A bit of idealism about a postindustrial workforce:
With the lack of jobs in conventional fields like manufacturing and agriculture, globalization and computerization have drawn us further into two polarized spaces: the paper-pushers of the world and the burger-flippers of the world – no, of America, really – that’s what I want to talk about – there should be a huge untapped labor market for nonprofit work – okay that’s a bad way to put it – let’s say there should be a huge supply of moderately skilled labor for the industry of charity.
Fatal flaw in this argument? The charitable industries need to pay the workers – so what we need is cheap labor, right? – even better would be more consolidation – for example, a nationally centralized Humane Society would have a greater reach, a singular message, etc.
Would that better marketing/messaging/storytelling help get them the funding they would need to hire more workers, etc.?
Lots of economic catches here, but what I want to throw up against the wall is the ideal of a huge number of workers with the skills to advertise/market/support/publish/write etc. for nonprofits.
So how do you make the story of saving the world a good enough narrative to get people to work for you for less pay than they might get holding out for a job in technology or conventional advertising?
How do you make college grads say “I want to work for Doctors Without Borders” when their first instinct is “I want to work for Microsoft.”