Before I was a grad student, I worked for a nonprofit in Portland, Ore. I started there in 2004 fresh off an internship with Nike. After just three months working for one of the world's largest corporate giants and just a few months after being yelled at in the locker room for wearing Asics running shoes, I decided to veer left and head into the nonprofit sector.
This particular nonprofit, now called Medical Teams International, focused on providing medical care to people in developing countries. It also brought dental care to children and the homeless around the state. The organization mostly worked in war-torn countries and occasionally stepped in to assist following natural disasters.
The year I started working there, the great Boxing Day tsunami and Hurricane Katrina hit. As a young professional just out of college, I spent the first few years watching and learning. I saw how complex the politics of the aid world can be. I yearned to head "to the field" and see the people all of my hours and weeks and months and eventually years of work were directed at helping. But I actually never got that opportunity.
Eventually, my co-workers, many of whom had served with the Peace Corps, talked me into joining and taking on the "hardest job you'll ever love." Peace Corps Volunteers can always tell when the thirst for development work is real and I think that sensed that in me.
But between my departure for Turkmenistan and my first day at Medical Teams International, about five years passed. I watched the nonprofit weather many seasons. The tsunami brought nearly $10 million through our doors. In 2007, we received a PEPFAR grant. In 2008, we hunkered down for The Great Recession and I watched my department of five became a department of two. After that, things were never the same, but still, I learned.
While my work at the nonprofit taught me many things, it did not teach me to question the way the philanthropic system as a whole works. My master's studies have taught me to do that. The critical thinking we do as journalists and as students, pushes us to take a macro-view of life and to think about big-system questions. At Medical Teams International, I was a worker bee. In the Peace Corps, I was a worker bee. In AmeriCorps, worker-bee again.
But this year, I entered the realm of journalism graduate school and this experience has given me both the ability and the license to ponder big issues.
I recently watched a TED Talk about philanthropy and marveled at this man's brilliance. I hope, as a journalist, to be able to nudge people toward his own perceptive realizations. It seems that everyone, including journalists, have been framing philanthropy less effectively than we could have been. But, according to Pallotta, the system was set up a long time ago and changing it will take some real innovation. Then, perhaps, it might actually be possible to change the world.
Dan Pallotta: The way we think about philanthropy is dead wrong
This particular nonprofit, now called Medical Teams International, focused on providing medical care to people in developing countries. It also brought dental care to children and the homeless around the state. The organization mostly worked in war-torn countries and occasionally stepped in to assist following natural disasters.
The year I started working there, the great Boxing Day tsunami and Hurricane Katrina hit. As a young professional just out of college, I spent the first few years watching and learning. I saw how complex the politics of the aid world can be. I yearned to head "to the field" and see the people all of my hours and weeks and months and eventually years of work were directed at helping. But I actually never got that opportunity.
Eventually, my co-workers, many of whom had served with the Peace Corps, talked me into joining and taking on the "hardest job you'll ever love." Peace Corps Volunteers can always tell when the thirst for development work is real and I think that sensed that in me.
But between my departure for Turkmenistan and my first day at Medical Teams International, about five years passed. I watched the nonprofit weather many seasons. The tsunami brought nearly $10 million through our doors. In 2007, we received a PEPFAR grant. In 2008, we hunkered down for The Great Recession and I watched my department of five became a department of two. After that, things were never the same, but still, I learned.
While my work at the nonprofit taught me many things, it did not teach me to question the way the philanthropic system as a whole works. My master's studies have taught me to do that. The critical thinking we do as journalists and as students, pushes us to take a macro-view of life and to think about big-system questions. At Medical Teams International, I was a worker bee. In the Peace Corps, I was a worker bee. In AmeriCorps, worker-bee again.
But this year, I entered the realm of journalism graduate school and this experience has given me both the ability and the license to ponder big issues.
I recently watched a TED Talk about philanthropy and marveled at this man's brilliance. I hope, as a journalist, to be able to nudge people toward his own perceptive realizations. It seems that everyone, including journalists, have been framing philanthropy less effectively than we could have been. But, according to Pallotta, the system was set up a long time ago and changing it will take some real innovation. Then, perhaps, it might actually be possible to change the world.
Dan Pallotta: The way we think about philanthropy is dead wrong
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