Chat

7499 readers

3 users here now

Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

AskBeehaw

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

remington

alyaza

Anyone ever swap careers from Corporate to Non-Profit or some other Cause: If so, how? (self.chat)

submitted 7 months ago by WaterLizard to c/chat

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I worked in the food industry for a while before returning back to school to get a degree in tech thinking it would be my path to a better life. While at first I thought where my career was taking me provided exactly that, I'm absolutely miserable working a corporate job in tech. I've seen several layoffs, AI is taking over, and the perpetual culture of playing several roles is killing me. I'm tired of being overworked, stressed, and given more and more responsibility for such trivial matters as selling more of X thing. This is not what I want to do for the rest of my life and I would way rather put in this type of effort for something worthwhile even if it means making less money.

The problem is I am so overwhelmed that it is hard to think of a way to change this. I keep saying I want to bring my experience to a non-profit or charitable cause, but I am unsure on how I can bring my tech/project management background to such a cause or how to sell myself in that way. I'm also debating going to get my masters to be more aligned with this change in career, but it's a similar case of not knowing the best route. For anyone out there who has made this type of career change regardless if it was in tech, I would appreciate any wisdom shared.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] JCPhoenix 1 points 7 months ago

I went from non-profit to quasi-governmental (which is still non-profit), to for-profit, and then back to (my original) non-profit. In like a span of 2yrs. In total, I've been in non-profit for like...18-19yrs now?

Like someone else said, there's no money in non-profit. I'm a one-man IT department for a company of like 15. Along with doing other vaguely-IT or outright non-IT stuff. I get paid $65k (I am in the LCOL US Midwest).

This job, compared to my brief 18mo experience in for-profit, is a lot more relaxing and chill. I wasn't overworked at my for-profit job, but I definitely got frustrated with the profit motive being the most important thing. Whereas in a non-profit, quality of service is more important. Sure, any business -- for-profit or non-profit -- needs revenue in order to grow, but revenue generation is not the same as a profit motive.

However...Do be aware that not everything is better in non-profit. Some of my past coworkers left our non-profit to go to for-profits...and it got way easier for them. I don't know if that's something specific to where I work where some people kill themselves for this job, or if all non-profits are this way. Perhaps that's just a job to job thing, regardless of non- or for-profit.