from wherever,
buy the texts for $5 each on hpb.com, and start a book club. Also, follow the
real trend. In economies that are really growing, people learn things on
Youtube as much as universities. Get a volunteer job at a company that seems
to be making a difference, and eventually, if you’re any good, they’ll hire
you. If you are no good, then do something different. You’ll be good at
something. The great news is you can switch because your diploma isn’t
anchoring you to a soul killing job that is necessary for loan payments.
I’d like to see a study that surveys 5,000 Public
Administration and International Development grad school candidates 10 years
after graduation. I’ll bet 90% would not be in those fields and the reasons
would be: #1 pay was too low or unstable (especially when covering a student
loan), #2 the office culture was toxic and off mission, and #3 the work was too
demanding.
If you don’t have loans then #1 is less of a problem and you
can be the firebrand driving hard at #2, with less fear of getting fired. Re:
#3, see below.
How do you balance your work/life?
Work-life balance helps is great for selling books and
this-season’s-version of Kick Boxing classes. It is a myth and often
impractical.
If you want to accomplish a lot, you’ll need to work a lot.
And, if there are less resources available – the culture offers less money for
progress on that problem – then to make progress, you’ll probably need to work
even more. Oh, and you’re doing something hard – not selling a new flavor of
booze, a fresh caffeine delivery mechanism, or a sneakier way to monetize
privacy.
Good news, you will feel better about the dent in the world
that you are making. Meaning is more indicative of happiness than leisure time.
If you’re reading this, then it is likely that your
privilege allows you to decide what to spend your life accomplishing. This
is one of the most precious choices.
Life lessons learned: Any other general advice you’d like
to share about careers?
If you can’t switch, you are not free. So, become awesome at something marketable.
Be loyal if you find a mission and a solution that has real potential.
Don’t be afraid to call foul on toxic, abusive, egoist, or
wasteful team situations. The people you are trying to serve deserve the team’s
best efforts and you can help move towards that.
Knowing that you don’t understand is the beginning of
understanding.
