American Cancer Society Reviews

Pros

great cause and great people

Cons

salary, but that comes with nonprofit

Pros

Working with passionate staff and volunteers makes this job enjoyable. It's a business environment, but everyone involved seems to feel a real sense of purpose.

Cons

Revenue growth is all that really matters and thats how it should be, but it becomes very draining. It is difficult to remember the "higher" cause that brought you here. You work late at night, weekends usually 70-80 hours per week. The travel is tiring.

Advice to Senior Management

The senior leadership team is very competent, but turnover rates at the ACS remain very high. The lack of work life balance is talked about, but no plans are put in place for employees to achieve that balance. Management should work to improve workflows and productivity with employees so that they can work a 40 hour week and still get the job done.

Pros

Good Benefits
Lots of Paid Days Off
Nice Passionate Volunteers
Co-workers were nice
Sometimes you felt as if you were making a difference in the lives of cancer patients

Cons

You work an insane amount of hours (can average 16 hours days during the week - not just around event times), travel far distances (150 miles per day), and work late nights (until 9:00 or 10:00pm).

There is little to no work life balance. The environment is incredibly high stress, fueled by caffeine, and meetings at night are filled with unhealthy food and if you try to bring healthy food the volunteers complain that there is no "good food". Working here may be a carcinogen.

Upper management has no plans to change the structure of the organization and reduce turnover because the brand has built its self so well that there will always be another schmuck to take the place of the person leaving.

Advice to Senior Management

Start paying your employees a little better for the work they are doing at the "grassroots" level and learn to have your management team appreciate the work they are doing.

Pros

Helping to find a cure and bring comfort to families and patients. Seeing the impact the prevention and education had in the local community

Cons

No work life balance - BIGGEST PROBLEM
Senior leadership lacking compassion
Lake of support
No training
Low salary
No leadership
High turnover

Advice to Senior Management

Employees were treated like they should be on the clock 24 hours per day. There was no training to set boundaries in place regarding work life and home life. Leadership took time when they wanted, but because we were in the field, we were not given that opportunity. I would never recommend ACS as an employer.

Pros

The benefits are good, your co-workers are awesome in that they are also trying to make a positive difference in the lives of people.

Cons

Poor management, pay is extremely low considering the education and qualifications of most employees, and employees are not treated with respect or courtesy. Due to extremely poor management, the Quitline program was shut down and "sold," to another company out-of-state whose version of the our program was "not even close" to the services and time, and continuity that the Quitline provided to people all over the country.

Advice to Senior Management

Spread the wealth of The American Cancer Society to the people who are doing the bulk of the work to help Americans. Hire managers who are qualified and not "yes" people. Cut the pay of the the CEO and top administrators and pay the employees what they deserve!

Pros

The organization is working towards great cause

Cons

The organization is too big, so it is often not organized.

Advice to Senior Management

Great place to work

Pros

Great mission. the end result is very rewarding.

Cons

Leadership continues to execute poorly. Trust for leadership is limited. The organization is going through a transformation process. However, from past experience leadership has no credibility in getting it right this time. It would behoove the organization if a whole new leadership regime was put in place. The old guard must go.

Pros

Great volunteers, great benefits and a great cause where the survivors and ceremonies will touch your heart.

Cons

Low wages, incredibly long hours, poor communication, zero work/life balance, lack of trust, outdated technology, reactive scrambling to reach unreasonable goals because there is never enough time to plan proactively or implement existing plans and even if you do make goal there will be little or no acknowledgement, reward or even thanks.

You spend your days putting out fires and never getting ahead of the panicked pressure to raise more. Favoritism abounds as does ineptitude among content directors and state leaders. Field staff, the ones actually doing the work are paid ridiculously low salaries, offered less than fair mileage and expense reimbursement. Employees aren't even covered by organizational insurance policies when involved in no-fault accidents while driving their own vehicles - if someone hits your car while you travel on ACS business then you pay your deductible all on your own!

In general, working for ACS will exhaust you and burn you out unless you manage to acquire one of the cushion-y jobs at which point you'll do nothing and get paid a great salary. Your dreams of making a difference in the lives of cancer patients and their families while fighting to find a cure for cancer will be crushed by the overwhelming pressure and workload.

ACS is a sales organization selling hope - the hope that you'll give them your money. It is a multi-billion dollar, international behemoth using outdated fundraising models and filled with many good-hearted, well-intentioned people at the mercy of dysfunctional leadership. It's a miracle they make as much of a difference as they do.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop talking about streamlining and do something. Purge redundant and useless existing Divisional management. Re-evaluate state leadership competency and qualification. Pay community/development and health initiatives field staff a better wage.

Pros

Getting to help other cancer patients
Brand recognition on resume for future positions
Getting to work with other social workers who care about patients

Cons

Patient navigation is a "face" that ACS puts on for the public. They hire social workers and others purportedly to do case management for patients in local hospitals. In actuality, patient navigators are there to recruit participants for fundraising events, to recruit volunteers to work for ACS, and to secure funding for ACS from the hospitals.
ACS does not support these navigators in reaching the extremely high quotas that are set for them for recruitment and patient contacts, in facilitating or encouraging any continuing education, or with any issues that may arise at their hospital sites. Navigators are basically "warm body" positions with a life expectancy of about a year and a half. The navigators where I work are not even allowed to meet with each other to discuss issues and help each other figure out solutions.
Middle management and senior management are made up of people who are interested in making money and making sales, this goes completely against what a social worker helping a patient is supposed to do. This creates a huge conflict for the navigator between actually helping the patient and satisfying the demands of management.
At my site, there is very limited patient access because the hospital is so worried about HIPPA rules. I have gone to my ACS supervisors numerous times and begged for help in figuring out what to do and in addressing the situation with the hospital. The only response I have ever gotten is that I am a troublemaker and that I need to work harder and "go find patients" and that if I don't meet my quotas that my job is in jeapordy. This was also reflected on my most recent review when I was rated as a poor employee in several areas for not meeting ACS standards and expectations. I am stuck in a no win situation until I get burned out and then another person will be put in my place until they burn out, and on and on.
It is a very hard environment to work in and when the pay for a master's degree educated, licensed social worker is below $40,000/yr and I have to spend 1/3 of my gross pay just for medical insurance premiums, and am required to work evenings, weekends, and any extra hours they request for events for no extra pay or time off, and get no support and only complaints from management it is NOT worth it.

Advice to Senior Management

If you are a fundraising organization, you do not belong in social work. Your corporate values do not align with helping individuals. Stick to raising money for research.

Pros

My supervisor let me sit in on different meetings including a board meeting and gave me very honest insights on how the workplace environment was there. I was allowed to get involved as much as I wanted when my supervisor was actually there.

Obviously the mission is important and a great thing of which to be a part.

Cons

My supervisor was the only one who had any idea of what I should be doing as an intern, and she was often out of the office traveling for her job. Therefore, if she wasn't in the office, there was really no point in me being there since no one else knew what I could work on.

From what I observed, office politics were a pain. I'm sure if I could see this as an intern, it was probably the tip of the iceberg.