Pros
Many staff members are compassionate and mission-driven. There are truly some gems of people and teams at Kindering. For my position, the workload was fair, so long as I was forward with boundary setting.
Cons
I strongly encourage prospective employees to research their specific team carefully, as the culture varies widely by campus and department. In my experience, the Bellevue campus, advancement, and administration struggled significantly with culture and management.
Kindering has many talented and passionate employees, but the organizational culture is deeply problematic and often incongruent with its mission. Issues such as intimidation, dismissive management practices, extreme micromanagement, and low morale are common. Concerns around racism, ableism, and other forms of discrimination were raised repeatedly by staff, but in my experience, these concerns were not meaningfully addressed. On multiple occasions, managers who were the subject of repeated complaints appeared to be supported or even promoted rather than held accountable.
One example that reflects the broader culture is that direct managers had the ability to access employee emails without employees being informed. In my case, this included messages related to confidential HR concerns about my manager, which were accessed by my manager without my knowledge. When I reported this, I did not receive support, and the situation escalated rather than improved. My team was Individual Giving, and I found the management to be by far the most poorly run team I’ve experienced in my career.
I also experienced concerns around pay and benefits transparency. The salary discussed early in the interview process for my position was not actually available, which I was told only after completing interviews and reference checks. During my more than two years at Kindering, the cumulative cost-of-living adjustment was 1.5%, and raises were only provided through promotions that increased workload. Benefits are presented attractively in job postings but do not reflect how outdated they are in practice.
That being said, there are some true gems of people and teams at Kindering and for my position the workload was fair. For that reason I wouldn’t discount it entirely. I recommend doing thorough research and, if possible, learning from former employees’ experiences before accepting a position.
Overall, while many staff members are compassionate and mission-driven, significant structural changes are needed before I would recommend Kindering.