If you are new to the Bay Area, or new to nonprofit work in general, you may want to consider some of the following while you think about looking for nonprofit work. The nonprofit sector in the Bay Area is extremely competitive. Maybe you came to, or stay in, the Bay Area because it is diverse, tolerant of differences, and has a long history of being a hotbed of social change. This makes going to parties interesting - you can usually find people who share your altruistic interests. You may be disappointed to learn that those same people are looking for a nonprofit job, too.
Nonprofit jobs can be insecure, especially in the Bay Area.
The state and local political climate allows for public involvement in policy making through a very active ballot initiative process. In terms of nonprofit work, this means that a program that was well-funded last year because it was the public's trendy concern can lose funding the following year when priorities change. Sometimes people are attracted to nonprofit work because they envision flat organizational structures in which people hold hands and sing songs, where the work is always meaningful and free of office politics. For most nonprofits, this is simply untrue. Nonprofits can be as hierarchical as corporations.