Hacker News Reader

Comment by dougmwne | Hacker News Reader

I work for environmental nonprofits that also lobby for government intervention. This sector does not pay as well as private industry, so does not have the best people money can buy. Sure we can use your money, but truly, what we need most is extremely talented and capable people who can take those donations and change the world.

I can see clearly from the resumes on my desk that when it comes right down to it, people would rather make big sacrifices to work for a game developer than a nonprofit.

View on HN

Bit ironic since I left the game industry about a year ago. If you'd like to elaborate I'm all ears, or happy to talk privately (see my profile).

In my spare time I created a real estate finding tool focused on bike and train routes, which I hope indirectly has helped interested people avoid car-centric commutes and lifestyles while not spending insane amounts of money to be in the hippest areas. Apparently it's been useful in my immediate neighbourhood, at least.

But, as everyone else here notes, I've got bills to pay (fewer than most if I'm honest, though) and for now am just trying to destroy some debt.

Sometimes it's not always about pay. I was in consulting, then took a salaried job at a University. It was a 10% pay cut, but to compensate for that they offered 3 additional weeks of vacation (five total).

There's always different things you can negotiate on to bring on great talent.

Been there and done that in the academic word. Had 4 weeks of vacation, and the manager refused to approve vacation time until the week of.

I started informing that I'm going on vacation. And for doing interviews elsewhere, took "sick" days.

It was a horrible situation to say the least, but now I'm out of that toxic hellhole.

> It was a 10% pay cut, but to compensate for that they offered 3 additional weeks of vacation (five total).

Hell country.

Do you have any advice/resources available for getting into or learning more about some of these nonprofit organizations?

First move to DC, where all organizations that lobby the government have an office. Then start applying at your favorites.

How / where do you advertise?

(NB: You''re not making it easy to find you here.)

Actually our HR advertises on the monthly HN jobs thread. We are also on Idealist.org, the best site for nonprofit recruiting. Plus we are a nationally known nonprofit and our jobs are listed on our website. If someone wants to save the world, they know where to find us.

I'm not connecting to my own LinkedIn, but we are listed here, and every organization could use your help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_and_cons...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com