strong climate and impact investment org concept with mission-driven talent, then they took away the mission - Anonymous employee Elemental Impact Employee Review

Paid internship/fellowship that I would recommend to any student! While the program is mostly undergraduates, I still found it incredibly valuable as a graduate student and had an amazing experience with my placement organization (which extended my internship beyond the summer and offered me a contract position a year later!).

A lot depends on your placement, but I did not hear any negative experiences from my cohort of 15

*Work with some really smart, multifaceted, and compassionate people who care deeply about equity and climate issues. *Broad exposure to promising companies and dedicated leaders in the climate-tech ecosystem. They made some early bets on companies that are now doing impactful, exciting work. *There are few small, well-capitalized nonprofits working at the convergence of philanthropy and venture capital. Elemental pays you to look at complex problems from multiple lenses -- financial returns, diversity, impact, etc. -- in a way many other organizations don't. *Remote *Hobnob at swanky events with a small subset of billionaires whose souls haven't fully left their bodies. *Fairly good compensation, especially for a nonprofit.

*Toxic workaholism abounds here. There is the stereotypical Silicon Valley, cult-like worship of work, especially at the top. Many people have left or been fired, simply because they do not want to be on their laptop for 14 hours a day during the summer, or leave their dinner plans at 8:30pm for a last-minute request. The turnover is the worst I have seen at any organization. *Elemental is highly marketing and brand-oriented. A lot of organizational effort was spent on cultivating an image, often one imbued with elements of compassion, equity, etc. which--at times--seemed discordant with the workaholic culture. *An often overly-optimistic, say-yes-to-everything, approach to working. So many last-minute events with stressed organizers. *Very hierarchical and at times micro-managerial for such a small organization. Unhealthy and unhelpful perfectionism at times cascaded down into the smallest projects, eating up time to do more impactful work. *Complete about-face on diversity, equity, and inclusion on public-facing materials. I believe nearly everyone working at Elemental cares about these issues, and I understand that to not be targeted by the orange man, language must be scrubbed. But looking back at all the talk and bluster around these issues, it feels a bit flimsy and inauthentic to see it gone. *Too.much.networking. To sum it all up: Elemental projects a lot of admirable values and tells many nice stories, but at the end of the day it's a lot of overworked people betting rich peoples' money on companies that might one day help decarbonize the economy. Why their employees have to twist themselves into knots doing this, I am not sure.