One of my new favorite sites is Mixergy.com. It’s kind of like One Day, One Internship for entrepreneurs. Nearly every day, Andrew Warner, the founder, does a video chat/interview with an entrepreneur. It’s a fantastic educational tool for aspiring entrepreneurs, and it’s also a pretty decent job search resource. One of the interviews that I watched recently was with Alex Algard, the founder of White Pages. He tells the story of how he started the Seattle, WA based company as a student with an initial $1,100 investment. White Pages is now a $57 million per year business. What do they do? They help people find people online. How have they made it so profitable? They’ve worked with the right advertisers from the start.
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I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it or not, but I’ve spent the last week in Florida. It’s been a partial vacation, but I’ve spent most of the time working (since it’s been cold and rainy here). One thing that I’ve noticed down here besides the terrible weather and bad driving is that immigration is still a major issue. With Florida’s proximity to Cuba and Haiti, the state runs into a lot of immigration issues. It may be refugees arriving by boat or raft, or it could be immigrants flocking to the state to work in agriculture. Whoever they are and wherever they’re from, they are eligible for support from Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, a non-profit “legal assistance organization dedicated to protecting and promoting the basic human rights of immigrants.” The organization is based in Miami, and they’ve been around since 1996.
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It may seem counterintuitive, but people who live in cities are typically much more active than their rural and suburban counterparts—at least when it comes to transportation. I always associate activities like walking and bike riding with open space and the great outdoors, but urban centers are actually much more inviting for self powered transportation. Here’s an example: my parents live 1.2 miles from a great restaurant, yet we’d never walk there—it’s too dangerous. There are no sidewalks, and the cars on the road usually drive well over the 30 MPH speed limit. However, in Chicago, where I live, I’d easily walk 1.2 miles to go out to dinner. There are sidewalks, crosswalks, and plenty of streetlights to keep me safe. With that said, there are quite a few ways that Chicago can improve the city for active transportation, and that’s why the non-profit organization Active Transportation Alliance exists.
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I guess it makes sense that people are more giving during the holidays. When you’re filling up on delicious food and getting lots of gifts, you can’t help but want to spread around the good fortune. Unfortunately for many food banks that spirit of giving isn’t distributed evenly throughout the year, while hunger is. Food banks and soup kitchens need food and volunteers year round, and sometimes they even have employment opportunities. One of those organizations that does is Food Bank for New York City. Their mission is to “end hunger by organizing food, information and support for community survival and dignity” throughout New York City’s five borough. While you’re still in that Thanksgiving mindset, you should take a look at Food Bank for New York City and see if you can add a helping hand as an intern.
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Happy Halloween! Yesterday we took a look at Mars and talked about Halloween candy, but today we’re going to take a different tack. Since we’re told from an early age that candy will rot our teeth, I figure that Halloween is the perfect time to discuss a dental non-profit. It’s also appropriate because many people would consider the dentist to be way scarier than even the most deranged Halloween costume. After a little searching, I came across Children’s Dental Health Project. They’re a relatively small Washington, DC based non-profit organization that “advances policies that improve children’s access to oral health.” Now, this definitely does not mean that I think that anyone should give out toothbrushes for Halloween, but make sure you brush after eating all that candy.
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Some of the most fun that I had during college was playing in a charity dodgeball tournament. My team was doing really well until we ran into a team of future NHL players, pitchers from the baseball team, and some former softball players (they threw underhand, and they threw hard) in the semifinals. That match was pretty ugly, but even when you lose at dodgeball, you have fun. We’ve seen dodgeball gaining more and more popularity, and with that trend we’ve seen more and more non-profits using dodgeball to raise funds. Best Shot Foundation is a Washington, DC based non-profit that is doing just this. They’re an organization that is focused on bringing attention to the fact “that pneumonia kills more young children than any other disease,” and then doing something about it.
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I’ve heard a lot of people complain about the plight of “Generation Y” and the bad rap that “we” get, but I think most of it is bunk. Complaining isn’t going to get “us” anywhere. Working hard and taking action will. There’s one exception though, and that’s with the political process where complaining is the preferred way of taking action. Right now we live in an era where older people have mortgaged our country’s future for their own benefit. Yes, they have literally amassed huge amounts of debt to pay for all of things that they want. We live in a Democracy, and there are more of them than us, so they get what they want. And when the bill arrives, they’ll have left the table—to put it nicely. This is a real generational issue, unlike the generational issues that “Gen-Y experts” are constantly talking about. Young People First is a Washington, DC based non-profit startup that is attacking this issue with fervor. They’re sick of “how much lip service was being paid to young voters, yet how little real inclusion in the political process they were offered,” and so am I.
