8 Reasons New Grads Should Love Nonprofits

College graduation season is upon us. Congrats, new grads! The world is your oyster.

Now let me be the 945th person to offer you unsolicited advice…

“Don’t Just Go Work for Some Nonprofit”…Or Maybe, Do?!!

I recently chatted with a graduating engineering major from a top school who desperately wants to work in Silicon Valley. Given my job, I used her for some market research and inquired about the job prospects for the class of 2014.

The way she saw it, underemployment was a reality for many (which economic data seem to corroborate).

Her case in point: A classmate who was entering the world of work as an intern with an environmental nonprofit. A fellow engineer with a stellar GPA, she had other more lucrative / traditional options. Admirably, she chose to follow her passion for environmental issues. But the student with whom I talked had counseled her to “think bigger and not just go work for some nonprofit.”

I found this off-putting, as someone who started his career as a teacher and then spent 3 incredibly illuminating years at an awesome education nonprofit (which she would have known had she checked out my LinkedIn profile before we met – networky young people, take note!).

I don’t know if condescension towards nonprofit jobs is a widely shared sentiment on today’s college campuses. I sure hope not.

But just in case, I’d like to offer my professional journey as Exhibit A that jumping into the social sector from college can be a great career move. (That was my thesis statement for all you English majors.)

I totally get that tech or banking or consulting are sexy – I now work in tech and have interned both on a trading floor and at a boutique strategy consulting firm. (Another piece of advice to students: Stretch yourself in applying for internships and embrace the subsequent learning; they can be great for finding what you don’t want to do.) And you do learn invaluable skills in these jobs.

But you don’t have to start there out of the gate.

In fact, you might get more out of direct service or in an entry-level nonprofit job. And you’ll probably be more valuable (not to mention grounded and self-aware) if, like me, you transition into one of those industries someday.

Impact, Not Inefficiency

The nonprofit sector is not some flip-flop-wearing, bleeding-heart-having, hemp-smelling, non-strategic do-gooder tiny sliver of our economy.

It’s huge, thriving, and plays a key role in solving our most intractable problems; addressing market gaps on issues that corporations and government can’t effectively (or won’t) touch, and generally being the conscience of our capitalist system.

The U.S. alone has more than 1.5 million nonprofits. They employ 10% of the country’s workforce and contribute 5.5% of GDP (that’s over $800 billion). Wander the halls of the best nonprofits and, hearing ambitious talk of scaling to new markets, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’re in a Fortune 500 company.

Many of these organizations are willing to take a risk on new grads who have a genuine interest in their issue area and are eager to learn. They provide great preparation for any future job. But be open to the possibility of landing in the ‘giving’ sector long-term. Or related lines of work like government, nonprofit consulting, international development NGOs, CSR, philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and B Corps. There’s a ton of interesting and dynamic stuff happening in these spaces; they just don’t get the headlines that corporate triumphs do. Jump in!

Getting Real

What, specifically, can the nonprofit sector* uniquely offer a career starter?

1. You get to make strategic decisions, and learn by trying. I launched the marketing department at the nonprofit I worked for after getting some earlier wins in fundraising. I was 24 years old and had no clue what I was doing. But the point is that I got to do it. I got to figure it out. The best learning is experiential.

2. Nonprofits breed innovation and out-of-the-box thinking. The essential challenge for most nonprofits is how to get stuff done with minimal resources. Many corporations simply throw money at problems. Stripped of that luxury, you’re forced to come up with creative approaches that might achieve the same end result. For example, I decided the most scalable approach for us to get the word out was to use the media to carry the powerful stories of the low-income students with whom we worked. Classic marketing tactics like snazzy campaigns with big ad buys or event sponsorship weren’t gonna happen.

Every company wants workers with creativity and innovation – it’s how they grow. (Ever seen a list for the ‘Top Companies Maintaining the Status Quo?' Yeah, me neither.) I’d argue that you can develop these key skills more rapidly earlier in your career in the nonprofit world.

3. You get to drive stuff that matters. Not to disparage the entry-level analyst toiling away in Excel or PowerPoint for a client he doesn’t care or know much about, but pretty much any new or better way of doing things at a nonprofit will be seen as a value-add.

I got my feet wet by implementing a new CRM tool across a national organization and helped develop a strategy to engage Congress. A fellow new-ish grad began as an administrative assistant to the CEO but also pushed an initiative to rethink board engagement. She ultimately became a valued thought partner to the senior leaders, not just a master scheduler. (She’s now a big shot at a large financial services firm, btw.)

What’s cool is that these jobs are often what you make of them. Carpe diem and all that.

