My experience with this organization was exceptionally extractive and exploitative. I interviewed for a Chief of Staff role with the new CEO. Importantly, the CEO is not from the target community this organization claims to be serving - and I am.  My initial interview was short - inquiring about my project management style, experience managing government funding, social enterprise exposure etc. and I asked several questions about what the CEO was seeking in a thought partner, what the organization's current vulnerabilities are, etc.  I was then asked to complete an unpaid hiring assignment before coming in-person to meet with the executive team. The assignment was 6 pages - representing hours and hours of work. As an MBA from a top m7 school and professional with 15 years of experience, and as a member of a historically excluded and marginalized group, I typically do not complete such assignment as they constitute free expert consulting, which is exploitative. However, the project was for an idea I was deeply passionate about - a commercial kitchen to help immigrant women in the Bronx, where I am also born and raised. Against my better judgement, I completed the assignment, which took several hours of unpaid labor and gave a thorough MBA level evaluation and analysis that included competitive landscape analysis, pricing model, scenario planning for different utilization levels to understand breakeven, and tracker templates that would show progress on activities and decision-making.  I then met with the executive team in person. I walked through my approach to the evaluation and analysis and answered questions about my management styles, how I build culture, and the sorts of programs I have managed in the past - my answer notable included building programming for immigrant youth who often serve as the bilingual proxies and translators for their families, which was based on my personal experience. BAsed on our conversation, I followed up with a thoughtful thank you note that included links to the frameworks and projects I had mentioned during our discussion. A week later, I received a note from the CEO that they had chosen to go in a different direction.  I respectfully sent a note explaining that in the interest of being an advocate for my own community, I needed to share feedback that I would highly recommend for future processes that the organization consider compensating candidates for assignments, as many organizations now do for a flat rate. Particularly for groups that are already historically underpaid and underrepresented (the same population the organization is claiming to serve) asking us for multiple page deliverables, free of charge, for real projects could be considered extractive and exploitative. Requesting relevant past work samples or providing appropriate compensation for professional work is far more ethical.  I am cautioning funders, partners, professionals to beware and proceed with caution. This organizations does not possess a baseline of cultural competence or integrity to be working in the communities it claims to serve when this is how it treats members of that very same community in their talent pool and hiring process. It reflects poorly that there are no members of this very community on the executive leadership team that is making decisions on our behalf. Nothing about us without us!