Saying "No"

During one of my informational interviews, I was informed about a local nonprofit named "Young Women's Alliance". Last week, I was able to attend one of their meetings--it was a general meeting, and one of the best meetings of the year! It involved a panel discussion of the advisory board for YWA, and we were given the opportunity to listen to the women speak, and then ask them questions. It was interesting to hear their perspectives. I believe all three of the women were entrepreneurs and each of them were also on the boards of various nonprofits and had even started some nonprofits. It was really interesting to see how these women have dealt with juggling their personal and professional lives. One of the things that they mentioned was getting the ability to use the word "no" and how much that has changed their lives. I think that all of us (especially women) have had trouble using that word and how big of an impact it will have on their lives. I have a very very hard time saying no, but I am slowly learning how to. When I tell some people that I am interested in working for/with nonprofits, some make faces and say that nonprofits just burn their people out. Learning how to say no will be crucial to making sure that this doesn't happen to me!

Ok, so it’s been a while since I’ve talked about my job search. Maybe I haven’t even spoken about it at all on my blog. I’m not quite sure. Anyway, I was turned down from my dream job. I thought this job, company and I were meant to be—it was seriously just about everything that I could dream of. And it was in DC! It just wasn’t meant to be.
I have to admit the job search has me just a little jaded. I am currently working at 3 other jobs that are just to tide me over until I get my “Big Girl” job. I hear on the news all the time about people who have been unemployed for months, weeks, etc. I don’t want to think about how long it has been for me to under-employed (or “unemployed” according to the people hunting me down to pay my student loan debt), but it’s been a while. I’m holding out though—I know what I want in a job and in the organization that I work for. I’ve become astute enough through my education and my information interviews to know that I shouldn’t just take ANYTHING no matter what.
Anyway, after the dream job fell through, I found a similar job posting with another organization. I have a contact there, but he is on vacation until next Monday. Which means that he won’t even respond to my email until…maybe Wednesday at the earliest?
This is a for-profit SaaS company with offices in Austin and the job that I want is in DC, where they have other offices. I have been contemplating taking out some Facebook ads that are targeted only toward people with this company’s name in their profile. The ad would like to my personal website, which has my resume and other personal information on it.
I think I’m going to go for it—nothing to lose right? As one of my friends said “In this economy, you have to do whatever you can to get a job!” So, I guess I am just going to go for it. Maybe.

Communication Personalization

As part of research for a job interview, I signed up for multiple email campaigns. I wanted to get the experience from the user's point of view, and to see what things are good about an email campaign and what aren't. So my inbox has been inundated with emails from these nonprofits.

I wanted to see what the sign up process was like--how it easy it was to find on the website, whether there were options for which communications to receive, etc. Some of the websites were incredibly easy to use and there were others that took a bit of hunting to find. If an organization wants to get new supporters, advocates and donors, it needs to be easy to find!! I know that everyone blogger says this, but it is really important!

Most of the organizations that I signed up with sent an immediate confirmation email and I began receiving emails immediately. This was great--i signed up and while I was still feeling passionate, I was given the tools to do something about it!

However, one of groups that I signed up with took over a week to send me a confirmation! Everyone today wants immediate gratification, and taking over a week to start receiving emails made me question whether or not I wanted to support this organization that takes that long to send a confirmation!

I think the moral of the story is that nonprofits should have an immediate response or confirmation to strike while the iron is hot for their supporters. Nonprofits should also have an "outsider" try to use the website and give feedback on its ease of use. Sometimes we get so familiar with our own websites that we forget what it's like for someone on the outside, so asking a volunteer to investigate it will help to get another perspective.

Yesterday I met with another employee (Anthony) of a foundation who is in charge of managing prospects. I love going on these informational interviews since it gives me a more well rounded view of the nonprofit world and the different employee opportunities available. On the flip side though, every time I talk to someone new, I want to do their job. Perhaps it is because they are so passionate about what they do day to day or because I want/need a job so badly. I'm not sure, but after speaking with Anthony, I had a moment where I wanted to make a career of prospect management and analyze data and follow up with employees about how their contacts with potential major donors is going.

Anthony also gave me some really sound advice on what I can do with my resume to make it more nonprofit friendly. He suggested that I keep it to one page and that I remove the "Objective" portion of the resume. I agree with him about this, but I think there are two very different schools of though about this--some people insist that the objective should be on every resume, others think that it is just a waste of precious space.

what are your thoughts on the resume geared towards nonprofits? Does having an objective matter? How about the fact that I am "changing careers"? Does that warrant an objective?

..and so it begins....

My quest to move to DC, break into the nonprofit world, get a job that utilizes my MBA and makes me enough money to cover the loans for said MBA (and the undergrad degree). Not so hard, right? All I need to do is to gain some more experience in the nonprofit, create and maintain my own personal brand, and distinguish myself from all the local candidates in the worst economic recession in recent history.

I don't mean to sound negative at all, I want to break in to the nonprofit world. I am passionate about nonprofit organizations and their missions. I want to break into development so that I can help them achieve their missions and become very successful.

...and away we go!!!