The Nerdy Nonprofit Podcast – Why I Chose Nonprofit Over Corporate

As explained in our “A Quick Recap” post, we attended the Nonprofit Tech and Communications Conference this spring and recorded a podcast with several attendees. The sum of their various roles and perspectives gave us an ample amount of content to digest. For the first of our series, we decided to focus in on excerpts regarding why these folks chose the nonprofit realm in the first place.

Here’s the podcast on our site, but you can also find it on Soundcloud,  iTunes, and Stitcher.

And a special thank you to our sponsor and conference host, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits.

You’ll hear from…

• Gail Vold Greco the Marketing Director at Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Twin Cities
• Emily Bisek a Communications Specialist at Think Small
• Marcus Starr the Database Manager at Conservation Minnesota
• Robin Bjorkquist and Hoa Sobczynski from Backus Community Center
• Sarah Larson and Amanda Bindner from Wayside House
• Patrick Engesser the IT Director at Feed My Starving Children
• Sara Gove the Communications Manager at Girl Scouts River Valleys

What’s most interesting to me is several of the interviewees had tried out the corporate world previously, but none of them expressed wanting to switch back. Some even claimed they would never again make the leap now that they’ve experienced nonprofit work.

Here’s a few of my favorite conclusions from Lisa’s interview on the main reasons people choose to go nonprofit:

1. They are motivated by a mission

• They want to know they are making a difference – either they worked in the corporate world and felt frustrated with the focus on the bottom line, or they had a life change that shifted on what they wanted to focus
• As Marcus put it, he wanted to know he was working for “some sort of greater good”
• Robin expressed wanting to work for something rather than against it. She felt like at her previous job she was fighting against people rather than fighting for people
• For Patrick, he said it was a more spiritual calling. As he phrased it, “I felt God knocking on my door… for once in my life I finally said yes”
• Sara Gove explained she wanted to be able to answer the question, “why am I doing this, and what is the ultimate mission?” and feel good about the answer.

2. They appreciate transparency between “competitors”

• Gail quoted a principle of Paul Wellstone: “we all do better when we all do better,” and added how she realized, “a healthy nonprofit community doesn’t start and end with your own organization.”
• This being said, it’s refreshing to see nonprofits share their trade secrets because they want everyone to be doing well – a major difference from some companies

3. They are future-oriented

• Gail pointed out she wanted to make a better community for her children. These people care deeply about what the world will look like tomorrow and want to commit their work to changing that today

4. They love to see others benefit from helping people

• Amanda pointed to the stat that people who volunteer 5.2 times a month “self-identify as happier simply from the act of volunteering.” She said it was amazing to see people realizing the power of helping others.

5. It is so very rewarding

• Amanda noted that working for a company that didn’t have a mission “wouldn’t fulfill a passion” in her. “I would never want to do anything that damages people and to work in an organization that’s whole entire goal is to help people at their most vulnerable time is important to me”
• As Gail put it, “I’ve worked for nonprofits and I’ve worked for corporate, and I’ll pick nonprofits every time.”

Listen to the full podcast on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher.

Ready for more? Part 2: “Which social media networks should my nonprofit be on?”