By
KEMBA J. DUNHAM
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
As
a business administrator for Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, Sam
Huey handles economic affairs for the 5,000-plus member institution
located in the heart of Silicon Valley. The 48-year-old church
official finds the work extremely satisfying even though he earns
just a little over $80,000 -- about one-third of what he made
last year working in the Internet industry.
Money
is just one way that Mr. Huey's new life starkly contrasts from
his days as a high-powered vice president of Lycos Inc., a major
Internet portal. There, Mr. Huey raked in $250,000 a year and
became a millionaire through stock-option exercises. While his
career was going well, he says felt ready for a personal shift.
So in September 1999, the wealthy executive quit so he could dedicate
his energies to what he felt was a more gratifying cause: his
Christian faith. "I felt that after my success at Lycos, it was
time to redeploy myself and serve the church community by bringing
my business and leadership skills to work here," he says.
Today,
scores of managers and professionals are fleeing their jobs in
the for-profit dot-com economy for more personally rewarding --
but usually less financially remunerative -- spots in the nonprofit
world. The lucky ones feel they have made enough money. Others
simply walk away from worthless stock options that may never pay
off.
With
the apparent end of the Internet gold rush, "nonprofit organizations
will definitely benefit," predicts Gary Kaplan, president of Gary
Kaplan & Associates, a Pasadena, Calif., search firm that
specializes in recruiting entertainment, higher-education, nonprofit
and consumer-products executives. During the past year, he has
seen a growing number of dot-com managers join nonprofits and
expects more such defections in the near future.
Many
nonprofit organizations -- a growing number of which are online
themselves -- offer Internet executives competitive salaries and
technology-oriented tasks as well as the thrill of community service.
And the work environments aren't as different as they might seem:
both "are driven by passionate people," observes Claire Taylor,
director of executive-search services for the Management Center,
a San Francisco organization that helps nonprofits better manage
themselves through consulting and leadership identification.
In
some cases, dot-commers' Internet experience is being put to good
use immediately. John Sateja, 48, recently left Manufacturing.Net
LLC, a content site for industrial products based in King of Prussia,
Pa., to become a vice president and general manager of Consumer
Reports Online, the Internet arm of Consumer Reports magazine.
The nonprofit venture, which doesn't accept advertising, depends
solely on subscriptions for revenue. Its daily struggle for survival
reminds Mr. Sateja of the 18 months he spent building an Internet
start-up. "The challenges are the same," he says. He now makes
about 20% less than the $200,000-plus a year he earned at Manufacturing.Net
(www.manufacturing.net).
Some
nonprofits, both online and offline, say the upheaval in the New
Economy represents a recruitment opportunity. Kendall Webb,
a 36-year-old former official of More.com (www.more.com), a health-and-fitness
Web site, expected it would be tough to find employees this year
for her new nonprofit venture, JustGive.org,
a San Francisco-based group that offers online listings of charities.
But after last April's market correction, it got easier to recruit
fellow Internet refugees because she "no longer had to compete
with stock options," she says.
Four
of JustGive.org's
seven staffers used to work for dot-coms. Though Ms. Webb
doesn't offer options, she tries to keep workers satisfied in
other ways -- such as free parking and birthdays off. Her team
members, who work in a sunny 80-year-old dance studio with a big
bay window, volunteer at a different community nonprofit organization
every Wednesday. They have also " adopted" a local grammar school
where each Justgive.org (www.justgive.org)
employee mentors a student.
For
many former dot-commers, such community-oriented tasks offer a
respite from the constant focus on stock prices and profitability
they experienced at other Internet startups. A desire for a more
meaningful job propelled public-relations executive Jason Willett
to quit Petstore.com Inc. last January -- and abandon 15,000 unvested
stock options -- after just one day on the job. He says he had
heard tales of dot-coms with "no path to profitability" and questioned
the Petstore.com model. Though Petstore.com was riding a wave
of e-commerce enthusiasm at the time, it later sold its assets
to Pets.com Inc.; Pets.com is now in the process of shutting down.
Mr.
Willett, who is 31, soon got hired as director of communications
for VolunteerMatch.org, a San Francisco organization that helps
other nonprofits locate volunteers online. He made the quick career
switch after realizing he didn't want to "sacrifice" years of
his life "for the sake of maybe making a bunch of money," he explains.
Plus, he says, he couldn't miss something he'd never had: "I didn't
know anything about 'vesting' anyway."
The
career change isn't always a painless decision, however. Long
devoted to religion, Mr. Huey at Menlo Park and his wife Leslie
debated and prayed about the idea for nearly two years. He worried
that a church job would require "changing our perceived status''
in money-obsessed Silicon Valley, where living a more modest life
isn't necessarily applauded. While he and his family still live
in wealthy Palo Alto, they moved to a smaller house. Certain business
colleagues thought his career switch "was a bold and unusual move
for someone at the top of his game in the middle of his career,"
Mr. Huey recalls. Nevertheless, the ex-Lycos executive believes
taking the church job was the right thing to do. "It's easy to
overdose on the exhilaration of the [Internet] industry,'' Mr.
Huey says.
For
others, the solution has been to merge their passion for charity
with the excitement of the dot-com world. Thirty-year-old Colleen
Patrick was a content editor for Web.com, a San Francisco-area
domain-name registry, when she started "Pass It On,''
a newsletter that tries to motivate others to make a difference
in the world.
She
soon found herself spending 40 hours a week on her pet project
-- and growing less interested in her full-time job. Last summer,
Ms. Patrick heard about a senior editorial director's position
at JustGive.org, the
San Francisco-based online charity-listings group. She was ecstatic
that her philanthropic urges could turn into a paid position in
a Web environment. "I get to give back all the time now." She
says her current salary is comparable to what she made at Web.com
(www.web.com), but declines to be more specific.
In
her spare time, Ms. Patrick still produces her monthly
newsletter, which now has 100 subscribers. She tries to inspire
friends unhappily employed at for-profit dot-coms to find their
true calling. But "it's frightening and scary to leave security
and go for passion," she concedes. "Possible. But scary."
That's
partly why not every nonprofit jumps at the chance to hire restless
Internet types. Jay Backstrand, chief executive of ImpactOnline
Inc., which owns VolunteerMatch.org (www.volunteermatch.org),
scrutinizes candidates carefully to ensure they're willing to
work hard and will fit in well at VolunteerMatch.org. "I don't
want those people who are like, 'I'm burned out, my options are
underwater. Now I want to try the nonprofit sector,'" says the
32-year-old Mr. Backstrand. "I want to hire people who truly believe
in what we're doing."
Write
to Kemba J. Dunham at kemba.dunham@wsj.com
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