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When it comes down to it, most of the problems in our world have some sort of economic root. Unfortunately, people rarely see economics as the solution. One non-profit organization that is an exception is Washington, DC based Green America (formerly Co-op America). Their “mission is to harness economic power—the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.” I like their approach. They’re not trying to force their ideals on people by regulation or intellectual intimidation. Instead, they’re working towards a building a powerful new economy that not only holds to their ideals, but also works efficiently. They may still be imposing their ideas, but they’re doing it purely with economic power.
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I love our oceans—everything about them. I love swimming in them, eating the food that they provide, fishing in them, watching sunsets over them, and all of the other wonderful things that they offer. However, our oceans are both blessed and cursed by the same thing—they seem infinite. That’s what makes them so great, but it’s also what has led us to abusing them nearly to the point of no return. A little pollution will disappear in the vastness of an ocean. Overfishing doesn’t matter because there are always more fish. Scraping up the bottom isn’t a big deal because we can’t see the bottom. I wish that oceans were that resilient, but they’re not. Oceana is a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that “seeks to make our oceans as rich, healthy and abundant as they were in our grandparents’ youth.” They recognize the value of their oceans, and they’re doing something to protect them.
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We all need someone to call us out when we step over the line. Maybe it’s a parent, sibling, significant other, teacher, friend, or random guy on the street. For corporations it’s Corporate Accountability International, although I’m not sure there’s a lot of love going between the two parties. I don’t know when corporations became such a bad thing, and to be honest I still think that corporations do a lot more good than bad, but a great part of living in such a free society is that there’s always someone out there looking to hold you accountable. Boston based Corporate Accountability International demands “direct corporate accountability to public interests.” That means that when a corporation puts the food that we eat, the water that we drink, or the air that we breathe at risk, Corporate Accountability International will be causing a stir about it.
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Have you ever realized that you were being marketed to? I don’t mean watching tv and seeing an ad that makes you want to buy something. I mean getting a creepy feeling like somebody is watching you, but instead they’re getting inside your head to sell you on something. The beauty of marketing is that you usually don’t realize it’s happening, but when you do, it’s scary. You wouldn’t normally associate this kind of thing with a non-profit, but when I came across The Harmony Institute, I was both intrigued and freaked out. They’re a New York City based organization that uses “cutting-edge scientific research with film, television and new media experiences to help [their] clients deliver narratives that modify behavior and influence change.” Is it just me, or does that sound a little weird?
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I love it when I get great recommendations for companies/organizations to feature from readers (if you have one, let me know at willy@onedayonejob.com). That’s how I found out about Gloucester, MA based Action Inc. I was sent a link to this article about how the non-profit agency will be getting “$8.5 million in federal stimulus money over the next three years to improve energy efficiency in low-income households from Gloucester to Haverhill to Lynn.” The cool thing about the project is that it not only focuses on reducing energy consumption, but it also focuses on helping low-income people save money that they’re literally burning away. Action Inc. is all about economic security, so their work goes well beyond energy efficiency. It also includes Advocay, Youth Outreach, In Home Care, Housing Loans, Job Training, Emergency Shelters, and Toy Drives.
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Three months ago when I featured the American Lung Association’s Jobs, I mentioned a good friend who is battling lung cancer. From what I’ve heard, he continues to be doing well and fighting for his life. Unfortunately, I recently learned that my grandmother is also facing a battle with lung cancer despite the fact that she stopped smoking before I was born. It’s obviously very upsetting for my family, and we’re going to do our best to get her through this. I don’t usually like getting too personal with these posts, but there’s no better way for me to introduce the American Legacy Foundation. They are a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that “is dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit.” I’ve seen what tobacco can do to people, and it absolutely amazes me that anyone chooses to smoke these days, but many do. It may be their right to do what they want with their bodies but I’m glad that the American Legacy Foundation is working hard to push them towards a smarter, healthier decision.
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I know that most of us were taught in school that slavery ended nearly 150 years ago, but, unfortunately, that’s not really true. Slavery and human trafficking continue to plague our world, even though most of us aren’t really aware of it. Polaris Project is a non-profit organization is not only bringing awareness to the issues surrounding human trafficking and modern-day slavery, but also combatting them. They do this by “conducting direct outreach and victim identification, providing social services and transitional housing to victims, operating the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) serving as the central national hotline on human trafficking, advocating for stronger state and Federal anti-trafficking legislation, and engaging community members in local and national grassroots efforts.” They’ve been at it since 2002 with offices in Washington, DC; Newark, NJ; Denver, CO; and Tokyo, Japan.
