California Community Foundation Reviews

What this organization delivers externally is not reflected internally. Inside, it’s toxic, and it starts with the leadership team. Many reviews have said it, and it needs repeating: the CEO is terrible at his job. He’s here for his own political purposes and personal benefit, and it’s clear he doesn’t care about staff. He’s egotistical, dismissive, and has created a hostile environment since stepping into the role. There’s little transparency, rampant favoritism, and hiring based on who leadership likes rather than who is qualified. If the CEO likes you, you’re fine—if not, you’re pushed out. He runs the company in an extremely childish way where it’s his way or nothing. Speaking up is nearly impossible, and leadership either ignores staff concerns or makes empty promises. The CEO isolates himself in his office, and staff rarely see him, sometimes only once a month. The culture is broken. Leadership enables a CEO who throws tantrums when things don’t go his way or when someone challenges his ideas. He focuses on impressing donors and board members while ignoring serious internal problems. Meanwhile, the employees who actually make the organization’s impact possible are treated as expendable. The culture has gotten so bad that employees are now forming a union. Staff are essentially screaming for help, but leadership isn’t listening.

There’s usually a lot of hard work that needs to be done in the foundation. The new CEO is really putting CCF in the spotlight amidst the new administration’s crackdown on liberal ways of life and CEO is actively standing by those nonprofits and other people affected by Trump. There are still some cons that CCF is trying to bridge, like the disconnect between leadership and staff. Before, people were complaining that we didn’t get paid enough so CCF underwent a market survey and bumped employees up to at least 50% of the market. Now there’s talks of becoming a union which to me shows how insecure some people are about their jobs. People need to work on their own professional development rather than expect doing the bare minimum and expecting a higher raise/promotion. This is also probably due to the fact that there were no merit increases and everyone got the same increases regardless of whether you got a 3 star or 5 star on your review all in the name of “equity”. Sure there’s a lot of work here but some of these people have never worked in the for-profit industry and those companies are definitely more cutthroat there than here, some even paying less.