Pros
🟢Engaged Leadership: Serge Dedina, the CEO, and Fay Crevoshay, the Director of Communications, actively engaged with me and other employees. 🟢Feeling like family. During my 5-month internship, I was treated like an employee by joining in company activities like morning Yoga. It would have been better if I was paid like one... 🟢Internship Program: WiLDCOAST had a structured internship program that will give you the chance to gain real-world experience in a non-profit organization... even if it's isn't impressive enough for a resume.
Cons
🔴Refusal Compensation... not even gas money! Despite the 6,000USD of work I did (my internship duties were worth approx $18/hr at the time in the job market) and hustle to the organization, WiLDCOAST refused to offer a paid position. Why? They had a million-dollar budget with staff making almost 6-figure incomes. Right now in 2023, WiLCOAST is hiring for an assistant director at a salary of more than 100K a year and their budget is around 3 million! Why can't they pay interns or, at the very least, compensate them for gas money? 🔴 Heartless & Two-faced. WiLDCOASTs founder Serge may treat you like family and talk to you like a bro, but the man is heartless. He took the everyone on a 3-day retreat after he told me that he didn't have the funding to hire me. I told him I was on the brink of homelessness because I was interning for him for almost half a year and commuting twice a week from La Mesa. Gas is expensive. WiLDCOAST is only interested in slave labor and they are selfish. That's probably why they have left Imperial Beach and set up a new headquarters in Del Mar where the ocean isn't polluted with sewage and where the towns folk are rich. 🔴 False Advertising in Job Description. They internship didn't teach me the skills as advertised, I never got a letter of recommendation as advertised, and to add insult to injury, they asked me to drive to their office for an exit interview and didn't offer to pay for gas when I had worked from home for 2 months citing financial hardship. 🔴False Hope of Employment At the interview and during my internship, I made it clear that I was interning only for the possibility of employment. I volunteered at events, did extra work, and completed tasks quickly and with accuracy. I worked for free until I was almost homeless. In the end, they knowingly let me work for nothing. How do you think they will treat others like you? NOTE: The website for WiLDCOAST here is wrong. Their company website is https://wildcoast.org/