Months after sweeping cuts to the federal workforce, some former government employees are starting their own businesses. With the help of a new nonprofit in the D.C. area many of these laid off federal workers are taking the skills they learned in government and applying it to the private sector.
Kyle Dietrich founded the Grounded Idealist in the wake of losing his job at the U.S. Agency for International Development earlier this year. He took his decades of experience in humanitarian assistance and gathered business coaches from all walks of life help other former federal workers get back on their feet.
“I think we realized really early on that there aren’t jobs, and that if we care deeply about the work that we’ve dedicated our lives to, we have to create space for people to create jobs,” Dietrich told WTOP.
Around 3,000 coaches have already signed up with the nonprofit, their experiences range from ambassadors, CEOs, judges, NASA aerospace engineers and even park rangers. Dietrich described the coaching from these individuals as a “transformative resource for people” who are having rethink their careers and “reinvent themselves.”
The Grounded Idealist also runs a three-month cohort-based program called the Public Values Greenhouse which is, “designed to turn social impact ideas into action,” according to its website.
One of the former federal workers who participated in the Public Value Greenhouse was Sujata Bijou who worked in international health for 20 years and now focuses on youth mental health in her own backyard.
Bijou came to the Public Value Greenhouse with a list full of problems she wanted to solve and over the 12-week process narrowed it down and created the Sweet Tea and Chai Society, which aims to fight the loneliness epidemic, particularly with teenagers.
She organizes events aimed at getting teenagers off their phones in order to form in person connections.
Bijou decided to focus on this particular issue after a string of teen suicide deaths in her small town in North Carolina.
“I’m going to be documenting, documenting, documenting and hoping to form some kind of tool kit that will help replicate in other communities,” Bijou told WTOP.
Another former federal worker, Kathleen Borgueta founded Pivoting Parents shortly after she was fired from USAID where she focused on maternal and child health. She was laid off 11-weeks after giving birth to her first child.
“I just wasn’t ready to sort of tackle finding a new career the way many of my colleagues were doing,” she told WTOP. “I decided to build this grassroots community and network and civic initiative to help parents like me, caregivers like me, navigate job loss and career disruption.”
Pivoting Parents has grown to 1,400 followers in the eight months since its founding, spanning 12 states.
“Both being a parent in some ways, and being unemployed can be really isolating, so we’re working to create that community provide accountability and belonging, not just for workers or for parents, but really looking at them holistically,” Borgueta said.
They do a variety of in person, hybrid and virtual events that are always kid friendly. Her big push now, is to launch a collaborative child care program for parents so that they can focus on their job search and getting back into the job market.
Borgueta was recently named D.C.’s Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year by Technical.ly.
“None of the things that have happened this year have been expected, but the way that we’ve met this challenge is something that I think I can be really proud of,” she told WTOP.
Staff at Grounded Idealist said many government employees may be happy with the pivot to either business or nonprofit ventures because now they are not subject to the winds of political change.
“We don’t have to function in this kind of heavy bureaucracy where things move slowly,” said Alex Manning, Grounded Idealist’s Director of Strategy and Development. “It feels so refreshing to get to act and not have to wait for 1,000 approvals and just get to do something really meaningful for people.”
Much like the people they are coaching, the Grounded Idealist is still finding its way. Dietrich said the group did not exist until he and other staff were laid off in late January and early February.
“We’re looking for partnerships, corporate partnerships, foundations, because we see there’s a huge amount of room for social innovation right now and reform,” Dietrich said.
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