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Last month I got an e-mail from a One Day, One Job reader named Lindsay Dick who has landed in an Internship Coordinator position. Her extensive internship experience during college has led to a job managing an internship program! It’s funny how that works. The organization that she works for is a Cocoa, FL based non-profit called To Write Love on Her Arms. They’re “dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.” If you don’t know a lot about these issues, check out TWLOHA’s Facts page. It sounds like an amazing organization, and if its internship program is run by one of our readers, it has to be good.
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Last year we took a look at internships with Phantom Fireworks to celebrate the Fourth of July, but this year it’s a weekend, and that means non-profit internships. I decided to play things a little safer, so my first thought was The National Council on Fireworks Safety, but they don’t appear to have any jobs or internships. That led me to the Itasca, IL based National Safety Council, which is also concerned with fireworks safety. Fireworks safety is just one small piece of what the National Safety Council does though, as their mission is to “educate and influence people to prevent accidental injury and death.” And that’s just want we want to do on July 4th.
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safety
There are countless celebrities who support charitable causes. There are many who throw their full support behind a single organization; however, few celebs are as personally invested in their charitable work as Michael J. Fox is. Why is he so invested? Because his life is on the line. He is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, “a degenerative disease of the brain that often impairs motor skills, speech, and other functions.” If you’ve seen Michael J. Fox on tv lately, you’ve seen what Parkinson’s does to the human body. It’s a tragic disease that will hopefully be cured due to the work of the New York City based Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. As an accomplished actor and someone who is living with Parkinson’s, Michael J. Fox is the perfect person to lead the fight against the disease.
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Yesterday I got some bad news. A good friend and one of the best people in the fly fishing community was diagnosed with lung cancer a few months ago. It’s not a pretty picture, but if anyone can beat it, it’s him. Since he’s been on my mind since yesterday, I thought it would only be appropriate to take a look at the American Lung Association today. They’re a nationwide non-profit organization that aims to “save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease.” Whether it’s a lifelong smoker who is facing a life and death situation or a kid who is growing up with asthma (like me), the American Lung Association is there to help – mostly “through research, education and advocacy.”
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Last night I had some friends over for dinner, and we played a question and answers game. My questions for everyone was “if you got arrested, what would it be for.” Think about that for a second. I’m sure most of you never expect to run into trouble with the law, but not all criminals intend to break the law and not all people who are arrested are guilty. Since you’re a college student/new grad with limited financial resources, how would you afford a defense lawyer? Your parents? (If your parents would pay for it, then maybe you should take advantage of that generosity and have them sign you up for our job search prep course.) Or would you end up needing a public defender? That’s not a good thought – “someone you’ve never seen; someone you didn’t choose; someone you have no reason to trust” is responsible for your freedom. That’s why The Bronx Defenders exists. They “have transformed the role of the public defender by changing the nature of the attorney-client relationship, investing in the communities where our clients live, and striving to create justice for the people [they] serve.” It’s still not pleasant to consider a court case, but having better public defense makes it a little less scary.
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Let’s say that I wrote an article about scam internships. And let’s say that the company whose internships I wrote about wasn’t too happy about my exercising my First Amendment rights to expose their scams. I could, theoretically, end up with some legal trouble. That wouldn’t be a very good situation for me, because I don’t have a legal team on retainer. Luckily there’s a non-profit organization called Citizen Media Law Project that provides “legal assistance, education, and resources for individuals and organizations involved in online and citizen media.” If I was ever in a legal situation because of something that I published online, they’re certainly the first place that I would go to for help. I’d check out their Legal Guide and their Legal Threats Database, and try to put together a plan of action for how to respond. I think that the “citizen media” is an extremely important part of our society, and I’m happy to see that the CMLP is there to protect people like me if we ever need it.
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Yesterday we talked about one student-focused non-profit’s internships, and today we’re going to talk about another. Student World Assembly is “a non-governmental, non partisan organization created to represent students globally.” The overarching goal is to promote global democracy by providing “a deliberative assembly where students around the world can exchange views, vote on global issues through online discussion forums and in annual international conventions, and translate these views into meaningful actions.” It certainly sounds like the kind of thing that you’d want to be involved in if you have an interest in International Relations.
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A while back we took a look at internships with Gawker Media, a blog network that recently sold off a few blogs. One of the blogs that they sold off is one of my absolute favorites – The Consumerist, a blog about consumers’ rights. The reason that they sold off the blog wasn’t that it was unpopular, it was that it was nearly impossible to make profitable because of the need to not show impropriety through relationships with advertisers. Luckily for Consumerist fans everywhere, a perfect solution came about with the purchase of The Consumerist by Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports. Although Consumers Union isn’t a typical non-profit, they do an amazing job of providing regular people with the information that they need to make informed purchases.
