Pros
Oxfam America is one of the standard bearer of nonprofits - the mission is great, the campaigns are great, and it's wonderful to work with motivated citizens around the world. Some of the personalities at Oxfam were some of the most vibrant and engaging that I've encountered in any workplace, and after leaving, I miss many of them dearly. The office is in a great location and has fantastic views of Boston and the Boston Harbor. For a nonprofit, the benefits are strong for the field, but not necessarily competitive with for-profits. The one exception to that is sick time/personal time/comp time/vacation time .... all totaled, I usually had about 35 days I could take off a year, which is well .... European? Pay is also slightly stronger than other non-profits. Having the protection of a union is also great, although, depending on leadership (both union and not) and issues, union-non-union ties can introduce an awkward tension into the workplace.
Cons
Most of the satisfaction seems to be dependent upon the department you are in. Some departments are great and have wonderful leaders, others seem to be checked out and more focused on traveling to Spain every other month. The CEO, while passionate, seems pretty much checked out when it comes to the staff - which wouldn't be a problem if other senior management/the board were involved with staff. Altogether, management (even at the lowest manager level) seem to be more concerned with reinforcing the divide between management & staff rather than building strong teams. If you are in a senior/mid-level position of your career and are content with that, Oxfam is a decent place .... also, if you are just at the beginning of your career, the same! However, if you are looking for career advancement, your only real option is to leave Oxfam, gain experience elsewhere, and come back to a new position - it's happened a lot. Senior management seems to be aware of that issue but doesn't seem to care enough to address it. For instance, while managers will routinely get promoted to new managerial titles with little change in duties, it's hard to move up if you're not a manager even if you're taking on an immense amount of new work and showing progress. A staffwide survey showed a lot of slippage in a number of