SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CAREERS : MAKING IT WORK : A Nonprofit Job Can Pay Off Handsomely--in Satisfaction
Don Cohen grew up in his family’s gift-importing business. As a student, he worked summers there. As a grown man, he ran the company. So it was with a heavy heart that he sold it in 1977, tired of the endless demands and stress of being in charge.
He didn’t know it at the time, but Cohen had just taken a huge step toward happiness. He began volunteer work helping the elderly, and it worked its way into a paid job. He earns far less than he did running his own business, but he is happy to trade that income for the emotional satisfaction of providing important mental and physical health services to older people.
“I decided to follow my heart and it turned into a career,” said Cohen, now associate director of Senior Health and Peer Counseling in Santa Monica. “There are so many more rewards for me than when I had my own business. No. 1 is feeling good and proud of what I’m doing. I’m not selling Christmas decorations, I’m helping improve the human condition.”
Like Cohen, most people who venture into the nonprofit realm must accept less financial compensation than they did in their old jobs in the for-profit world. But almost all speak fondly of the emotional payoff: the satisfaction of doing something important for others.
For some, nonprofit agencies can provide a more comfortable work environment. Mike Rosell, office manager at AID for AIDS in West Hollywood, said he never felt he fit in when he was a financial analyst at Security Pacific Business Credit.
“As a single gay man, I just didn’t fit that corporate image,” Rosell said. “I could wear a suit and talk the right way, but I didn’t think I would move up and have a future there. Here, it’s much more relaxed. I feel I can be myself.”
Rosell started out at AID for AIDS earning about half the $32,000 he made annually at Security Pacific. Even with a promotion, he still makes somewhat more than half that. But for him, the job itself is the payoff. His agency provides transportation and financial assistance to AIDS patients.
“In my old job, I just did the same chores over and over and didn’t contribute anything to society,” he said. “Here we make a huge difference in people’s lives. That makes me feel good.”
Nonprofit agencies can sometimes provide more flexible work conditions. That is what brought attorney Carol Jimenez to the Center for Health Care Rights, a Los Angeles agency that provides free counseling and legal representation to Medicare beneficiaries and tries to improve the Medicare system through class-action litigation.
Before joining the agency three years ago, Jimenez had spent six years in business litigation with a large private firm. She was dissatisfied and wanted a change. But Jimenez, the mother of two small children, wanted more control over her hours. Her nonprofit job lets her work four days a week and compensates for lower pay rates by being generous about vacation and days off, Jimenez said. She also has the important benefit of greater job satisfaction.
“This is the kind of work I want to do most, changing the law and creating systemic reform,” she said. “And there just aren’t many opportunities to do that in the for-profit sector.”
Like others who have moved from for-profit into nonprofit jobs, Jimenez sometimes misses the bountiful resources of her old job. At the firm, she had support staff to do all her photocopying, word processing and correspondence. Now, she shares one secretary and one receptionist with 14 other people.
Belle Bassell, resource coordinator for Organization for the Needs of the Elderly in Reseda, only recently began getting an hour for lunch. For eight years before that, she had to grab a bite in half an hour. Bassell, 72, said that in her years co-owning a garment-manufacturing firm, she took home three times as much as she does now.
The transition from the for-profit to the nonprofit world should be undertaken carefully, said Rodney Lowman, a Houston psychologist who specializes in career and work issues.
Those who will be happiest in nonprofit jobs, he said, are those with a strong “helping orientation” who are genuinely dedicated to the mission of the agency.
People who gauge their value largely by the amount of their paycheck rather than the nature of what they accomplish would be poor candidates for work in nonprofits, Lowman said.
Miki Jackson, who runs Aunt Bee’s Laundry, a Hollywood agency that does laundry for AIDS patients and runs a thrift store, said emotional survival in nonprofits hinges on valuing yourself for what you do, not what you earn. Jackson, 42, works 300 hours a month and takes home about $36,000 a year. As a graphics designer, she worked far less and earned $50,000 a year.
“You have to remember you are not doing it for the money,” she said. “It’s a different system of rewards that is foreign to most people in the for-profit sector. You can’t keep score by how much money you make--it’s how much good you do.”
Jackson and other nonprofit workers caution those considering a similar move that they must be ready for heavier commitments of time and emotions than are required by most jobs. Jackson works with people suffering from illness. She must work endlessly to raise money to keep her agency afloat. The phone calls and meetings invade her nights and weekends.
Sandy Baker, executive director of the Women’s and Children’s Crisis Shelter in Whittier, said that when grants need renewing, she can work three weeks without a day off. It is emotionally draining to see scores of battered women and abused children, she said, so she tries to avoid burnout by escaping for brief camping trips.
But even with the strains of her job, Baker said, the rewards still win out.
“I get to help people, to ease suffering,” Baker said. “And in the end, what more important thing is there to do?”