Correction appended
Nonprofits may not be suffering as much as corporations in the financial sector, but these organizations are hardly immune to the effects of the current economic recession. For some, the downturn has had both positive and negative effects, as they are faced with a larger, more skilled job applicant pool but significantly less funding.
Princeton Project 55, a 501(c)(3) organization that matches recent Princeton graduates with year-long fellowships in nonprofits, saw a drop of more than 50 percent in the number of partner organizations that offer placements and a 24 percent increase in fellowship applications for the 2009-10 academic year, Project 55 executive director Kathleen Reilly said.
“There’s been a fluctuation between September and now in terms of the number of host organizations who could support fellows,” Project 55 president William Leahy ’66 said. This year, 40 organizations will host fellows, down from 116 last year, Leahy added, citing preliminary figures and noting that some organizations do take more than one fellow.
Leahy said only 50 spots are available for the 2009-10 academic year, and Reilly noted that the organization received 145 applications this year. Last year, the organization accepted 68 fellows when 132 positions were available, Leahy said.
Rising demand
“Not every Project 55 fellow will get a job,” said Mai Hinton ’08, a current Project 55 fellow who will take a second fellowship position at the Character Education Partnership this year. “In past years, it’s really never been an issue ... It’s really unfortunate that this year, some people will be left out in the cold. And I guess everybody’s just trying to do the best they can.”
The large pool of applicants does not reflect the full extent of the economic crisis, Leahy said. “[The application] process begins in September, and of course the tremendous economic tsunami that’s occurred really didn’t set in until October or November.”
Johanna Lopez ’09, who will be a fellow at the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services, said that the economy was a factor in her decision to apply for a Project 55 fellowship. “A lot of the companies I was interested in were making cuts,” she said. “I thought this would be a more rewarding thing to do during the year off [between Princeton and graduate school].”
Several fellows for the 2009-10 academic year also said that they thought the current economic climate might drive more Princeton graduates toward careers in the public sector.
“I think that people at this point are kind of applying to whatever they can get,” said Rebecca Perlman ’08, who will work at the New York County District Attorney’s Office. “People are starting to cast wider nets than they normally would.”
Lopez cited Teach For America as an nonprofit that had attracted a lot of interest among her peers. Students “who hadn’t even been considering [Teach For America] decided to apply because it was kind of the most popular public internship or public service job that would be available to them,” she said.
Stuart Malcolm ’08, who will take a position at Access Community Health Network, said in an e-mail, “The current job market wasn’t a huge factor in my decision to apply for a Project 55 fellowship, although once I got it, I felt lucky not having to be worrying about it.”
Though more people may be applying for the nonprofit fellowships, the recession may not necessarily benefit the public-interest field, Malcolm said. “I think some of those public interest places are going to take a hit from the current economy,” he said. “I think the economy will probably drive more recent grads towards secured positions in medicine, law and definitely consulting.”
Lopez emphasized the merits of public service over other possible career paths. “It’s not just about how it looks on our resume, but it’s more practical experience that you’re not going to get in [investment] banking,” she said, citing the one-on-one experience afforded by public service work as one of its most important benefits.
Dealing with the decline
Several of Project 55’s partner organizations faced economic burdens that forced them to drop out for this year. “Many of the host organizations that we deal with did not have a full understanding of what the economic crisis would do to the organization … some until as late as February,” Leahy said.
In response to the decrease in available positions, “we’re not really keeping deadlines with organizations any longer,” Reilly said, noting that “usually our organization recruitment [would] be done at this point.”
Reilly added that Project 55 is also beginning to discuss next year’s fellowship program with its partner organizations. She explained that “during the economic times, it might behoove them to take a fellow versus a full-time employee.”
Project 55, which relies on contributions from individuals and organizations to support its mission, also faced a 23 percent decrease in donations from individuals. The organization raised only about $170,000 this year, down from $220,000 last year.
Despite decreases in individual contributions, “corporations and foundations have actually increased, in some regards, their funding, so they’ve made up the difference,” Leahy said. “So we’re almost exactly where we were last year in terms of our revenues.”
The approximately $400,000 operating budget of Project 55 supports “a very lean staff of essentially four people” and covers the program’s administrative and communications costs, Leahy said. Reilly added that the organization is projecting it will close this fiscal year roughly $30,000 under its budgeted income.
“We’re continuing to actively recruit organizations, and … [we’re] really trying to diversify our placements,” Reilly said, adding that media, marketing and communications fellowships are some of the positions Project 55 looks to include in its program.
Though Project 55 does not have enough positions for all its fellows, Leahy said he plans to emphasize quality over quantity. “We also want to make sure that the host organizations that we attract and that take on Princeton graduates are good host organizations,” Leahy said. “Fifty to 60 super placements are better then 100 mediocre [placements].”
Project 55 also hopes to expand its initiatives by creating a “new series of parallel fellowships” that will target Princeton alumni of all ages, Leahy said. Though it does not have an official age limit for applicants, Reilly said, the program’s fellowship opportunities currently are entry-level positions targeted at recent graduates.
The proposed program would allow alumni to get involved in nonprofit endeavors like “pro bono work and medical missions,” Reilly said. “We’re hoping by September to have it be a full-fledged project proposal with the goal of reaching Princetonians of all ages.”
The fellowship experience
For Project 55 participants, the year-long fellowships provide experience in a specific nonprofit field.
Perlman said that her responsibilities at the New York County District Attorney’s Office will include “listening to wiretaps, doing research [and] writing subpoenas.” She said that she hopes the fellowship will help her determine whether to apply to graduate school or law school.
Lopez said that her fellowship will expose her to public interest law and social work, the career paths she is considering. “What I wanted the most was basically to explore the social work and to see whether the day-to-day of being a social worker would be of interest to me.”
Malcolm explained that over the course of his current work with an nongovernmental organization in Africa, he has become “increasingly frustrated with the inefficiencies and poverty … and wanted to know how it worked in a country with wealth and infrastructure.” Malcolm, who said he would like to pursue a career in medicine, will work in public health during his fellowship.
Hinton, however, said that both her current fellowship and her fellowship for next year — both of which are in education — are unrelated to her career aspirations, explaining that she is considering pursuing a graduate degree in psychology. Hinton, who was involved in nonprofits through her high school and college years, said she saw a Project 55 fellowship as “an opportunity to do what I did as a volunteer for an entire year as a job.”
She added that her experience also provided her with practical work skills. “I’ve learned things like how to use a fax machine [and] those massive copier machines and how to properly answer a phone and transfer [calls],” she said, adding that “pretty much every Project 55 fellow will have to do a little bit of administrative office work.”
Despite the economic climate, Lopez stressed the value of work in the public interest. “The reward of public service, at the end of the day, is that you see the impact that you or your organization is making.”
Correction
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Project 55 placed 78 fellows last year and was projected to match its operating budget from last year in the current fiscal year. In fact, they placed 68 fellows last year, and the organization is currently projected to come in $30,000 under budget.
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