A day in the life of a nonprofit worker

1. What is your name, organization and job title (you don't have to give your name/organization if you don't want to- it can be anonymous)
Martin Wera – Nonprofit Services Manager, Charities Review Council

2. What is the first thing you do when you get in the office?
Put my lunch in the fridge, check email, check my calendar, and check to see if any nonprofits have finished the Accountability Wizard (the online educational tool the Charities Review Council has for nonprofits). After that, it varies from day to day.

3. How do you spend your lunch break?
During baseball season – check the updates about the Twins. Usually though I check the MinnPost Daily Glean, Politico, and any other news updates. Often I’ll check some nonprofit blogs as well.

4. Which part of your work do you enjoy most?
One of the best things about my job is the opportunity to connect and work with a variety of nonprofits. Depending on which organizations are going through a review, every day is different. Not only is the organization different (e.g. size, issue area, etc.), but also questions that they have about the review and the Accountability Standards. I also enjoy the fact that I feel like in working with nonprofits meet our standards, I’m part of the process of helping them be more effective, healthy organizations.

5. Please finish this sentence: If someone wanted my job, they would have to…..
…be a nonprofit geek.

6. What advice or tips do you have for other nonprofit professionals in your position?
This is trite, but true – do what gives you energy. Having worked at a variety of nonprofits, this has been the clearest lesson I’ve learned. From this point, everything else falls into place.

I am looking for people to participate in this series, if you are interested, please email me - kristen@advancementcompany.com