Why I left my political career

Earlier in the week, I talked about the surge in twenty-somethings’ political interest and discussed the things I gained from my career in politics. To recap, I spent two years doing grassroots organizing and fundraising and compliance consulting all over North Carolina through local organizations, 10 political committees, and 85 candidates.

It was a truly rewarding experience, but late last year, I decided to make a career shift and return to non-profit fundraising. Here are the challenges I faced that ultimately led to me leaving my political career:

Ageism. During my first week on the job, a workplace bully began attacking me and a few older activists yelled at my bosses for “hiring a kid.” I smoothed these issues over by standing up to the bully and by winning over the vocal critics through relationship building, but I still had to regularly confront subtle criticism about my age from older activists.

My bosses would sometimes throw me menial tasks — making copies, assembling notebooks, proofreading memos, entering data, moving furniture, and taking out the trash (yes, the trash) — because I was young. Luckily, it was only a small percentage of my work — most my cohorts were in completely clerical jobs — but it was still tough.

But the most annoying aspect of political ageism is when clients and candidates didn’t listen to me. I tried to consult a political organization through a much-needed reorganization of their governance and financial structures, but the organization’s leader dismissed my carefully researched advice because “that kid can’t possibly know what he’s talking about.” Two years after my recommendations were ignored, the organization is now facing a leadership crisis in which two people claim to be president, membership has plummeted, and their finances have been depleted due to frivolous spending. If only they had listened!

Rankism. I had to endure rude treatment from people who looked down on me because I wasn’t a senior staffer. Some political candidates who paid for and benefited from my consulting would not return my phone calls and would only speak to senior staffers, and a state-wide civil rights leader abruptly ended a phone conversation with me because he “doesn’t have time for peons.”

Lack of work/life balance. When I moved to fundraising and compliance consulting, my boss put 18-20 things on my project list to juggle at any given time, and I regularly pulled 12-15 hour days. My commute was 35 minutes each way, and I had to travel across the state many evenings to meet with clients. Add weekend events at least twice each month, and you have the perfect recipe for burnout. This is probably one of the most common complaints about political work.

Low pay. Most young political staffers don’t get paid much at all. I knew several twenty-somethings who worked full-time for less than $30,000 without any benefits. I fared significantly better in pay and benefits, but I still had trouble paying all of my bills while creating emergency savings. And it was laughable to even think of saving for retirement or investing.

“Loss of voice.” Taking a political job usually means the end of expressing one’s own opinion publicly. Blogs must be taken down, social networking pages have to be cleaned up significantly, and no staff can talk with the press unless authorized to give a statement. And anything you say publicly must go along with your bosses and clients’ stances.

I had to bite my tongue regularly and not say a word when things happened that I didn’t agree with from policy decisions to statements, from workplace issues to my bosses’ actions. Heck, I even had to work for candidates whose ideals and voting records made me cringe, but I couldn’t say a word about it.

And finally, I left politics because race matters. Black and latino political staffers are often confined to grassroots organizing and GOTV jobs throughout their careers, and the senior level jobs are almost always out of reach. There are only a handful of minority political executives, lobbyists, and fundraisers across the nation and only one national black pollster. There are even fewer black candidates who run competitive, party-supported campaigns in districts that aren’t majority minority as dictated by the Voting Rights Act.

The few minority political staffers have to walk a thin tight-rope similar to Barack Obama’s struggle with race. I felt racial discrimination from a handful of the more closed-minded people I encountered, and my bosses expected me to connect heavily with the black community and “be black” at work. At the same time, some black activists vocally questioned if I was authentically black because I didn’t graduate from a historically black college, I date a white woman, and I practice progressive politics.

Although I have been fighting it all of my life, I detest “black enough” racial politics and refuse to play those petulant games. I had to find a job in which my race is deemed completely unimportant to the quality of my work.

So yes, political work is challenging. I still stand behind the things I gained from this work. It has helped me tremendously and has given me the best gift I could have received — thick skin.

But when people ask me about my career in politics, there’s only one quote that can accurately describe how I feel: “I’m glad I did it, partly because I enjoyed it, but mostly because I’ll never have to do it again” (Mark Twain).

May 9, 2008 | Filed Under Blog, Career

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Carefully shifting staff, board time from grassroots fundraising yields greater results

Many non-profits use grassroots fundraising — small, low-dollar, community based strategies including sales, low-dollar fundraising events, and community fundraisers — as their main method of fundraising. And many folks think they’re wastes of time — that non-profits should completely ditch them for major gifts.

I fall in the middle; balancing grassroots and major gift fundraising is key to the success of an organization’s development program. Major gifts should be the top priority, but despite its very low return on investment, grassroots fundraising gives you community visibility and gets donors’ “feet in the door.”

Before 2007, the Ronald McDonald House of Durham, the organization I’m working with, made grassroots mechanisms its primary focus. They used a significant amount of staff, volunteer, and board time planning an executing these events, although they don’t bring in a lot of money. Factoring in paid staff time, I’m sure the organization, like most non-profits, lost money on these events.

We are currently undergoing a large transformation, particularly in development — part of which includes a large shift from grassroots fundraising to major gifts. Here are some specific strategies we’re trying:

Spend the bulk of staff time on major gifts. My boss and I have been spending most of our time on capacity building and launching our major gifts program.

Engage the board in major giving. Our board previously spent time on grassroots events, but we’ve started getting them involved in major gifts — connecting us to and talking about the organization with community leaders. The shift is going well. So far we’ve gotten three board members formally with our annual giving program, and five others are working on a lead gift ask for our capital campaign.

Spend time on corporate sponsorships for events. Each year, we host a large wine auction, and we increased gross revenue by $30,000 because of corporate sponsorships. We hope to bring it up by $75,000 more next year. Our community events directors primary role for this event is soliciting corporate sponsors.

Let volunteers lead low-dollar programs. We are letting committed volunteers take the lead on our large community events, and in 2009, we hope to get a handful of volunteers signed on to lead a comprehensive program for donors who give $999 or below annually.

Use the Internet for grassroots donors. Barack Obama’s fundraising juggernaut exemplifies the power of having many low-dollar donors. At work, we’re seeing more and more inquiries about donating online, especially setting up recurring donations.

We’re not only trying these techniques at work, but I’ve pitched a similar model to Traction, the 501c3 whose board I serve on. As a young organization with only one staffer (an ED), board members have to take on many roles usually reserved for a development staff.

I’m trying to lead the shift from grassroots to major gifts for Traction, and here’s a training PowerPoint I prepared to start that move. I welcome feedback on it or anything else in this post.

April 5, 2008 | Filed Under Blog, Fundraising

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