Silicon Valley Community Foundation Employee Reviews about "nonprofit"

Pros

Work/life balance, good nonprofit resume material

Cons

Still toxic and dysfunctional; lip service to values and community work prevents or slows straightforward improvements

Pros

This foundation is doing incredible things, largely because of the amazing talent it is able to attract. They also provide various training opportunities and even have an employee committee for health and wellness. Staff events are fun and meant to serve as a break from the fast-paced working environment. This organization also seems to burn brighter and brighter every year in terms of achievement and status in the nonprofit community.

Cons

Most of those amazing individuals are over-tasked with projects, portfolios and other miscellaneous items that either detract from their primary job description or cause burnout. Management does seem to be attentive to hearing from staff, but little to nothing is done to remedy the long hours and heavy workloads. Also, mid-to-upper-level staff are expected to be on-call via email 24/7 and tend to work more than 40 hours per week, but this is never explicitly stated. Even hourly staff put in great deals of overtime, though it is frowned upon.

Pros

The staff is highly competent and smart. Most truly enjoy what they do and care for the mission of fostering philanthropy. The main office is centrally located along the Peninsula/Silicon Valley and each work space is comfortable, modern and clean. Benefits are the best I've received from a nonprofit employer.

Cons

Your experience truly depends on your relationship with your supervisor. Promotions are rare but occur if you are willing to go above and beyond your job description AND be your boss' pet. Internal pay equity is extremely off - job postings for new employees post higher salaries than current, longer-term employees. There are also too many levels of management and a pervasive acceptance of a micro-managing style of management. Some processes are in place to maintain the high integrity and professionalism expected from the community foundation but most work-flow processes are frustratingly slow and just foster distrust and fear of making mistakes.

Pros

The people I worked with at SVCF were some of the smartest and most passionate people I have ever met. I learned something each and every day from my colleagues. SVCF's mission is visionary and exciting. The company is also very highly regarded in the nonprofit world so having SVCF on your resume will be very helpful when its time to move on.

Cons

The culture is very intense and people get burned out fast. Senior management is not always willing to invest in the resources necessary to execute their initiatives well and many in the entry-level and middle-management ranges feel like they are being asked to accomplish the impossible. There is very high turnover in many of the departments, such as development, and that adds to the stress in the more stable support departments such as finance.

Pros

Good employee benefits for a nonprofit, Very committed colleagues that believe in the mission

Cons

Board is not informed of high staff turnover, leadership claims that staff is like a family but blatantly abuses staff. My supervisors took personal anger out on me for no reason, dismissed my ideas in meetings, and was often rude and critical of my work, while offering no constructive ways to improve it.