Pros
- Very large organization; many opportunities throughout U.S. and internationally. - Mission-driven culture, good support for employee training and initiative. - Well-funded for a nonprofit conservation org. - Has a history of a relatively flat organizational structure offering opportunities for many employees.
Cons
- Becoming very large and increasingly bureaucratic; an increasingly corporate culture as compared to most nonprofits. - Becoming more hierarchical, with a few stars/celebrities in each office enabled most opportunities for advancement. - The distributed nature of the organization leads to a constant struggle for control of resources between state programs and D.C.-based headquarters. - Management decisions can be erratic, as the business drivers vary by business unit and by manager. This leads to less consistent and often strategically confused decisions by management. In some cases conservation and science priorities rule decisions, in other cases fundraising goals drive decisions, in other cases it is marketing and partner relations, or in some cases alliances between senior managers and empire building within the organization that drive management decisions. - Very competitive environment where advanced degrees from a few select universities tend to be highly rewarded at the expense of other qualifications.