WORKING IN THE NONPROFIT SECTOR
- A nonprofit organization uses its revenues to further achieve its purpose or mission
- What does the Foundation for the NIH (FNIH) do?
- Builds partnerships between NIH, industry, academia, and other non-profits to meet relevant health research challenges.
- Manages projects within partnerships for different purposes:
- Leverage aggregation of clinical data from studies to answer research questions that require huge data sets and have broad relevance to industry
WORKING IN THE PRIVATE VS NONPROFIT SECTORS
Typical day from my experience in project management at Emergent vs FNIH:
Similarities
- Lots of meetings via phone or in person
- Working on multiple projects with people from diverse backgrounds
- Could be preparing a budget, meeting agenda/minutes, working on timelines, negotiating contracts
- Constant problem-solving as issues come up
- Relationships with others critical, need to practice emotional intelligence
- Can be unpredictable (e.g., unexpected personnel turnover)
Differences
- FNIH projects allow more scientific engagement
- FNIH has less focus on strict timelines
- FNIH has less structure overall
- Organize a lot of offsite meetings and do some event planning at FNIH
- Emergent had more professional development opportunities
- Emergent was faster pace but less intense workload
WHERE MY EXPERIENCE FITS IN TO THE BIG PICTURE
