Pros
Working with people with developmental disabilities gives me gratitude for what I have. Wages for entry-level jobs are on the higher end compared to other companies I have worked at. This comes with more work though. Surprising number of services for people with disabilities. They're not necessarily run well but there are a lot of them. Community Gatepath serves both children and adults. Great marketing team. Their ability to get donors is the biggest reason why we are still afloat.
Cons
A lot of flowery talk and empty promises but constantly poor results. The 5star review that was written was probably written by someone from management because it sounds exactly like the kind of language that we usually hear from them. You ask a question and the answer you get is usually vague and unspecific. Whenever I get an email about someone that is getting laid off or another director that's leaving, I always see buzz words like dedication, passion, and opportunity. Directors don't leave because of the ridiculous workload "they go off to pursue other opportunities." Our bosses don't remember the specifics of what we accomplished during the year, so they praise us for our hardwork, passion, and dedication. So much money is spent on appearances but not on trying to keep good staff from leaving. Visit our office in Redwood City. It's beautiful. High ceilings, pictures of participants on the walls, high tech equipment. Then visit any of the adult centers or job sites that they work at. Staff are running around trying to figure out what their going to do that day. Equipment are outdated. I've personally witnessed dozens of high ranking managers quit or get fired in the over 4 years I've worked at Gatepath. We never hear why the managers left. We never get to give our input on how we can help solve that problem. HR is especially unhelpful. One of my coworkers lost a family member so she called HR about how many days off she can get. In a rude tone, HR told her that she should have talked to her boss about the issue. The biggest issue for me is how disconnected management is from their staff. I've worked at a good amount of nonprofits, and I've never seen that before. When there's a big change coming, my bosses used to let me know over a month in advance so I can prepare. When big changes happen in Gatepath, we don't usually find out until a week before it happens. What's worse is that people usually know several weeks in advance. My coworkers come up with so many good ideas and management pretends to listen to them but eventually ignores them. I've worked at other nonprofit jobs where we created entire departments based on comments from staff.