Real Talk: Why I Work in the Nonprofit Sector

Photo of Mulford Gardens Projects courtesy Wired New York

Last week, I was invited to a mixer for the University of DC’s Nonprofit Leadership Certificate Program. Sylvia Benatti wanted nonprofit practitioners to come and speak to her students about viable nonprofit careers. I was happy to help, but on the day the event rolled around, I really did not feel like going anywhere after work. That evening, I wanted to go home and throw on some Nina Simone and just chill out after a long day. But I had given my word, so I went. And I’m so glad I did. Talking to the young students really energized me. You all know that I’m still way under 30, and when I’m around a group of other young people who are passionate about something, who are so full of potential, it makes my heart jump at the possibility of this unjust world crumbling in on itself and becoming something totally new and right. But the real turning point in the evening for me was when one young man asked me why I worked for a nonprofit. As I began to reply to him, I realized that I was giving him the same canned answers I give to everyone that asks me that question. I want to be a part of social change. I’m motivated to be part of the solution, not the problem. Corporations are evil. Government sucks. Etc. Yet somehow I looked in his eyes and knew that he wanted a real answer to his question, but at the time, I was not prepared to give it. These could have been anybody’s reasons. What this young man was asking me was what made me, at my core, enter the nonprofit sector? Was this social change thing a part of my fiber, or just a job I took to feel all warm and fuzzy all over? I realized that I never answer that question, and it’s probably because when it gets right down to it, my reasons for working in the nonprofit sector are incredibly personal, and have nothing to do with the warm and fuzzy. I tell you my story now because I wish I had told it to the young man at UDC. This is what we call real talk.

To know why I’m so passionate about social change and the nonprofit sector, you have to know a little bit more about my background. My requisite bio will tell you that I have had quite a bit of higher education and nonprofit work experience. What I also mention is that I grew up in the public housing projects of Cleveland, Ohio, which has always been an area with no jobs and no hope for the people who live there. I watched dope boys on my block as a young girl and knew something wasn’t right. My mother was a single teenage parent and my father was a drug dealer. He died when I was six from a drug-related shooting, and sure didn’t leave an inheritance. My family didn’t just “not have a lot of resources”, we were poor. We were so poor that every year, a woman from a local nonprofit would come and take me shopping for school clothes because my mother could not afford to. We were so poor, we were eligible for every government assistance program you could think of. I grew up hating Cheerios and the powdered milk we were given to eat them with. I do not tell you about my struggle for you to feel sorry for me. I tell you this now because I want to be intentional in placing my experience with social problems outside of the ivory tower of academic thought or detached idealism. I know what it’s like to live a life of want instead of abundance. It was no picnic back then, and I’m sure it’s even worse these days.

Fast forward through grade school and many kind teachers, afterschool programs and special enrichment classes and I became the first person in my family to graduate from college. But I kept coming to visit the same projects where I grew up and life never seemed to be getting any better. (I know now that it’s the same story in low-income neighborhoods around the country.) There was always this tug that kept getting stronger and stronger that I had to do something to turn this thing around. Otherwise, what the hell was I here for? That feeling is what led me to volunteer at local afterschool programs as a reading tutor for African American children living in poor neighborhoods during all four years of college. It was philanthropy that had provided me an enhanced education as a child. It was nonprofits that had come to our aid when we couldn’t make ends meet. It was philanthropy that had helped me to pay for college. Somebody did it for me, and I wanted to help someone else. That’s how I got introduced to the nonprofit world and have known that’s where I am called to do my life’s work ever since.

I come from a place that wasn’t exactly ideal for building a better future and that’s what mostly compels me to work in the sector. I feel the need to do something to make our communities stronger and find a home in the nonprofit sector working with others who want to see change as bad as I do. I keep talking here on this blog about my aspirations to become an executive director or foundation president one day because those are the avenues where I think I could make the most impact on communities. I very much believe that change is possible, and that nonprofits are the only viable organizations that can pull this country together to make it a better place for all of us.

Yet I am only one. We know that the nonprofit sector could always use more passion. I receive several emails a week from college students thinking about pursuing careers in the sector and I will always encourage talented young people to join the nonprofit journey if they want to help change our world. For those of you who haven’t thought seriously about a career in the nonprofit field, I challenge you to give it a try.

Do not refuse to do something that you can do.