Combining a Paycheck with Your Passion

Monday Morning Pep Talk

The nonprofit sector may offer experienced workers a second career combining passion, social interaction and a continued income. The thought of “doing well by doing good” may not have been a possibility early in a career, however the idea of finding work with meaning is often of high importance choosing a second career. According to the Urban Institute, from 2001 to 2011 nonprofit jobs grew 25% while new jobs in the for-profit sector rose half of one percent.

As mature workers consider moving from for-profit organizations to nonprofit work, here are three major misconceptions to be aware of when making the career change to a nonprofit:

Myth #1: Working in a nonprofit is less complicated than corporate employment. The reality is that nonprofits have the same complexities and organizational structures as corporations. Nonprofits have the additional burden of constant fundraising and the transparency required to donors insuring their contributions are primarily directed to programs supporting their mission. Nonprofits also require the same infrastructure of any corporation including information technology, human resources, accounting, legal services, communication strategists, purchasing and project management along with a dependence on volunteers. 

Myth #2: Nonprofit employees spend all their time focused on their cause. The reality is while a nonprofit is not focused on shareholders and stock prices, the organization needs a revenue stream to maintain their programs and services. Fundraising and funding again becomes a focus. Whether the revenue stream comes from the government, businesses, individuals in the community or a mix of these sources, time is required to build and maintain relationships with funders. There are fundraising events to plan, grants to be written and after action reports due explaining to donors how their gifts were utilized.  In the nonprofit setting employees wear many hats, so “that’s not my job” is not an appropriate response.

Myth #3: Everyone working for nonprofits is “nice”.  As a donor, board member or volunteer people see nonprofit employees at their best. Many employees in the nonprofit sector are passionate, mission-driven individuals focused on their cause, however, all people have their flaws and that’s true in the nonprofit arena as well as corporate America. Work stress and burnout from difficult co-workers, office politics, a poor work environment or negligent leadership happens at nonprofits just like any other organization. The same skill sets used to manage challenging relationships in earlier jobs will help in the nonprofit environment.

Before making the switch from the for-profit world to the nonprofit sector, do your homework to insure the organization you plan to join is legitimate and a good steward of donor contributions. This can be done by consulting resources including www.guidestar.org, or the Better Business Bureau Charity List or Charitynavigator.org.

Embracing Change

Is Your World Like A Spinning Top?

In mid-life, change is constant. How we react to change determines a lot about how much we enjoy our careers, relationships and life itself.

This column focuses on careers, work and the jobs we perform everyday (or hope to perform as soon as you find a new one). Sometimes the lines between our professional lives and personal lives blur. Change and our reaction to it---is often the culprit.

At age 40+ we move out of the kiddie pool and begin to swim in the deep water with sharks and other unimaginable creatures. The stakes are higher and we have more to lose materially because we have worked a while and become consumers of the American Dream. Major changes as the waves push us further into deep water may include:

• The death of a parent, spouse, sibling or close friend
• Health care decisions for an aging parent
• Children maturing and making their own life choices
• Career reassessments by choice or forced upon us
• Health crisis or challenges of our own or someone close
• Unexpected midlife job search
• Financial reality that doesn’t align with your plans & expectations
• Loneliness or disconnectedness (with or without a partner)

Psychologists and other professionals will tell you that change is not an inherently bad thing. In fact, we cannot evolve without it. I agree with you, change is a lot easier when we initiate it. (And even then, leaving a good company, a relationship, a wonderful neighborhood or a dear friend is still hard). I’ve experienced all four scenarios and as tough as those situations have been, what is waiting on the other side of those changes is the next phase of your life that in a few short years---you will not want to change. You will still have the benefit of all the great memories of your experiences that came before. Jim Collins reminds us in his book, Good to Great,  “good is the enemy of great," at least for companies-could it be true for individuals too?

My three personal tips for coping with change:

1. Realize change events seem to speed up as we get older. There’s always something happening, so be compassionate (especially with yourself).

2. Take care of your health-it makes dealing with other changes coming at you easier. I try to eat right, exercise, get enough sleep and stay positive.

3. Realize that if I keep doing what I’ve always done—the result will not change. So, I decide what I want my life to look like and take the first (scary) step in that direction.

I just finished a great book, Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud (also available as an audio book). It is the first book I’ve read that addresses career and personal transitions together. You may want to check it out.

Oh yeah, don’t forget your life preserver while swimming in the deep water and be prepared for wild waves.

Fortune Magazine's Workforce of 2022

The other day my January 16 issue of Fortune Magazine arrived in the mail. I was intrigued because instead of the usual business leader on the cover; it boasted a kind silvery version of Ryan Seacrest and called itself, “The Future Issue”. I devour Fortune like other people read People or US Weekly—which already gives you too much insight into my geeky obsession with business and the workforce. Who doesn’t want to know about the future?  So I dive right into their article on work.

Guess who is in the office of tomorrow in 2022? Their writer says there are going to be old, bald people with “salt-and-pepper eyebrows” and women in “orthopedic shoes” making their way into office buildings.  She goes on to predict, “...new drugs...will enable many people in their sixties and seventies to make the daily trek to an office or factory." When I read this in Fortune (one my favorite business magazines) I wasn’t sure if I should laugh, scream or cry. (Or maybe write a snarky letter to the editor like the one they published from me October 16, 1995—I’ve been reading for a long time). But, it is 2012—so I can put it in a blog post and send it 2,000 of my close friends.

Would it be old and mean of me to think the young lady who authored the article is a student? Because surely if she were in the workforce of TODAY—not the future, she would realize workers in their 50s, 60s and 70s peering at their smartphones through bifocals and bumping up the font on the screen for easier reading (hey, she said it, not me) is here. Maybe they don’t work at Fortune’s editorial offices, so she’s never seen us in action.  Or, and I hear this often—maybe we (older workers) are invisible to her.

Our writer blames the market crash of 2008 for the reason Baby Boomers are going to stay in the workforce and increase from 7.3 million today to 13.2 million workers over 65 in ten years. While there are plenty of people working for financial reasons, some of us choose to work longer. My Mom is 74 and works ten hours a week because she loves her profession. It is an opportunity to stimulate her brain, be around professional people, learn new things (yes, she has a smartphone, can text and use apps) and the money comes in handy too.

I don’t blame the writer for this prediction of “the workforce of future.” Anything that makes it to print in Fortune has been scrutinized by an editor or two and I think that is what worries me more. This type of characterization of older workers is not helpful. At a time when subtle bias against mature workers in some workplaces seeps into the corporate culture before the company has recognized their multigenerational workforce demands attention, Fortune missed an opportunity.

The writer could have easily talked to someone from the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College (http://www.bc.edu/research/agingandwork/about.html) or AARP (aarp.org) and I can guarantee her article would have taken a different tone.  So I am going to offer some predictions about “what happens to the workplace when seniors don’t leave” which is the question her piece supposedly answers. Visionary companies that integrate age issues into their strategic HR plan are going to have a sustainable competitive advantage. I agree with the Fortune writer that “companies will have to be creative about how they manage a workplace with staffs whose ages could span 60 years.” They do that by addressing the diversity issues a multigenerational workplace presents and it affects all areas of the company: talent management, learning and development, benefits, rewards/recognition and knowledge transfer. Some mature workers are at the “top of their game” considering skill, experience, emotional intelligence and confidence. Companies that minimize or ignore the impact a multigenerational workforce has on today and tomorrow’s corporate culture threatens morale, productivity and business results. Share your comments and let us know what you think.