Pluspunten
-A product with some potential in the nonprofit space
-Opportunity (at least initially) to help build a GTM engine from the ground up
-Strong sense of camaraderie within teams
-Remote role, good benefits
Minpunten
-Timing and handling of layoffs: On December 17th, during a company-wide meeting, the CEO presented an opportunity to quickly sell stock options, framed as “extra cash before the holidays, no strings attached.” On December 19th, the entire Marketing, Sales, and Partnerships team was invited to a meeting titled “Growth – Sales and Marketing,” where we were collectively terminated... six days before Christmas. The optics and sequencing were hard to ignore.
-Breakdown of trust in strategic communication: Employees were repeatedly told that the company intended to separate from DonorPerfect and move forward independently. In reality, the company was preparing for a sale. That messaging materially influenced how many employees assessed the company’s direction and their own long-term employment.
-Transactional approach to growth: Over the course of a year, leadership built out a full go-to-market team of marketing, sales, and partnerships, with a mandate to drive growth and increase company value. Once that value was realized, the entire function was eliminated. It’s difficult not to view that sequence as purely transactional.
-The software can be very buggy, and is in a highly saturated nonprofit market. The software does a couple of things very well, and the rest quite poorly.
One of the company's mottos is “People over Profit.” Based on how this situation was handled, that statement did not reflect the lived experience of the teams impacted.
Acquisitions and restructures are part of business. But transparency, timing, and leadership integrity matter. Culture is defined less by what’s said in company meetings and more by how people are treated when decisions get hard.