Pros
Company offers great benefits to their employees but with limitations. You get 15 days of vacation starting out, it used to be 20. If you make partner you get unlimited vacation and make your own schedule, you only receive 5 sick days but can come in late or leave early for medical appointments. they offer healthcare plans, retirement benefits and profit sharing but you have to be working at the company for over a year before you can receive these benefits. It's a small business of less than 10 employees so you get to know your co-workers well, when I was there the entry and mid level employees I worked with were great. I truly enjoyed the company and the people I worked with. However I have to say the turnover at this company is crazy so who knows if any of these people will still be around. Another great benefit is the networking, you get to meet all kinds of people in the business, from CDFI's all over the country but you have to sign a non-compete when you start working for FUND so you're not able to work for anyone in the CDFI industry for 18 months following your exit from FUND. This a great company to learn new skills and learn about the CDFI industry, they do a great job training their staff and teaching entry level staff about the CDFI industry. Since it very hard to find professionals with experience in the CDFI industry FUND hires a lot of staff without CDFI experience and then trains them very well. I learned so much while working here and received a lot of training from the managing consultant.
Cons
The partners of the firm are completely disconnected from their company and staff. They make irrational decisions and show little concern for their staff. The partners only come into work a few days a week for a few hours at a time. While working there the partners often took on new projects or contracts without consulting the office managing consultant or their staff. There was terrible life-work balance, staff was way over worked, everyone always had to stay over time and even work weekends without over time pay in order to meet deadlines. Many times we already had several projects and strict deadlines and then the partners would get an opportunity to take on another project and make some extra money. They would often just take the contract without consulting us, it was just expected that you work over time to meet deadlines. This was very frustrating because when I started they told me they that work-life balance was a important company value and one of the reasons the partners started this firm was because they were tired of working at companies that didn't have family values and they wanted to start their own company that valued family and life outside of work. It's clear that the partners what that for themselves since they only work a few days a week but this only applies to the partners and not the rest of the staff. There is little room for growth at this company, when I started I was told there was room for promotion and growth but during my time there it became clear that was a false promise. It is a small company and they plan to stay small. So if you are looking for a company where you can climb the ladder this most likely isn't it. The biggest con for me was the amount of employee turnover and the way the partners treated their staff. When I started, the companies had 3 management level employees and only 2 non-management level employes's and both of those employees had been with the company less than a year but the company had been around for over 10 years. I quickly learned that the company had a bad history with employee turnover and that lots of former employee's either left due to poor treatment from the partners or they were let go for various reasons, often the reasons were something minor that would have not resulted in firing at most companies. To me the partners didn't value their employees or the investment that had been made in training employees. It felt like they saw us as something that could easily be replaced and we weren't valued. When I was worked there I was repeatedly put down by the partners and disrespected by them. And it wasn't just me, I witnessed my co-workers being disrespected by the partners on many occasions as well. it was frustrating and insulting to be treated like that in a professional workplace and when I brought up my concerns with the managing consultant they weren't taken seriously and nothing was done. The company makes you sign an "at will" policy when you're hired so that they are able to fire you at will without any warning or consequences to them.