DART Center Reviews

Pros

Community organizing is incredibly rewarding to see improvements made in my city through the work we are doing to bring people together. DART offers excellent training in how to be a community organizer. There is good camaraderie among organizers. There are opportunities for growth - I was able to advance from an associate to a lead organizer.

Cons

Initially it was difficult to move to a new city and start a new job. It can take a while to see public policy changes implemented and working in your city so you have to stay motivated in the meantime to keep working at it.

Pros

Meeting with passionate community leaders

Cons

Would not recommend. Very unhealthy organizational culture: long hours for little pay, philosophy that makes you feel as though you and a handful of others are responsible for transforming the world, manipulative coaching during training, non-guaranteed location. This was my first job after graduating college, and I am still upset to this day at the way I was treated. Incredibly disrespected. I feel like my youthful...

Pros

Knowing you're making a difference, getting to know a lot of different types of people, good support and training from DART to teach you how to do the job, lots of autonomy, flexible hours

Cons

specific times of year have a lot more night meetings

Pros

Network is full of really great people always willing to provide assistance when necessary. You also get to set your own schedule so there is a flexibility that many jobs don't have.

Cons

You have days of one step forward three steps back...

Advice to Management

Continue developing associates to move into lead positions when they open up.

Pros

DART has a lot of cool organizers and the cities they are in allows us to work with a lot of cool community leaders that care deeply for their city. I didn't really see myself working in the same field past three years, but really enjoy the grassroots leaders I work with and got energized by the victories we were winning. It is cool to have a job that allows you to live out your values.

Cons

I have built strong bonds with many of the organizers that live in different cities from me and I wish I could see them more often.

Pros

Living out your values and engaging with amazing/diverse leaders

Cons

Work-life balance out the window. Leadership of the organization

Advice to Management

Work-life balance

Pros

Get to be a part of an organization that sets the agenda in their community. Opportunity to bring people together across racial and denominational lines. Opportunity to address huge community problems and win solutions that benefit thousands of people.

Cons

You will experience many rejections, both large and small. During certain times of the year will work extremely long hours.

Advice to Management

Do a better job of celebrating the victories and filling peoples cup. Considering the quality of victories we achieve, there is more that could be done to life those up as a network.

Pros

I love being able to work with such racially, politically, socially, and spiritually diverse people. You get to see the Church actually transforming the community and acting on the great commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself." DART puts a lot of time and effort into training organizers and helping them reach high standards, prepare for difficult challenges, and deepen understanding of complex systems.

Cons

If you are poor at managing time, this job can easily become very overwhelming because there are a lot of events to organize and prepare for. There is always something to do so if you are bad at separating work and home, it could become consuming.

Advice to Management

As important as it is to improve and evaluate when we don't meet standards, continue to encourage newer organizers to focus on the positive aspects that are going well in an organization and in their own personal growth.