Vantaggi
They hire passionate, innovative, and caring staff. My colleagues were some of the best, and I am still good friends with and collaborate with many of them. They have a decent training program for mental health providers. The agency is well-funded and has more material resources than the typical community mental health center or the typical urban public school.
Svantaggi
They are funded by primarily White business men, and their board is almost entirely older, wealthy, White men, even though the agency serves almost entirely Black and Brown people. Their agency's leadership is mostly White or supports White values and behaviors. This has a devastating trickle down effect on staff. For example, as a woman of color, I never felt that my voice or my clients' voices were centered in decision-making. At best, my voice was considered, but the ultimate decision makers were overwhelmingly White middle to upper class people who had no lived experience in the communities we served. I felt actively silenced and even taken advantage of. Also, I experienced and witnessed many incidents of racism and sexism, mostly from my superiors. In addition to direct microaggressions, I found out that I was getting significantly underpaid compared to my less qualified White colleagues. There was gaslighting by superiors when these incidents got brought up. Sometimes, the very people who committed the racist/sexist acts got promoted. It became such a toxic environment that I left feeling burnt out and disillusioned, which is really sad, because I do think the place could have had potential to justly serve the community.