Narcissism, Neoliberalism & the NPIC | What Makes Work 'Meaningful?'

Are nonprofits really a better workplace compared to for-profit companies if you want to change the world? I went from working in the highly-paid consulting industry to a small, under-resourced nonprofit and now support myself working a part time job in retail. These are my thoughts on work, capitalism, and nonprofits.

Timestamps:
17:13 my first real job
10:27 the middle class millennials' mission
11:53 nonprofits and the ego
17:13 the nonprofit industrial complex and neoliberalism
21:38 labor, value & the working class
32:35 solidarity, not saviors
35:02 conclusion & reflection questions

Additional Resources:

About the nonprofit industrial complex:

About neoliberalism:

About Critical Healing Moment:
Hey everyone, my name is Vi and Critical Healing Moment is a personal project that bridges healing, organizing, and social work through a critical lens to inspire others and build our capacities to take care of each other. I envision a world where we have the tools to take care of each other’s emotional and social needs outside of formal institutions of care.

Among many things I am an MSW student, community organizer, avid bullet journaler, budget lover, amateur gardener, overall creative, and cat mom.

[nonah]

I just left the nonprofit sector. It was the most exploitative and draining work I have ever done, which shocked me because I worked in food service prior.

[EffieKong]

I also just left the nonprofit sector after 5 years in. It felt like I was never doing enough and yet I felt like I was always working. I was a youth worker and then was promoted to a manager of youth programs. The most frustrating and draining part of my work was internal stuff—which for the most part felt like working to create problems to solve problems. There was so much waste in terms of my time and energy. It was a very disillusioning process and now I need to find a new place to house my idealism and hope and desire to do good how I can…

[Loud]

I really admire the folks that do working class jobs and unionize with truly meaningful unions that aren't just photo ops! Non profits sadly encourage elitism against service sector jobs.. like teachers, day care workers and health care workers.

[RBLXGaming]

The problem here is that $15 hr isn't enough to afford a 1-bedroom apartment anywhere in the U.S.

[janetj-xf]

thank you so much for this video! some of my reflections after watching this video as a non-profit worker who left one of their non-profits jobs previously this year:

non-profits often use the language of abolitionist grassroots groups to freshen up their image, their mission and legitimize maintaining regan economics. in my experience, non-profits are often places for de-radicalizing youth, and containing their imaginations within realistic grant applications. the non-profit i worked at was “abolitionist” and focused on implementing restorative and transformative justice in prisons, and holding community circles for survivors of serious harms. i initially joined the organization as a participant in a community circle. after, the facilitator of the program invited us to work for the organization as part-time employees. the shift of someone being a facilitator in a healing group i was in to being my boss was stark. it was also difficult because the organization espoused that we all had influence in decision making. so, when there were basic labor rights violated (being paid in a timely manner, the cooling of unionizing amongst part-time workers) — rather than turning to the NLRB to file a complaint and run the risk of being called a cop, i would hold these tensions in myself. as a poor person in this org this was unsustainable, because i wouldn’t be paid for 2+ months and then be told to cope because i was expecting the *productivity* of white-capitalist spaces, and our non-profit *embraced messiness*. meanwhile, my director was salaried and making 6 figures a year. i went from a youth who was organizing large-scale mutual aid and holding occupations to a non-profit worker that was trying to argue that i should be cared for because i am human and not because of my labor output.

i really recommend watching dean spade's lecture: should social movement work be paid. it helped me process a lot of the harmful aspects of mixing work with my visions of liberation.

[drshowman]

As for non-profit I have a problem with them and clashed with many of my friends because I told them the non-profit they were working for was made the problems they were trying to solve on-going

[miriamh]

I really appreciate this! Listening during my last few days at a nonprofit before a career shift! There are so many things you said that resonated. That phrase, "directly impacting material or psychological conditions" is something I'm going to keep turning over in my head.

Another aspect of nonprofits that made me know I needed to find a new career was the ageism and it's intersection with the pyramid-shaped hierarchy. When the structure of so many organizations is lots of people at the bottom/entry-level and fewer and fewer people as you go up the management structure, and when that structure correlates with young people at the bottom and older people at the top, that means that so many older people were pushed or opted out of the system. I saw that older colleagues had less stability and a harder time finding employment after job loss. The hierarchical structure literally means there are fewer jobs the older/more experienced you are, and the ageism means that older individuals won't be hired for the more entry-level jobs (that require a level of obsession only non-caretakers can generally provide and self-sacrifice that young ppl may be perceived as more willing to tolerate).

