Pros
Some talented, kind, helpful staff, and a manager or two, who are passionate about the mission and are truly great to work with. Decent compensation and benefits, but that can also vary widely and totally arbitrarily, despite having a union - some people at this “nonprofit” make an insane amount of money for very little contribution, while others with crucial roles are stuck at low levels. The union is a “pro” in that it was the reason staff got yearly cost of living salary increases. (When the pandemic started, of course management tried to take that away from us.) The mission is good, but whether it's actually embodied is another story. Used to have a great office in Cambridge, but with the pandemic that seems to be going away. These are the only reasons I give this place 2 stars instead of 1.
Cons
There are just so, so, so many cons to this place as it is under current leadership (although looking at previous reviews, it seems many of these dynamics have continued through multiple sets of management). This place is an ultra-hypocritical, church-affiliated, "social justice" nightmare. Toxic. Abusive. Dysfunctional. Unstructured. Directionless. Mean-spirited and horrible people lurk like snakes in the grass, obsessed with their own power in this do-nothing organization, and will bully you in various forms to show that they have power and you don’t. Extremely bad things happened during my time at this place, including a colleague who had worked there for a year getting violently deported because UUSC wouldn’t sponsor their visa. A good chunk of people, probably 20% of the organization, left a year or so into the pandemic, but whether the significant financial and structural costs of turnover registered at the top remains to be seen. Like the former President of the USA that UUSC constantly critiqued, these managers seem like they would rather the whole org be dismantled and collapsed around them, because then they have less people to deal with, while somehow magically holding onto their power and huge salaries. HR is a total disaster and the union can't help you, because the union are just regular employees trying to pick up the pieces from HR and management’s terrible decisions. The board absolutely does not care about anything important, like making sure the inner workings of UUSC don’t go completely off the rails, or that a good amount of the fundraised money is actually reaching people in need instead of going to white-collar professionals (including the expensive consultants that are constantly employed to do management's job for them). It’s definitely a place that runs on manipulation, favoritism, and board connections, rather than merit or actual personality, qualifications, skills or talent. Gaslighting, psychologically abusive behavior and retaliation are prevalent here. Staff are siloed and silenced so we couldn’t compare our poor treatment at the hand of our managers and other colleagues. The org itself is intensely siloed and basically each team is at odds with the others, despite this being a "social justice" org that is supposed to be working together for the same goals. Despite the handful of good staff and decent projects, the few good outings and hopefully helping a few people in need, ultimately working here was one of the most miserable professional experiences of my life, featuring some of the absolute worst people I've ever had to deal with in my entire life, and it severely impacted my mental health. If you’re fortunate to live and work in the greater Boston area, there are a million better options than this dead-end place. Save your sanity and save yourself.