Passionate staff hindered by incompetent leadership - Program Manager Landesa Employee Review

Supportive team, meaningful global legal work, strong mentorship, flexible environment, mission-driven organization with real impact.

limited advancement opportunities, but excellent learning experience and professional exposure.

Many kind people, alright pay, CEO willing to hear out critique, though may not act on it

Very poor systems with very slow improvement, unrealistic expectations. People work overtime constantly and just don't talk about it. Its mission on the broadest level is good--help people have rights to the land they live on. In practice, that is working primarily with governments so refusing to rock any boats. It has a colonialist mindset and employees know this, but feel helpless to change it, since it's worked into the core of the organization. There is no acknowledgement of Indigenous land rights violations in the US, or desire to be activists (as an organization). They exclusively work with countries outside North America. DEI is very slow moving and opaque. Women report interpersonal sexism on an ongoing basis. There is lip service to moving power to non-US offices, with unclear follow-through. There is a lot of outdated language and thinking, often embarrassing when speaking to those outside the org. Little to no consideration for LGBTQ, disabled, or many other marginalized groups--there is lip service, but then explicit decisions to just pick a few. People pursue funding beyond the time available for employees, leading to overworking or under performing. No consequences for bad communication from higher ups. If your passion is land rights, you might be very frustrated. If you passion is effective administration of project management, you might also be very frustrated. People often leave quickly or stay a very long time trying to wrestle change into a very slow to evolve organization that hasn't caught up to the times or its own growing size. Very little room for career advancement. They explicitly do not to merit-based raises. Only cost of living or title changes, the latter of which are few and far in between.