Sure, several times. I've mostly done ops for the nonprofit sector so it's a little easier (I'm in avtech right now for rea$on$, but most of my career has been

Sure, several times. I've mostly done ops for the nonprofit sector so it's a little easier (I'm in avtech right now for rea$on$, but most of my career has been nonprofit). Now, I live in DC so this is a lot easier for me than for people who live in other cities. But K Street and Old Town are chock full of Societies for the Advancement of Whatever, who always need technical work done, and there's rarely a problem finding a "Whatever" that you believe in (or just think is cool). A few thoughts on this: 1. The "cool" factor should not be underestimated. One of my favorite jobs was sysadmining at Mount Vernon; it's not that I particularly believe in George Washington, but that is a mission that is undeniably "cool". 2. You will not make remotely as much money as you will in the for-profit sector (see above), but you'll have a much better quality of life. I spent years as a sysadmin without a pager, because they really don't care if the server goes down overnight. You will also (in my experience) have a much freer hand with what you do than you do in a tech company. If their brief is lobbying for human rights, they neither know nor care what stack you use to implement their intranet. 3. Org work has a very specific annual rhythm that you need to understand to work with. Every year there's a conference, a publication of some sort, and a membership drive; each of those is an "all-hands-on-deck" situation that lasts about a fiscal quarter (and you probably will be stuffing envelopes and manning a booth and checking people in). That leaves you one quarter per year for infrastructure work. Use it wisely.