Malaysian NGOs have a hubris issue. Not all, but enough of them that I’ve encountered over the years. Some observations:
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They are insular. To be fair, other industries are also guilty of this, e.g. advertising and their obsession with awards, tech and their worship of celebrity founders; but at least those industries are keenly aware of their landscapes and competitors. NGOs, however, are insular even within their own sector. Each org believes that their cause is THE cause to fight for, and that their solution is THE solution to end all solutions. (They are like academia, but with IRL impact at least and much less elitism, so there’s that.)
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Their talents are homogeneous. They take so much pride in who they are that they end up hiring clones of themselves. E.g., consulting types will hire more consulting types, the only kind of people they feel confident enough to vet through. These talents are highly competent, sure, and they are going to be great at what they are great at, while also being stuck with the same problems they have been stuck with for another two decades.
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(The thing is, they DO want to diversify their. But when an org started using “x% of our hires are from Ivy League” as a talking point, the measurement becomes the goal. They gentrified the heck out of their talent pipeline.)
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They overestimate their knowledge in unfamiliar domains. I’ve had interviews where the orgs used archaic ideas in marketing (which is fine, that’s what you need a Comms person for) and posed them as an assessment, trying to assert authority yet ended up making themselves look clueless and arrogant. I heard of another incident where an org set up a meeting with another foundation only to give unsolicited advice on how to run their operations better. I don’t think these are purely out of self-aggrandizement, but rather, the need to demonstrate credibility in every interaction.
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Loss of authenticity and human warmth. In every interaction, they’ll sell themselves up as how they would try to impress a donor, at the same time they’ll expect you to prove your worth as how they would skim through scholarship applications. Like bro, can we just talk like two human beings? Tell me your woes and I’ll tell you in which way I can contribute, or I’ll pass a contact of a guy who knows a guy.
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Purpose as remuneration, prestige as stock options. When you can’t offer a competitive salary, all you can hammer over and over is “let’s do it for the kids/women/poor/immigrants etc” until the staffs are burned out, overstretched. But hey, there’s that chance that you may appear on the back page of the next Tatler issue yet.
I’m sorry that I sound too snarky with this critique. I still believe in the work that they do, and I’ll continue cheering from afar. To anyone reading this on the outside wanting to get in, lest you enter unprepared.
Meta
Originally written and published on Oct 29, 2024