The last time I worked for a for-profit entity was delivering pizzas for a local pizza joint when I was 19 (my boss was a dick btw and fired me when I said I wouldn't deliver pizzas on Christmas Eve because I was 19 and was going to my uncles house with my family.) Solid New Jersey pizza, though. I digress.
Since then I have worked for 5 different not-for-profit organizations and while things are not perfect, I do not experience many of the things I see often discussed in this subreddit. I also want to preface this with “nonprofit” doesn't mean not profitable. An organization needs to be profitable in order to exist for more than a couple of years. Non-profit means there are no share holders and any profit from the organization goes back into the organization itself.
The most challenging part of a non-profit career is earning potential. Typically you will make less than for-profit counterparts. I will circle back to this, but in my experience the lower salary comes with the tradeoff of improved work/life balance. This has given me the time and space to create some alternate earning streams in my life. Because I was working at a flexible non-profit in my 20s, I was able to pay my way through grad school with minimal debt and ultimately now land a job as an adjunct instructor at the local community college (technically also a non-profit) where I teach 2 classes each semester while working at my non-profit job the rest of my work week.
Between these two responsibilities I do work more hours than I'd ideally like to. BUT I am passionate about the work that I do. I feel good about my work because it's making my community a better place and I'm not just working to make some rich assholes even richer. The capital I generate is for the collective good, and that makes me feel good about the work that I put in. I have had crappy bosses in my career, but often not for the same reasons I see posed here frequently. They were just bad at managing people or keeping up with the needed responsibilities of running a small organization. You can find that anywhere.
I'm not expected to work beyond my contracted hours, and when it does happen I can flex time from one pay period to the next. There is no corporate brainwashing nonsense. There is no expectation to put work before family or personal wellbeing. I don't know how to say it other than I have pretty much never experience any of the indignant capitalist crap that I see so frequently posted here.
The nonprofits I have worked for are focused on environmental issues, as that is my area of expertise and passion, but there are non-profits that operate in every conceivable area. Housing, immigration, public health, animal welfare, education, workers rights, gender equality.. there is an endless list of issues that nonprofits are dedicated to working on.
I am in my early 30s and I will earn about $115,000 this year between being a non-profit director and college instructor. Granted I live in a high cost of living area, so my salaries are on the high end, but so are my expenses. I am not making this post to brag to strangers on reddit. I am posting because I gather that many disillusioned folks in the workforce have not considered the possibilities that lie outside of corporate America. You can love your work and make a decent living. Nothing is perfect in this world, but I do feel like I've carved out a niche that makes me feel as good about the present circumstances as possible.
I'm sure there are people for whom this path just is not possible for whatever reason(s). I'm aware that as a white man in America I have been afforded privileges not everyone has. I'm aware that there are only so many non-profit jobs and that some are much better than others. I'm even aware that there are some massive international non-profits that have grown too big for their own good and pay millions of dollars to CEOs and operate more like a corporation. I'm making this post with the hope that I can help open some folks minds to a possibility that they never considered before.