Well-meaning, positive workplace facing maturation challenges
Pros
The KIPP Foundation is an extremely satisfying work environment that supports a nonprofit network of charter schools providing under-served children with access to high-quality education. It feels really good to be there. The Foundation is filled with remarkably smart and hard-working people. Benefits are excellent, and compensation is quite reasonable for a nonprofit. The organization is ambitious, and is good at self-reflection and adaptation.
Cons
There are some downsides. There are strong personalities, and a lot of people with competing visions, and not a whole lot of people who actually implement these grand visions. In some departments, there is a 1:1 ratio of managers and non-management staff. The organization is ambitious and self-critical, sometimes to the point of being maladaptive. The organization is struggling to transition away from a "hero model" of passionate, hard-working staff willing to burn long hours and into a mature, stable model of working smart, not hard.
