By Ben Gose, Chronicle of Philanthropy
FEBRUARY 6, 2024
Sophia Lombardo has always felt like she was destined to work in the nonprofit world. Her mother gave birth to Sophia’s older brother at 16 and later became the first member of her family to graduate from college, which gave Sophia firsthand experience with economic mobility and led to her interest in helping others.
Lombardo received a full-tuition scholarship to Earlham College through the Bonner Scholar Program, which seeks students who want to change the world through service and asks them to work in the community 10 hours a week.
But Lombardo was still on the hook for room and board, and she borrowed to cover the cost. Shortly before graduating with a business and nonprofit-management degree, she learned about a federal student-loan forgiveness program that would eventually cancel her college debt if she worked long enough in nonprofits or public service.
At age 27, Lombardo is perched between Generation Z and the millennial generation. Now a volunteer-services coordinator at Columbus State Community College, in Ohio, she says she’s committed to a social-justice career, either in her current job or at a traditional charity. “For me, tying in my passion to my career makes sense — it gets me up in the morning,” she says.
Gen Z workers favor an informal work style, want a tightly defined work schedule, and are unlikely to settle for subpar pay.
Lombardo encourages the students she works with to consider nonprofit careers — and also tells them about the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which can make working at a nonprofit more financially attractive. Yet her pitch often fails. Many of the students she works with are eyeing positions at the $20 billion manufacturing site that Intel will open near Columbus next year. What they want is a job that’s contained to a defined schedule — not the all-consuming, often low-paying positions that remain common in the nonprofit sector. The same students might take time out of their weekends to volunteer or attend a political rally, but a career in nonprofits just seems too draining for them, Lombardo says.
“I have so many students that want to just have a job — go in at 8 and leave at 4 or 5 — and not have to think about work at home,” Lombardo says. “With the nonprofit world, it’s harder to do that — it has a lot of heart to it. My students have the heart, and they want to help, but they want to do it on their own time and not as a career.”
The charity world has long attracted people who are passionate about causes or combating societal challenges but who aren’t great at achieving work-life balance — and many remain underpaid and overworked.
Generation Z wants none of that. People born from about 1997 to 2012 have seen their parents whipsawed twice — first by the 2007-8 financial crisis and then by the sharp financial downturn during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some in Gen Z have spent their school years anxious about the nation’s rash of school shootings, fearing that their own school might be next. And many were socially isolated during the early part of the pandemic, missing out on fun with friends.
Read full version of this article in the February 6, 2024, issue.