Work Environment and Culture - Senior Officer Namati Employee Review

People are committed and kind. A wonderful mix of backgrounds and skills, including community organizers, practitioners, researchers, community paralegals. The organization is thoughtful, strategic, and intentional. The shift toward building power and collective action has been important and needed. CEO is down to earth, genuine, and demonstrates care through action. Appreciate their commitment to pay equity and transparency. The hiring process is deliberate and careful (although often slow).

Some growing pains and organizational blindspots. There's a culture of excellence and ambition - which is important for the urgent issues Namati works on - but can be alienating if not paired with the right support and a good manager. Program management is uneven. The organization tends to overextend in its ambitions. Communication flows and decision-making haven't caught up with organizational growth. There is more work needed on inclusion - both in programmatic strategy and internal dynamics within the organization. Many of these issues are being worked through in a thoughtful way.

Dedicated staff, most people are warm and caring. Namati is in the early stages of organizational development so there is space to lead on specific projects if you're willing to put in the work to build something from the ground up. Staff are encouraged and supported to travel (to country offices, for conferences/meetings, etc.) more often than I have seen at other organizations.

The workload is always intense. Gaps in leadership and management. Most staff do not have non-profit/management backgrounds so there is little appreciation for basic organizational systems and processes. Staff can be resistant to new ideas and defensive about how things were done in the past. The organization is overly-ambitious and not realistic about what can be reasonably achieved given workload and staff size. Being over ambitious is worn as a badge of honor rather than a sign of poor planning and leadership. And there's little recognition of what harm this has on morale. Pay is also not great considering the amount of responsibility given to staff (and how this compares to similar positions at other organizations) and the cost of living.