People often tell me that those who work for nonprofits should work for less because of the psychic benefits of being able to make a difference. The notion is a red herring. And that’s putting it kindly.

Do these people really believe that no one makes a difference in the for-profit sector? What about the people at drug companies working on cures for diseases or the people distributing the cell phones that are revolutionizing Africa? Not to mention the less sexy industries that make it possible for us to heat our homes and power our lives.

Many people in the nonprofit sector work behind the scenes in cubicles, they sit in interminable departmental meetings—just like employees everywhere. They’re far removed from the psychic benefits that are supposed to substitute for half of their paycheck.

In 2003, BusinessWeek surveyed the compensation packages of MBAs 10 years out of business school. The median compensation package with bonus was $400,000. By contrast, the average 2004 salary of the chief executive of a hunger charity was $84,000. There’s no way you’re going to get people with a $400,000 salary to take a $316,000 pay cut on the basis of the psychic benefits that await them.

In the past, I’ve written about giving myself permission to refuse work-related requests. Since then, as a part-time teacher and freelance editor and writer, I’ve improved my process for deciding whether yes or no is the right answer for a new assignment. Here’s what I’ve learned to do:

1. Interview the offer, not just the person making it. Few people accept an opportunity without first asking the person who’s offering it what she expects in terms of time commitment, deadlines and other fundamentals. What matters just as much, though, is having a personal dialogue with the project itself. That means imagining yourself doing the work day in and day out. Does the idea of dealing with the assignment’s many moving parts make you dizzy, or, on the flip side, does the project seem like a prescription for procrastination? Look the offer in the eye and ask, “Do I really like you?”

2. Identify the stakeholders’ stakes. You need to know which people have an investment in the results and whom you’ll be dealing with day to day. The tendency, however, is to assume that once you identify the key people, everything else about them will be clear. That’s often not so. What stakeholders want out of a project sometimes doesn’t match, or even complement, the official roles they play. Indeed, that might be why someone new—you—is being asked to step in. This is relevant to how you do your work and may affect your decision about whether to do it at all.

First of 2 parts

IN less than two weeks, envoys from 192 countries will reunite in Barcelona to negotiate on the substantive agenda for a new deal that must save the world from catastrophic climate change.   Earlier this month in Bangkok, negotiators strived to streamline the negotiating text that would provide the basis of that historic deal in Copenhagen, and thus moved the process forward.