[MindyourSociety]

Great job on this video, Vi! I thoroughly enjoyed your critique and ideas. Something I’ve been thinking about lately is how similar the non profit and corporate sector actually is. Also, it’s such a privilege to be like “yea I don’t dream of labor, so I’m going to use my youth, traditional beauty and ideal body type to make a living on youtube. And you can do it too”! These videos are so ironic to me. Also, I find that we live in a world where we critique individual people for participating in our current capitalistic structure instead of the actual system that we are all forced to operate in, in some way. I’ve had people critique me for being a SW in corporate, but are they going to pay off my huge student debt, provide me with good health care, and ensure that I can live in a safe neighborhood where I’m not made to feel unsafe as a black woman (rates of violence against black women is unfortunately huge) ”? But ofcourse people don’t want to get that deep. It’s hard to critique these things in a vacuum. But such a great and unique topic!

[erinnamovicz]

Love this video! It's interesting, the one nonprofit I really have experience working at is actually mostly made up of people from the community itself, yet so much of the programming decisions is still dictated (of course) by grants and funding. So while there's less of the "savior" complex and I think a whole lot more of real community organizing, it's still so dictated by this npic and many of the issues you discussed here.

[NnLivs]

I am a little late lol but this was great! I always felt that my job had no meaning since working in a minimum wage job but this definitely changed my perspective esspiesially working in the delivery industry. Thank you for your insight I'll definitely be caring for it with me throughout my career life.

[waltcoact]

Thank you so much for this. This helps so much. I worked for NPs most of my life. Now I am trying to maintain or be a revolutionary org and not be a NP, but it is so hard. The community needs so much and I cannot compete against the NPs for resources and humans to help work. The answers will come and in the meantime I will just try to make a difference one human at a time.

[retrodelic]

So glad to see this topic is being discussed, "Nonprofiting" capitalist culture is toxic and needs to be exposed. Who benefits?

[rachelanita]

Thanks for doing a video on this. Both of my jobs have been at a non-profit and I've had a different experience at both. My first purported to have leftist values while still being "non-partisan", and while pushing for legislation that did create change, pay was low, diversity was bad, and there was a blatant white supremacy culture that led to two black women leaving before me, and then i (latina) left. My second also purports to have leftist values, but I've definitely experienced that to be more of a reality. Pay is high (I'm making 80k 3 years into my career), we're unionized, extremely diverse leadership and throughout, and there are workshops/constant discussions about white supremacy work culture and dismantling it within our systems, we're likely switching to a 4 day work week, etc. I try to watch videos like this to further examine the work I am now doing at the nonprofit I am at and how I can better stick to my values. I do believe in the efficacy of the work I'm doing, and do work to be honest about our statistics. For example, I'm about to shut down a marketing endeavor I've been trying for a month now as it is not performing as well as an alternative, rather than continuing using that funding for a futile effort. I am constantly thinking about how to do better, and right now we've found a way to directly give money to individuals (particularly the people the org tries to build power of) rather than massive corporations we've used our money towards in the past, but in the back of my head, i know we're still functioning off of capitalism. I'm just rambling. Thanks for this video, I've subbed.

[Lannec]

I really appreciate this video. One gentle suggestion, though. I think you edited out some of your natural pauses, which I understand was to shorten the video. However, the lack of pauses makes it harder to listen to and digest all of the points.

[AnuSharma-izdn]

this is really wise self-reflection. thank you for making this video and sharing your experience and analysis. i entered the npic for different reasons, but your video came out very timely for me to reflect more deeply on those reasons... and more determined to leave the npic lol

[Boahemaa]

This was great. The non-profit service provider is definitely a problem in holding governments accountable. It is how governments are able to skirt their responsibility in providing social services. Meanwhile corporations can set up non-profits to avoid taxes and influence social consciousness on how society ought to be set up.

[dianaprince]

Wow i thought this had thousands of views! Thank you for sharing your thoughts—I don’t want to contribute to exploitation and the ethics of my job is important to me but NPs don’t seem to be the answer. I want to make sure I feel good about where I am. It’s a very small company so so far I think it’s one of the better options.

[drshowman]

As a person who freelances, have income assets/investments, and have a decent amount of passive income. I still feel the need to work even though I can bs and not do anything for a couple of months. This is very relatable. I think the "dream of labour" movement is a problem now

[rosabaker]

Thanks for sharing. I'm actually debating on leaving service industry for the non profit industry and this was insightful as far as expectations.

[Kelgore]

God yessss!! So glad more people are talking about this I can’t wait