4. You can create the job you want. Traditional career paths can be hard to come by at many nonprofits, especially smaller ones. But there’s an upside: If you’re a scrappy go-getter or have an entrepreneurial bug, you can take on projects you think are important. And eventually, projects can become a role. Got an idea to build an app to help your nonprofit scale its volunteer management? Want to come up with a new social media strategy? Inspired to write a whitepaper on your organization’s particular approach to poverty alleviation? As long as you can nail your day job, no one’s gonna tell you “no.” Needs are always greater than the capacity to meet them. The typical response to pinpointing a gap in a nonprofit is "okay, now go fix it!"

5. You learn what it’s like to work hard – for the right reasons. My time as a teacher and in the nonprofit sector imbued me with a work ethic I’ve carried forward. I didn’t want to let the kids I was serving down. These jobs taught me the importance of passion. Since then I’ve only sought out jobs about which I could be passionate and see a direct line to impact. This lighthouse for every big professional decision has never let me down. Along the way I’ve seen that people are much more motivated by mission connection and a feeling that they’re materially contributing than extrinsic factors like money, status, or fear.

6. You’ll probably have at least one great manager. You can probably think of a teacher (two if you’re lucky!) who changed your life – got you fired up about something or helped you see something in yourself you didn’t. In the big, scary real world, a great manager can be just as impactful.

And like great teachers, they can be unicorns. But I’ve found that they’re more common in – more indigenous to – the nonprofit world. Nonprofit managers tend to look at their employees holistically; as full people with an appetite to grow and learn and matter, and with needs and interests outside of work. (By the way, for the most part, they’re nice, have an infectious sense of purpose, and are ego-less.)

Some of my early managers remain my mentors today, 10-plus years later. I’ll be a better manager and leader because of what they modeled for me, like how to fan the flames of intrinsic motivation in others. If you ask me, tomorrow’s leaders must be fluent and mobile across sectors; President Obama was a community organizer long before he was a politician and often cites that experience as fundamental to who he became.

7. Corporate America actually values this experience! I’ve been consistently surprised at how my early experience as an educator and nonprofit professional has been valued at places like Apple, Adobe, and LinkedIn. It even got me in to a top business school, which changed my career trajectory. I was seen as an expert in customer segments that were strategically important but not well-understood. A very good thing if you’re a marketer!

Working directly with these populations, or organizations serving them, gives you street cred. Don’t try to overplan. You’ll have options. It’s all about the skills (and network) you pick up along the way, and the story you tell. (If I’m wrong, email me in 10 years and I’ll hire you!)

8. Most importantly, you pick up the pace in learning about yourself. Who you are (and aren’t), what you’re good at, what kind of work animates you. Sure, the first couple jobs post-college are largely exploratory, but they are hugely important. They form your outlook on the world, your network, and breathe life into you and your truest passions. You’ll be surprised at how little that core of you changes over time. My advice is to shine a bright light on that core as early as possible.

(Oh and by the way, it isn’t just about professional growth. People need you. They need your zeal, your new ideas, and your smarts.)

A Job that Matters

Let me bring point #8 above home a bit.

In the first half of my career, I could cover my rent and not much more. But I was rich in purpose. And in fellow travelers: Co-workers became lifelong friends, and my then-girlfriend-now-wife was also an AmeriCorps member.

My weekdays blurred into my weekends. I loved my job. I even launched a side project to place business majors from my alma mater into nonprofit internships. I was fully alive, learning about myself while meaningfully contributing.

I won’t sugar coat: It was often far from glamorous. Trying to get 22 third-graders to focus on fractions instead of fighting, or burning the midnight oil in the office to get a proposal out before the deadline.

But I believed it mattered – to the kids I was serving and the nonprofit whose mission I was connected to.

And thus I mattered.

Summing Up: Go Forth and Serve!

So what have we learned?

Nonprofits afford incomparable opportunities for young people to develop transferable skills and make a real contribution. My plea: Consider them not as a backup but as a first choice. And have faith that, as Steve Jobs said, the dots of your career will connect in reverse.

Your 20s are an exciting, dynamic time—eye-opening and amazingly liberating. But they can also be confusing. Professional and existential questions will abound. As you carve out your adult life, be sure to listen, close and hard, to yourself. And if you do, you may just find a home in the nonprofit sector. Even if it’s only a temporary home, you’ll position yourself for future successes.

(And if this all seems like too much of a departure from your plan or if you already have a great corporate gig lined up, then volunteer! More than two-fifths of hiring managers here at LinkedIn consider volunteer work equally as valuable as paid work experience when evaluating candidates.)

Indeed, new grads, the world is your oyster. Be on the lookout for the pearls.

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#IfIWere22

*2 caveats: 1) I’m biased. Obviously. 2) Nonprofits are not a monolith. There’s a range. Some are startuppy social enterprises. Some are old and massive institutions that resemble blue-chip companies. And some aren’t well-run or are redundant and probably shouldn’t be operating. Be picky!

By the way, here's a SlideShare version of this post.

(Image attribution: Flickr/Shreyans Bhansali)