Pros
- As a Program Coordinator, PC, you will work directly with students at a local public high school in the classroom and after school and will really get to know them, the school culture, school staff and community -This is an excellent job to build skills and learn how to hit the ground running and be flexible -You attend service projects (volunteering) out in the community and really get to know the city you live in better. Working here made me a better member of my city. -Excellent insurance -Students who participate in the program really do change and grow for the better when they have a PC who cares about them and guides them-- this is the PC, NOT buildOn.
Cons
-buildOn is a corporate company disguised as a non profit. The CEO, Jim, is the founder, and came from the corporate world, of which he still very much is a part. - This hurts the employees who want to make passion driven change. Most of the programming at buildOn is directed by where the donations are coming from. They are 100% privately funded by donors- no federal assistance- and therefore bend over backwards to make the donors happy. It oftentimes feels like the students are put on display, like a poverty parade, to make the donors feel like they're doing "good" by writing a check. -The upper management of the school based programs has their heart in the right place, but their hands are tied by all the other departments- development (fundraising) and marketing trump everything else. A development or marketing person makes split second decisions that rattle programming and often go back on whatever was promised (such as food being provided at a certain project, or having 10 additional adults at the project) -The relationship between the donors and students is shady, to say the least. The donors don't want to get their hands dirty going to where the students live and learn, the "poor" neighborhoods, so PCs must break their backs getting the students to large corporate functions. -The international trips "treks" are misguided and are pumped out as "white savior" trips to any donor willing to pay the price tag. Schools are being built in communities that don't need or didn't ask for them because buildOn doesn't want to miss out on a sale of another trek. There is absolutely ZERO monitoring and evaluation after the school and the photo op is done. -Your voice in buildOn doesn't matter. Even if they want to hear it, they can't due to ridiculous amounts of busy work and mundane tasks.