Let’s start with the elephant in the room... 🐘

Because of cruel government cuts in the U.S., there are more impact-focused job seekers on the market and fewer impact-focused jobs than ever before. 

The global development field is shifting dramatically and quite frankly, we don’t know what this work will look like going forward.

[GIF: Debbie Downer]

You probably know all of this already.

So given this backdrop, I want to share a different way to think about your career if a more traditional full-time role isn’t the right fit for you.

This might also be a helpful reframe if you’re feeling depleted by job searching or if you’re not ready to commit to your next full-time role yet. 

So what is a portfolio career? Some have described it as having multiple income sources rather than one full-time gig, others have emphasized the variety of what you do across your career. I'll be addressing the former - essentially contracting with multiple projects or organizations vs. focusing on one full-time job.

I'm using the rose/thorn/bud framework to share these insights, inspired by a catch-up with Lisa Blonder (formerly USAID):

 Roses:

⁃ You're your own boss

⁃ You get to choose who you work with (though this can be hard when you're starting out and may not in a position to say no to clients)

⁃ Know that every cent coming through the door is money you earned 😎

⁃ Variety! As someone with ADHD, I’ve noticed my biggest energetic dips come when I’m only doing one thing that’s super familiar for multiple years.

Thorns:

⁃ Health insurance - paying for it yourself and the uncertainty of what may happen to the state exchanges (especially an issue in the US)

⁃ Watch out for feelings of desperation where you may feel inclined to ignore red flags about lack of values alignment, lower pay than you are worth, sacrificing flexibility, or working on projects that don’t fit with the direction you want to go in

- Storytelling - You contain multitudes and your career finally reflects this, but be sure to practice telling the story of the throughlines in your portfolio work

Buds

⁃ Treat every person you meet as a seed planted. At times when you’re in a secure position, remember to continue watering and caring for those seeds. Relationships are an always-on activity.

⁃ A mixed bag, but ultimately something I see as positive is that building a business (if that’s your entry point into a portfolio career) is likely to kick up all the inner stuff like perfectionism, self-doubt, uncertainty, people pleasing....the list goes on. But that means it's also an opportunity to work through that stuff. To quote my friend Jelena of The Confetti Project, "your first hire as a business owner should be a therapist."

In solidarity,

Julia