My friend and colleague Johanna Bates recently wrote a great post for the NTEN blog previewing the upcoming breakout session that she, I, Tracy Kronzak and Jessie Lee will be giving at the 2017 Nonprofit Technology Conference: Let’s Talk Accidental & Intentional Nonprofit Tech Careers. The recent planning phone call we had for that session made me think back to my own winding career into nonprofit technology, which I thought might be fun to document and share. Buckle up, things are about to get a little crazy here.
I began working full time when I was 19 and haven’t stopped since. Now, several decades years later, I frequently have younger folks ask me how I got into my current position and involved with nonprofit technology? As with so many other people who do this sort of work, it wasn’t a straight path. I typically tell the story of my career path in a very abbreviated fashion because it’s a long story to tell in person. It’s kind of too long for print narrative too, so here are the highlights in timeline mode:
- 1989: graduated from high school with full scholarship to Geneva College, declared music business management major
- 1989: quit Geneva College after 2 weeks, much to my parents’ chagrin
- 1990: spent spring semester at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, declared English major
- 1990: spent fall semester at University of Georgia – Athens, declared art history major
- 1991: ran out of money for college, stayed in Georgia for a year, worked at Subway, Claire’s Boutiques, Long John Silver’s
- 1991: moved back to Pennsylvania, decided to work for a while until I figured out what to do with my life
- 1992 – 1994: worked a series of jobs, including more Long John Silver’s, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Giant Eagle deli, a local party supply store
- 1994: finally landed a desk job as a secretary for a window cleaning and janitorial company, decided to go back to college in the evenings at Westmoreland County Community College for nursing
- 1994: took Intro to Computers in first semester at WCCC (required course) and got the easiest A ever
- 1995: took a hardware repair course to see if the A in Intro to Computers was a fluke, got another easy A, changed major to computer programming
- 1996: took position at local outbound telecom firm, continued attending classes in the evenings at WCCC
- 1997: survived first corporate layoff, but got spooked and quit of my own accord only to get downsized 2 months into a new job as an office manager at a local plant
- 1997: collected unemployment happily like I was on a paid vacation, started job hunting in the final month of unemployment comp
- 1997: with 2 weeks of unemployment left, accepted part-time job offer at an environmental nonprofit as an administrative assistant
- 1998: continued school in evenings, continued working at nonprofit (full-time), started informally taking on technology duties such as website, database, networking, hardware, software, etc.
- 1999: started first web design small business called AngelPages, taking on only word of mouth clients
- 1999: got promoted to office/IT administrator
- 2000: graduated with associates in computer programming, having racked up enough credits to have 2 bachelors degrees because scheduling was so difficult and had to take sufficient credits to keep up financial aid and student loans each semester
- 2000: began attending Seton Hill University, majoring in computer science
- 2002: promoted to IT administrator as a full-time position
- 2004: graduated with bachelors in computer science, began MBA program at Seton Hill that fall, experienced first layoff to part-time at nonprofit due to funding cuts
- 2005: went back to full time at nonprofit, which lasted about 6 months until funding was cut again, putting me back to part time
- 2005: got married, renamed web design business to Leonard Technology Consulting since I finally had a last name that’s shorter and easy to spell (maiden name was Daugherty), continued with only word of mouth clients
- 2006: received masters in business administration from Seton Hill, began working at the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management as technology services analyst, began funneling all nonprofit web design work through BCNM and funneling word of mouth small business web clients through LTC
- 2008: got promoted to technology services manager, finally got my own office, began masters of education program in instructional design technology at Seton Hill
- 2009-2012: continued working at BCNM, continued degree program at SHU, got promoted to senior manager, technology program
- 2012: received masters of education from Seton Hill, continued working at BCNM
- 2013-2014: swore off going back to college ever again, got promoted to consulting team leader at BCNM, continued to manage technology program for nonprofits while taking on administration duties for consulting program
- 2015: rebranded web design company to Leonard Digital so it more accurately reflects actual work done
- 2016: signed up for classes in RMU’s Information Security & Cyber Forensics degree, despite my swearing off college a few years back. This was free tuition because I was an employee of RMU and, quite frankly, it allowed me to dodge student loan payments for a few more years.
- 2016-2018: continued working at BCNM, still as consulting team leader
- 2018: Left BCNM to take the position of Executive Director at the YWCA Westmoreland County.
- 2020-present: Left the YWCA to start my own consulting practice for nonprofit capacity building, rebranding as Cindy Leonard Consulting LLC.
When I graduated from high school, did I have a clue that I’d be working as a nonprofit technology capacity builder by the time I was in my late 30s? Oh heck, no. My big dream in high school was to either become a vocalist in a rock band or to manage rock bands. (I wanted to be Bono when I grew up, or depending on the day, Paul McGuiness, U2’s manager.) Technology wasn’t on my radar then because, back in the 80s, tech was still considered a hobby for socially awkward geeks.
I hope this crazy career timeline is useful to any 20 and 30 somethings reading this. I know the Millennial generation takes a lot of flack for being unfocused and jumping from job to job. I’m Gen X, and look at how many places I worked and went to school during my 20s and 30s until I found my footing. My advice is, ignore the flack, keep producing good work no matter what you are doing, keep your eyes out for opportunities to come from unexpected places and jump on them when they happen.
