Pros
On the plus side, there are some smart, dedicated staff here. The internal affinity groups are a great resource, and way to connect with other colleagues you may not have the opportunity to work with on a daily basis. And the benefits are good - 16 holidays a year. There's a genuine interest in operationalizing DEIJ work, but as mentioned by others, the National leadership and Board are all white, 40+, high-income earners with banking/private equity backgrounds/ties. Overall, I'd say LISC is a good stop-over organization. There are some good learning opportunities and amazing community partners, but it'll be a hard grind for low pay.
Cons
While there are some good things about working here, there are also some pretty major drawbacks. First of all, there's a lack of pay transparency, which is frustrating. They have these pay bands that show a broad range of salaries, but it's not clear how much other people in your position are making. And they discourage discussing pay internally, which is especially bad for POC who often have lower pay than their white counterparts. Depending on your assigned field office, work-life balance can be non-existent. The culture is trying to shift towards better work-life balance systems, but field officer leaders are very quick to ignore any attempts to actually implement sustainable work boundaries. Most field offices are extremely understaffed, which means you'll be doing the work of 2+ people. And depending on your boss, you may experience gaslighting to get you to do more work. This is especially true for black and brown folks. There's no chance for promotion until a minimum of 3+ years, which is a really old-school mentality. Field office leaders will argue that you need to take on more work in order to prove that you're capable of taking on more work. This is clearly a method to exploit your work ethic. The meeting and micromanaging culture is out of control. Depending on how supportive your team/boss is, you'll easily amass 25+ meetings a week. And in many cases, your meetings will be about the work you're supposed to do, but don't have any time to do. LISC likes to think that it supports community-based organizations (CBOs), but in many cases, it actually harms their original work and capacity. They expect CBOs to produce unreasonable reporting outcomes, with small, limited-term grants. I've seen LISC leaders threaten to pull funding from CBOs who weren't delivering results. This kind of power-play is rampant in the dominant culture. LISC will protect its corporate funders over staff and communities. And the gossip culture is pervasive - you won't escape it.