Catholic Relief Services Reviews

Pros

it is well focused organisation with clearly set goals.
There is team spirit

Cons

too much church related operation it end up mixing with caritas

Advice to Senior Management

improve in development projects

Pros

Good organization systems and idea's for providing assistance to poor communities

Cons

Poor Management on Country program and Regional level, too many promotions thru "friendship connections"

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on the primary role of the organization assisting poor communities, less internal politics

Pros

Value-based approach to development and humanitarian assistance. Has strong technical units that provide good research support and policy development.

Cons

Like other humanitarian organizations, some country level senior management tend to wield a bit much power and tend to run their own shows.

Pros

Its a company with excellent working conditions and there is a lot of on the job trainings offered.Its renumeration is good and it offers greater career advancement if you are interested.

Cons

The work depends on funding.They dont employ full time.They have contractswhich are mostly less than a year.

Advice to Senior Management

They should keep up improving on the renumeration of seasoned staff.

Pros

Interesting work, organization and people fully committed

Cons

Stretched a little thin at times

Advice to Senior Management

Get grassroots information more often

Pros

Excellent programming and learning opportunities. Great opportunity for growth.
Good pay with great benefits, generous housing allowance, generous COLA, great employees. The management team and the organization in general seems to focus on the needs of those of us who work overseas.

Cons

The management team in the field could be better leaders and managers;

Advice to Senior Management

I would like to see more women in top leadership roles.
I would like to see CRS place human resources staff in the field; currently we don't have an objective HR person to talk to about work issues.

Pros

CRS has a great program called the International Development Fellows program which allows recently Masters graduates or others with at least this experience to gain valuable experience in international development and project management. Most fellows are offered a permanent position after 6-10 months.

CRS also seems to really try to follow its Catholic Social Teaching principles in the workplace.

Cons

Overseas positions generally lead you to work as a slave if you're any good at what you do, and there can be little to no work-life balance. There is a high degree of burnout.

The managerial skills of senior staff based overseas is of varying quality and it can be difficult to maintain motivation if you end up in a country program with mediocre leadership.

Advice to Senior Management

I would really like to see more attention paid to ensuring that overseas staff have reasonable workloads and that there is no internal pressure to perform miracles or compensate for other underperforming staff. A number of talented individuals have left the agency because they have not felt supported in this area.

Pros

Note: This is written from the perspective of a program manager who worked overseas in spite of location given as Baltimore, USA. CRS is a major organization in the international development and relief industry so it has many opportunities for work overseas especially in challenging environments. For those who can work in difficult conditions, CRS offers extensive opportunity. The benefits package and conditions for international staff living overseas are good. If you are comfortable working with a Catholic organization, believe in conventional international development and relief work, and want a long-term career in developing countries, CRS is a good option.

Cons

There is a tendancy to take on very large programs that are sometimes beyond the capacity of the organization to implement well. There is sometimes a conflict between CRS policies intended to promote good quality programming and pressures to execute projects that are donor driven (both public and private donors are at fault in this). Thus policies and practices in place are not followed fully in the field. Some environments are high-pressure and the workload is high, thus maintaining a good work-life balance is difficult. CRS frequently has difficulty staffing positions for highly technical work or in difficult environments thus staff who are in place have high work loads. As a large organization, CRS can be slow to innovate.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on technical capacity and overseas operations, especially in providing more frequent and dynamic support to country programs.

Pros

Catholic Relief Services has a very compelling mission based upon Catholic Social Teaching. This approach recognizes the intrinsic human rights of all people, takes a pro-poor approach, and values working with local communities through grass roots approaches. The organization is very good about promoting from within and there are great opportunities to move up within the organization. With offices in just under 100 countries, international staff have lots of opportunities to travel around the world and to work on behalf of the worlds most disadvantaged populations.

Cons

CRS receives much (though far from all) of their funding through the US government. This means that CRS much match its approaches to those favored by the government. This is particularly problematic (in my opinion) in the area of monetization, the practice through which the government provides subsidized US farm commodities to country programs around the world. CRS then sells these commodities on the open market and uses the proceeds of the sale to finance their activities. This approach is not supposed to negatively impact the local market, but it does. CARE has decided not to no longer accept monetization funding, which is admirable.

Advice to Senior Management

Move away from monetization and seek more alternatives to US government funding.