This was the worst job experience I have ever had, hands down
Pros
There are very few pros. I suppose the "cause" could be seen as good, but very few of the leadership cares even a little about the cause. Rather, they only care about hitting numbers and metrics, and they couldn't care less how they get to those goals. My own boss cheated to hit numbers to "look good to the donors." So yes, there are plenty of other organizations who share the same cause - Liberty and Freedom - who actually care more about the fight than the donors
Cons
Whew, where do I begin? This was easily the absolute worst, most horrendous, scarring job experience I have ever had, hands down. The drama is unbearable. The lying behind each other's back is extremely amateur. The gaslighting is outrageous. The current grassroots leader is the most two-faced, backstabbing, lying, treacherous person I have ever met in my life. I bent over backwards to do as she requested for the first few months, but that wasn't enough: simply because I refused to kiss her feet, she had it out for me from the beginning. Somehow (and I suppose other frauds would applaud her for this), she convinced the regional director she's a fantastic person. We will see what happens when he sees through her lies and cheating. Maybe he should check her i360.... She is so good at her hateful act that she had me thinking, maybe - just MAYBE - I am the problem, that maybe it's me that's causing the mess. She did a very good job at gaslighting, so good that she had me convinced I was probably the bad guy. She gave me permission, and even requested and urged me to do stuff that turned out to be non-compliant, but when it came out, she denied all association with it and blamed me for it. I expected the regional director to support me on this one because it was so blatantly obvious, but no, somehow she had him under her influence (I have to give credit where credit is due: she is VERY good at this sort of deception). Did he know and just choose to ignore it (firing someone that high-up would be a big deal)? I don't know, but I do think he is a smart enough man to see through a person like her, so I do genuinely wonder. This is far from the only thing I went through with her, but I couldn't even start to touch on how awful my experience was, so take this as a tiny example. Again, she is so good at her deception that she almost had me convinced I was the bad guy and that she was wholly innocent. Because of this, I held off on this review for several months to make sure I don't have the same experience with my new job. To me, this would have meant the problem is me. But as you have guessed by now, my new job (as were my jobs before AFP) has been overwhelmingly positive. I have done some deep soul-searching, and I have come to my conclusion: it was absolutely not my fault I was gas-lighted into raw trauma. It was absolutely not my fault I outperformed 90+% of the nation and still was unable to please her. It is absolutely not my fault that, for 3/4s of a year, I thought I was a lost cause - a failure, even. I would, before this job, have almost laughed at people who claimed trauma over job experiences, but after this, my whole perspective has changed - I need therapy after this. I will acknowledge that one can't judge an entire organization based on one horrible leader, but I've chatted with other grassroots engagement directors from across the nation, and while most experiences don't rival mine, this type of toxicity seems to be thriving within AFP. So, needless to say, I think this review is well-deserved. Again, I waited months to submit this, to make sure I'm not overreacting, but ultimately, and after consulting many others about it, this review is well-earned.
