Pros
- You will meet amazing passionate people (at entry-level to junior level) , who want to make a difference in the volunteering sector - Make friends for life
Cons
- Exploitative salaries (e.g. a full time coordinator at HQ was paid < £15,000 a year!) and multiple extra out of work responsibilities unpaid (e.g. outreach events, evening and weekend work, including their quarterly residential briefing weekend) - They rely heavily on interns who are all unpaid - High turnover of staff - Senior management use bullying and intimidation tactics on the young workforce - many of the people I worked with developed serious mental health issues whilst working there due to stress and anxiety caused by the way senior managers managed their staff teams. - Disputable ethics - a lot of the 'conservation' projects were not that at all -- rather they were either dubious 'animal sanctuary' projects, or highly under-funded camp-based projects with unhygienic accommodation and insufficient/poor quality/unsafe tools and equipment.