What I’m going to say won’t be pretty, but needs to be said. If you’re reading this, I’m guessing that you are someone who cares about the environment and climate change, and wants to make a difference. That’s what led me to EDF before I learned all of this. Here’s why I believe you should look elsewhere.
Many cons have been touched upon already, so I won’t spend too much time on them.
- Lack of diversity and high turnover in the HR department [see review on 10/16/2018]
- Different treatment of people working in the “programs” (basically people who do the science, research, or advocacy work) and people working in “operations” (people who do everything else that keeps the nonprofit running) [10/31/2018]
The following things are bigger issues that have been touched upon less. It took me over a year at EDF to gradually figure these out. The big two that were most important for me are:
- Slow career progression: This will be especially relevant if you are young, ambitious, and itching to make a difference in your career. Career growth is slow and most of the work for lower-level employees just isn’t very interesting, challenging, or important. During my time at EDF, I felt strong cognitive dissonance between the company’s big-picture mission and the pointlessness of my day-to-day duties. From talking with others, this was a common feeling.
- Lack of talent: Job satisfaction depends a LOT on the quality of the people you are surrounded by (especially your direct boss), how much responsibility you’re able to take on, and your rate of learning. The reality of how the world works is that money is important and non-profits do not pay very well, so they’re not able to attract the best talent. For me personally, the lower pay was a tradeoff I was willing to make (and did make), but it wasn’t until later that I realized pay is also a proxy for how much the organization values you, how much responsibility they give you, and the quality of the people you will be surrounded by. These are far more important, and should not be overlooked.
Many of the other issues I saw can be traced back to the unavoidable fact that nonprofits, even ones as well-funded as EDF, are dependent on funding. In EDF’s case, funding comes from individual donors and foundations. I believe this is the source of, or at the very least contributes to, all sorts of interesting phenomena.
- Too self-congratulatory: I have never come across a company with stronger corporate kool-aid than EDF. There’s a lot of patting oneself and each other on the back going on. Admittedly, EDF does get wins like publishing a new study on methane or challenging one of President Trump’s many anti-environment antics in court…but the level of celebration makes you think that they solved climate change already. Alas, we have a long way to go (~400 years at our current rate, according to a March 2018 MIT technology review article). I understand that celebrating wins is necessary for employee morale and keeping the donors happy, but it feels excessive and there’s a level of critical self-reflection on what could be done better that’s missing.
- Pointless work that doesn’t lead anywhere: A lot of work seems like it’s only being done for the sake of it, with not enough attention paid to ROI and whether it SHOULD be done. For example, a lot of time is spent writing blog posts, adding to EDF’s website, and making pretty maps and graphs that very few people will ever look at.
- Generally too much emphasis on form over substance: There was a ton of buzz about the “next wave of environmentalism” at the company’s annual retreat – basically, harnessing new tech like AI, blockchain, IOT, etc. to advance environmental issues. Not a bad idea, but people are doing it already in academia and industry (see: Silicon Valley), and it seems like these are more buzzwords for EDF than actionable goals.
- Inefficient use of resources: EDF does not have an endowment, so dollars in must equal dollars out at the end of the fiscal year. This leads to lavish spending in the form of office renovations, flying people in to give talks, long lunches at expensive restaurants, etc. This was a bit of a bummer because the money is coming out of donors’ pockets, and one can’t help but feel that it could be put to better use with increasing pay, attracting better talent, advancing new initiatives, or any number of other areas.
A final word on career paths and the tradeoffs of EDF:
Any job has tradeoffs. In my mind, EDF’s allure of making a difference just isn’t worth it for junior employees when balanced against the limited responsibility, talent, rate of learning, and career progression. This is why I would not work there, and why I think you too should look elsewhere. There is a place for EDF and other nonprofits in the world, but if you’re young, smart and ambitious, you will find a more fulfilling and impactful career elsewhere.
By nature of not being the final decision maker and having limited funding, there is only so much that nonprofits such as EDF can do. Climate change is one of the biggest problems of our time, and deep decarbonization of energy will require both deploying existing technologies at massive scale (solar, wind, storage, etc) and developing, commercializing, and deploying technologies that do not yet exist (long duration energy storage, cheap and reliable nuclear, etc). Any number of other paths would be more “impactful” for the environment over the course of a lifetime than EDF. I put my money where my mouth is and urge you to do the same.
