Valuable knowledge but high workload demands - Anonymous employee Elevate (DC) Employee Review

Frankly, I'm saddened by some of the recent reviews here, calling Elevate "abusive" and "exploitative" as I feel that this is an incredibly unfair characterization that has been the OPPOSITE of my experience and that of many of my colleagues. Elevate is a great place to work. I love my colleagues, and it's engaging work where we can learn about many different nonprofits and issue areas. Some benefits: Clear expectations: Depending on your role, you're given a certain number of clients and/or deliverables per month -- of course, work can ebb and flow, but there's not an endless stream of work unexpectedly dumped on you. You can define your job responsibilities in a tangible way. For folks who come from nonprofit backgrounds (like many of us), this is such a welcome and refreshing change from nonprofit development work. Flexibility and WFH: it's fully distributed, so there's not a hybrid culture of folks "in office" and "at home". We get actual flexibility in your work hours so you can make time to pick up your kids from daycare, schedule a dentist appt, etc. (And I've worked at places where toxic managers say you have "flexibility" and start calling/texting you the minute you don't answer a slack -- this is not that!) I will note, though, that we do have full workloads and this is a 40 hour a week job -- so you can take two hours to go to the doctor, but if you don't find a way to make up that time, it's easy to get behind. Transparency and openness: I see other reviews here complaining about some equity practices, which is really interesting to me because Elevate is BY FAR the most transparent organization I've ever worked for, and they have shown a deep commitment to equity -- pay scales are public information, reviews are done on regular schedules, job openings are shared internally, etc. So you might not like some decisions they make (ex that all GW1s start at the same pay rate, regardless of their personal experience), but they share this information with you and their justification for it. They've also recently done hours of open town halls where we could ask the leadership questions and hear their thinking about issues like workload or performance management. Healthy culture: Don't let the other reviews scare you. Generally, Elevate is a pretty positive place to work! My colleagues are pleasant to be around, mature, generous with offering to help each other. I've never seen anyone get screamed or cursed at, and Elevate puts in effort to celebrate folks. (Not all of it is my cup of tea, but I'd much rather have that than a negative culture/unpredictable personalities etc) Misc benefits: there's also lots of great little benefits we get -- office closures at year end and during the fourth of july (in ADDITION to vacation time), internet and phone reimbursement, home office stipends, etc.

-- Elevate does expect a lot of you and there are definitely times during the year where I get overwhelmed. It ebbs and flows, but you need to be able to manage a large workload. -- You might get to give a little bit of input, but for the most part, you don't get to choose your clients/teams. -- If you are coming to Elevate from an individual consultant background, you might find the adjustment hard. There are lots of processes and tools that they make you use for consistency. -- Finally, as some other reviews share, there has been a lot of turnover lately, which has forced a ton of transitions on teams -- this is disruptive and more work for everyone.

The work is fully remote and the healthcare benefits are satisfactory.

While there are some nice people who work there, the majority were unprofessional, unkind, and inexperienced. The salary is well below market value despite what they tell you.