As I think of what is wrong with CPE, I am met with the thought “does it even matter”. This is because I have concerns about the organization’s long-term sustainability. The goal is muddled, many individual contributors are no longer employed, and there are concerns about the organization’s financial sustainability. I do not begrudge all who remain but I do begrudge leadership for who they decided were and were not worthy of keeping their job. It appeared that certain teams, including the COO’s office, were less affected - one could even say unscathed - by this reduction in force. I am also not sure I have ever seen a 3% CEO approval rating elsewhere on glassdoor, as posted the day of writing this review.
For whatever it is worth, here are the high-level issues that seem to repeat themselves within CPE, from my perspective
- Hiring practices felt insular and lacking in transparency, especially regarding those in someone’s network
- In my experience, leadership did not appear to fully understand the work or how it was being done
- There appears to be little introspection on how the organization got to this point. The mantra seems to be “this sector is no longer being funded” when (to my knowledge) CPE did not rely on DOJ-type funding in the same way as some peer organizations
- There is a lot of talk about transparency though it felt like little credence given to it in the day-to-day
- Executive leadership and critical HR roles appeared to be outsourced to contractors. Often this changes the level of accountability and transparency required.
- In my experience, executive leadership often felt less present than I would have expected for full-time roles. Public 990 filings raised questions for me about compensation relative to reported hours, as well as whether those salary ranges felt appropriate for a nonprofit organization
