Working in Philanthropy, Then Finding Himself in Need

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Kenneth Dillard Jr. remembers the day he committed to improving the lives of others instead of his own.

Just before Mr. Dillard left his position as an accountant at the firm Coopers & Lybrand in 1979, the head of human resources took him to the Rainbow Room in Manhattan to woo him to stay at the company over a steak dinner. His mind, however, had already been made up.

“I don’t need to make a million bucks,” Mr. Dillard said this fall, recalling his thinking at that time. “I just want to be comfortable. If there’s excess, I want to share it.”

For much of his life, Mr. Dillard, 68, worked for nonprofit organizations, hoping to help others. But over the past nine years, Mr. Dillard himself has been in need of assistance. He has struggled to find work and was priced out of his apartment in Manhattan, leaving him homeless for nearly three years.

Mr. Dillard was hired at his first nonprofit at age 19. While living at home in the Bronx and attending Staten Island Community College, he applied for a job at Operation Crossroads Africa, a nongovernmental organization that builds connections between North America and Africa. As a part-time employee there, Mr. Dillard learned bookkeeping and found a mentor.

Following his mentor’s advice, he began to take his education seriously and in 1975 earned a bachelor’s degree in business science from Baruch College, part of the City University of New York.

“He was someone who I regarded highly,” Mr. Dillard said. “When he would talk to me about things like that I would listen.”

After college, Mr. Dillard worked as an auditor at Coopers & Lybrand for about three years, gaining the experience required to be a licensed certified public accountant. While at the firm, he realized that his career interests lay in the nonprofit sector and soon found work as an auditor at the IP Foundation, the philanthropic arm of International Paper that provides grants to nonprofit organizations.

In the early 1980s, Mr. Dillard returned to Operation Crossroads Africa as its director of finance. Although Mr. Dillard said he had found being employed by that organization rewarding and enjoyed traveling for work to West African nations like Nigeria, his tenure there was lasted less time than he would have liked because of a management shake-up a few years after his arrival.

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After Mr. Dillard left the organization for a second time he struggled to find steady work. In 1990, Mr. Dillard began the first of several part-time accounting jobs at the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, a nonprofit organization. By 1995, he found steady, but part-time consulting work for the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts through a temp agency. He came close to finding a full-time job in 2001, but the offer was rescinded two days after the collapse of the twin towers.

“They didn’t need me or they had other issues that they needed to tend to,” Mr. Dillard said. “And then that was pretty much around that time there were no jobs being offered.”

After this rejection, Mr. Dillard continued to search fruitlessly for a full-time job. Although he was unable to secure one, he occasionally found work through a temp agency as a consultant or bookkeeper, including at Food Bank NYC and the United Nations Development Programme.

The income he earned was not enough to cover the rising rent on his Manhattan apartment. In 2008, no longer able to afford the rent, he became homeless.

He spent nearly three years sleeping at his sister’s apartment in Brownsville, Brooklyn, as well as at city shelters, before being placed in supportive housing at Hunterfly Trace in Brownsville. Mr. Dillard stayed there for seven years. During that time, because of his age, he began to consider himself retired but continued to pursue short-term employment opportunities.

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Nine months ago, after winning a city housing lottery, Mr. Dillard moved into a one-bedroom apartment at the Bishop Mugavero Senior Apartments, a low-income housing residence in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. It is run by Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

Mr. Dillard, who receives monthly assistance totaling $1,356, which includes Social Security Income and food stamps, could not afford to furnish his new space. In April, the organization used $630 from the fund to buy him a couch and a sofa bed.

“I’ve never had a bed this big,” he said.

Mr. Dillard said he was starting to feel at home in his new neighborhood and seeking volunteer work at the food pantries he frequents. Although he previously focused on looking for jobs in the nonprofit industry, he has expanded his search to the private sector.

Mr. Dillard said he was inspired to persevere by his hero, Senator John McCain of Arizona, a former prisoner of war who, at age 81, is battling cancer while continuing to serve his country.

“He’s still working. And I shouldn’t be?” Mr. Dillard said. “No.”