Pros
The staff doing the work are the strongest part of the organization. Employees across teams are deeply dedicated to conservation and bring genuine passion and expertise to their roles. There is a strong sense that individuals care about the mission and put thought and effort into the quality of their work. There is also a clear boundary around work hours, with no consistent expectation to perform job duties outside of official working time. This helps support a baseline level of work life balance, at least in terms of schedule expectations.
Cons
The direction that organization has taken is touted as being transformative and new. In reality, it's the same strategy as always expect now they have removed all work related to people and the community. It's all about land (obtaining, restoring, and conserving) and in 2026 as a white-led organization that smacks of the perpetuation of the harm of colonization. Even before the current federal administration, they intentionally stopped their diverstiy, equity, and incusion work saying they felt they had accomplished what they wanted to with that work. That couldn't be further from the truth. People of Color do not advance here and are also not hired (or perhaps People of Color are not applying because they have seen the other reviews here and have heard word of mouth about the organization). The new exec director leans on the women in leadership under him to do the work while he schmoozes with funders and the board. Perhaps that's the role of the ED in his opinion, but not interacting with staff as human being is detrimental to the culture of the organization. On my last few days, many people took the time to wish me well. It was very telling that the ED did not take the time to do that. Finally, the organization touts itself as having a employee benefits and a work life balance. Yet in the last few months many people have been written up for their use of their PTO time. Not only is this illegal in Chicago, it also sets up a toxic workplace where people do not feel safe using their PTO time or else be accused of misuse or suspicious use of their PTO. I'm not sure what the goal of coming after people's use of their earned paid time off, but it's incredibly harmful. It's 2026 and the use of PTO time has evolved in organizations similar to Openlands. Unfortunately, Openlands has decided to stay in the 1960's with PTO as well as flexible work schedules and remote work. There is no equity or consistency in their application of employee benefits and work policies.
