Elisa Ortiz's blog

Whenever my husband and I are staring down the barrel of a big expense, we always jokingly say to each other "what were we thinking about when we decided to work for nonprofits?" I mean, we could both easily make a lot more money if we worked for the private sector (or even for the government). 

For a memorable and exhausting 18 months, I actually did work for a for-profit company, though it was a B Corp, so there was some element of helping the public. The technology and tools were state-of-the-art, we had a fancy fully built out office, and I didn't have to bootleg flyer designs in Microsoft Word because we had graphic designers on staff. But at the same time, what was most important was not helping the people we were supposed to be helping. What was important was making our clients happy, getting more clients, making more money, and doing anything we had to in order to make our numbers. I tried and I tried to justify working there in my mind, but I just couldn't do it so I had to leave.

What matters to me about working in nonprofits is the ability to help people. It's really that simple. I develop and manage advocacy campaigns and lead coalitions, so I don't provide direct support, but what I do is push for the legislative, regulatory, and other policy change that hopefully impacts hundreds of thousands of people for the better.

Now don't get me wrong, there are still lots of frustrations in working for nonprofits; but I will take them any day and every day if it means that someone, somewhere will have a better life (or even a better day) because of what I do.