Pros
Supporting community member who need it most.
Dedicated staff members who care about homelessness.
Cons
-The Executive Director (ED) is completely incompetent and lacks any real leadership skills. There's a severe lack of direction from them, and decisions are often made without any clear rationale.
- Micromanagement is rampant. Instead of empowering staff or providing clear guidance, the ED is overly involved in the smallest details, often stifling creativity and productivity. Elon Musk’s idea to ask all federal employees for a list of work tasks may have been inspired by the Executive Director’s request for a DAILY task sheet. You’ll waste time preparing it, sending it each day, and the ED will ask for it again, but in a bulleted email format, rather than the spreadsheet she initially requested. A complete joke, waste of time, and resources.
-The ED is frequently on the phone making personal calls throughout the day, with gospel music blaring so loud that you can’t hear yourself think, rather than engaging with the staff or focusing on the organization's work.
-Gifts, swag, and concert tickets (which are meant to support the organization) are kept by the ED for their own personal use. It feels like the organization’s resources are being exploited for personal gain.
-The overall culture is toxic, with no room for growth or innovation. The environment is demoralizing, and it’s incredibly frustrating to be part of such an inefficient and disorganized organization.
- You will be gaslit and blamed for the Executive Director’s shortcomings. You’ll be asked to do things out of your scope of work, that you were never privy to nor trained on.
- Every single thing you do and the work you produce will be heavily criticized.
-Past employees in Development were often bashed frequently, yet their work was still being used. The manipulation and gaslighting by the ED was disgraceful.
- Manuals and workbooks are several years old, and information is not updated.
- If you are creative don’t work here. The ED doesn’t have a marketing or development background, but will weirdly compete with you in these areas.
-If you love creating antiquated low quality photo collages, and cartoon images taken from Canva, reminiscent of 1996, this is the job for you!
- There has not been an annual report created in over six years. Donors have no idea where their donations have gone.
- You’ll often be called into impromptu meetings to be scorned and chastised when the Executive Director falls short. (Inability to produce basic financial reports and statements, remember to attend Zoom meetings, etc.)
- Work life balance doesn’t exist. Employees are discouraged from taking time off that they have accrued, some working years without a proper vacation.
- You are expected to move extremely heavy items and break down tents, metal beams, etc., without proper training, steel toe shoes, helmets, etc. during the quarterly event at Bill Graham. The staff works 10-12 hour shifts during this time of back breaking labor, while the ED socializes, and sits in the seats above the auditorium, not working, but rather watching staff like a prison guard.
- The office is nowhere near a Bart station. Extremely inconvenient if you do not live in San Francisco. Parking is a nightmare, as there are only three parking spaces to be shared amongst several staff members, and visitors. You’ll often have to park on the street, and will get ticketed.
- There is no flexibility to work from home, or come in late due to unforeseen circumstances… yet the ED comes and goes as she pleases.