Pros
Easy to advance Competitive pay For a good cause
Cons
Multiple things: A) there is a 100% attendance policy. This means if you have to call out of a shift, you have to schedule a make up. If you work five days and can’t reschedule a make-up in the same week. That means you’re working six days the next week! If you don’t have any vacation time and have to take multiple days off, you can expect to work multiple six day work weeks back to back. For a company who is promoting human rights, it is contradictory and immoral to keep HUMANS from having a healthy work/life balance. This led to multiple of the canvassers around me quitting due to stress and burnout. B) the capitalistic corruption of this job. Initially when I hired, the emphasis was around getting people involved with a good cause. It is a good cause, however, DVCanvass will take your passion for human rights and use it to milk the maximum amount of profit from you. Although it is raising money for a good cause, they’re still pushing their employees to the max to gain maximum profit. I noticed this shift in myself personally when I subconsciously started to focus on “getting members” than I was getting people involved with a good cause. C) staffing process/quota When I was hired the hiring process was as follows: you have four days to get three members to make staff, and then the first week after staffing is off of quota. The kicker is DVCanvass got rid of the first week off of quota leaving no room for new hires to get past the learning curve that comes with canvassing. To be fair, canvassing companies already have a hard time keeping staff, but there was a clear difference before and after this policy change. This led to abhorrent retention, an ever changing office staff, and not enough canvassers to give the Shift Leads teams. In addition, while the quota is technically “the lowest quota in Portland” but it’s still a quota. For the first three months you are on weekly quota which means if you miss quota two weeks in a row you’re fired. The job security is nonexistent. It really feels like you’re starting over week after week after week. D) poor management Management gets away with putting employees in uncomfortable positions (including being stuck outside In the snow for hours because they didn’t let you go home). There is a disconnect from the swinging force of management and the impact they have on their employees. The communication is poor often leaving the shift leads confused and frustrated. Additionally, there were several weeks where the office member goal was raised three weeks in a row even though we didn’t hit the first goal. Not to mention, the shift leads are paid $3 more than the canvassers per hour but essentially become co managers of the office. The pay raise does not justify the amount of work that will be put on you. Furthermore, if become the city coordinator of the office, you get put on salary, but it pays roughly &1.50-2.00 more per hour. Not worth it. E) safety There are multiple times where we have gone out into Portland bringing the issue of gun violence to the door. This has caused a serious issue for safety as we are not street canvassing. The intimate danger of being at someones door step puts the canvasser in a really compromising position. There has been shots fired while on the job. There has been multiple people who have brought guns to the door in anger. Just in general, high risk of getting shot/hurt just by doing your job. Overall it feels like management is wearing a blind fold 24/7. DVCanvass fails to live up to its name as a human rights organization as the work culture, management, and policy leads to the abuse of workers rights, human right, and mental health. In conclusion, SKIP THIS JOB!!!! You are better off becoming a server at a fancy restaurant as you’d be safer and make more money. Seriously though, it’s not worth the stress or money.