I can't imagine working anywhere else.
Pros
I've been with ST for many years (before it was called Stand Together...). It's hard to even summarize the "pros" but I'll do my best. I sincerely don't believe I would have had the personal or professional growth in the last many years anywhere else. From day 1 as a pretty entry level employee, it was made clear that my opinions, ideas, feedback - were valued. Not only was my voice heard but it was clear that if I wasn't sharing what I thought, the organization as a whole was worse off. When you see on our website this idea of "bottom up" solutions or the importance of empowering those closest to the problem - Stand Together walks that talk. There's a lot of emphasis on "challenge" - which sounds negative but really is about asking questions or questioning ideas until the best possible solution is found. If you're not comfortable speaking up about what you know, think, or your experience, you may struggle here but hopefully everyone else around you doing it (and encouragement from others - like I got!) will help you up that curve in finding your voice. I've seen the organization take culture very seriously. I see other reviews here saying that MBM is sometimes weaponized by folks who are newer to the org or don't quite "get" it yet but I've also seen that be addressed pretty swiftly if the behavior is toxic and everyone has a learning curve if you've joined the org form somewhere very different work culture-wise. The culture is really what makes Stand Together unique. Every person we hire has a desire to do their work well - and do it better tomorrow than they did today - which results in a rapidly evolving organization. The organization isn't hierarchal - I really don't know anyone's titles because they don't matter here. It's a pretty flat organization - no "running it up the flagpole" here in order to get anything done. Your title has nothing to do with your compensation, either, which is freeing in a very career-ladder driven town like DC. This place is basically the opposite of working for the government - very few rules, policies, procedures and a high expectation that individuals are using their own good judgement to make decisions or seeking information from others when they aren't sure. Teams aren't married to the "status quo" and if your rationale for something is "we've always done it this way" - that's not going to fly here. I personally find that super motivating and exciting but get that it's not everyone's cup of tea.
Cons
We've grown and matured a lot as an organization in the last few years - from start up to more mature business practices which of course has growing pains. One thing we haven't seemed to figure out yet is internal communications. You often hear weeks later if another part of the business has restructured or a major new project is launching. They're trying to get better at this and effort is being made but we're not there yet. I also wish there was more organizational infrastructure to support networking/social aspects of working here. ST employs some of the smartest, kindest people - and I only get to interact with ~30% of them regularly in my role. Yammer exists - and anyone can make yammer groups (there's a new parenting group I just noticed recently) - but there isn't widespread usage. I'd also love organized volunteer opportunities to meet others within the stand together community and contribute toward the awesome work of our catalyst partners. Again we can do this on our own but would be nice to have org organized opportunities to lower the barrier to doing so with the side benefit of hanging with your coworkers while doing meaningful work in the field.
