Ashoka reviews

The salaries are intentionally kept below the normal non-profit market rate, as a way to attract candidates who are likely to put high value on the org's mission, in lieu of salary. The culture of the org is generated by folks who can tolerate low pay. They fall into two main groups (a) young, idealistic, self-confident, high-performers who are attracted to the story and network around Ashoka and tend to burn out within 1-2 years (b) independently wealthy and/or semi-retired folks who are attracted to the mission of the org. Both groups tend to be drawn from elite backgrounds from the USA or other countries--not a lot of diversity in that regard. There are as many senior staff as mid-career staff. And, both of those groups are dwarfed by a very large number of early-career staff. The org isn't structured to provide its super-committed, entrepreneurial staff with opportunities to actually be entrepreneurial inside the org. The leadership of the org has learned that early-career staff burn out in 1-2 years, and they organize around that expectation. It is extremely rare for people in mid-career roles to elevate into senior roles. Instead, they constantly aim to hire people from outside for senior roles, so that they can benefit from the networks that the new outside senior people can bring to Ashoka's network. As other reviewers have noted, the CEO is micromanaging. The CEO is the founder and permanent member of the org's board. The other board members are old friends of the CEO. Also, the management team that the CEO has drawn around himself is an echo chamber. When talking publicly, the CEO espouses values of distributed fluid leadership and teamwork, and often supports that by pointing to the fact that there is no written org chart for Ashoka. However, the lack of an org chart serves the purpose of obscuring the actual personality-based, clique-based structure of authority that exists in practice, in the organization. This kind of thing is present in all organizations to some extent, but in Ashoka it's the main organizing principle. This produces very little transparency, accountability, or learning throughout the org.

Overall Ashoka culture is tough. There is a lot of distrust of upper-level management and a lot of frustration about issues ranging from pay to the hiring process to not feeling heard. In my opinion, this distrust is earned. The strategy that Ashoka uses build an "Everyone a Changemaker world" is always changing, usually at the whim of those at the top. This dynamism can feel exciting or extremely frustrating, depending on your point of view. Over-valuing entrepreneurialism leads to some strange outcomes. Despite the emphasis on empathy, people are incentivized to play politics and "own" strategic projects, sometimes cutting out members of their own, or other, teams. If you don't learn to toot your own horn, you get left behind. Additionally, key parts of Ashoka's infrastructure have been less-than-professionally managed because of a reliance on non-experts. Finally, sometimes entrepreneur-types who are terrible to work with make it through the hiring process. When they do, they're beloved by the management for their ideas, but drive everyone else nuts because they are difficult to work with, and oftentimes very self-serving.