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Sometimes I can be a dunderhead. When I am behind the wheel of a car, I can get irrationally angry at having to share the road with pedestrians and bikers. And when I’m walking or riding a bike, I can get irrationally angry at having to share the road with cars. I can’t be right on both accounts, so the problem is obviously with me (or maybe with the government for not setting up a better transportation system). When it comes down to it, though, it’s pretty obvious that bikers and pedestrians are second-class citizens to drivers. Cars dominate the roads, and the burden of responsibility falls on those who are biking or walking to stay alert and avoid getting hit by a couple thousand bounds of fast-moving metal. The Thunderhead Alliance for Biking and Walking is a Washington, DC based non-profit advocacy organization that stands up for the rights of bikers and walkers by “strengthening and supporting bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations” across the country. They’re a meta-non-profit. organization – an organization for organizations.
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Nobody likes bugs or rodents. Ok, some people do, but I know some people who absolutely freeze up at the sight – or even thought – of a little critter. At the very least, pests are unpleasant. Nobody wants to live with ants, roaches, mice, rats, or whatever other uninvited guests might be trying to make a stay at your place. That’s why we use pest control. It gets rids of the unpleasantness that is readily apparent, but what are the after effects that we don’t see? It’s hard to know for sure, but much of what we do to get rid of pests includes toxic chemicals. It’s not good for our environment, and it’s not good for our children. That’s why the Safer Pest Control Project is trying to change the way that we deal with those nasty little critters.
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Even if your college or university isn’t giving you the day off from classes, I hope that you remembered that today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It’s an important day to reflect, and it’s becoming even more important as there is a growing movement to make MLK Day a day of national service. They’re calling it “a day on, not a day off,” and I think it would be pretty cool to see employers and schools embrace this movement. It’s the next step in making Dr. King’s dream come true. If one day of service just isn’t enough for you to honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., then you might want to consider an internship at The King Center in Atlanta, GA. The King Center is located on a privately owned inholding within the authorized boundaries of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, and it is “dedicated to the advancement of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
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Happy New Year’s Eve! Today we’re going to take a look at some internships that couldn’t be more intertwined with New Year’s Eve. Times Square Alliance is a non-profit organization that “works to improve and promote Times Square – cultivating the creativity, energy and edge that have made the area an icon of entertainment, culture and urban life for over a century.” Times Square for New Year’s Eve isn’t on my list of things to do, but for many people it’s a big deal. I’m sure that there will be millions of people there tonight, so why not use tonight’s celebration to generate ideas for your internship search in the New Year. Oh yeah, and if your New Year’s resolution includes landing a top notch internship, you absolutely need to check out our job search training course.
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I’m back home for the holidays, and I hope most of you now are too. It’s wonderful to always have a safe place to go back to, but not everyone is so lucky. Victims of crime and abuse often don’t have anywhere to go. They’re often left with the choice of living in terror in a place that is familiar yet unsafe, or facing total uncertainty. Safe Horizon is a non-profit organization whose mission “is to provide support, prevent violence, and promote justice for victims of crime and abuse, their families, and communities.” They run 80 programs which “are located throughout the five boroughs of New York City in court houses, police precincts, schools, shelters, and community offices.” They may not be able to provide a safe place to go for all 350,000 victims whom they work with each year, but they find a way to support these people until they can find their way to a safe horizon.
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For me the wilderness is central to life itself – I can’t be happy without time spent outdoors. That doesn’t mean that I’m not enjoying life in downtown Chicago, but I plan on spending lots of time in the woods and rivers of Wisconsin and Michigan once Spring starts to show its face. My philosophy is shared by the people at The Wilderness Society. Their About page says that “It is our calling and our passion to protect America’s wilderness, not as a relic of our nation’s past, but as a thriving ecological community that is central to life itself.” I couldn’t agree more. They’re a non-profit organization that provides “scientific, economic, legal and policy guidance to land managers, communities, local conservation groups and state and federal decision-makers” to “ensure the best management of our lands – national forests, parks and refuges, as well as public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.” I’ve seen one of my favorite places in the world (a Northern Michigan tract of wilderness and quality fishing areas) put at risk by poor land management policies that would have allowed natural gas drilling in an extremely sensitive area, so I know how firsthand how vital The Wilderness Society’s work is.
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Do you look at the labels on all of the food that you buy? Not only the nutritional facts but also the ingredients? If you answered yes, then you’re probably a health conscious consumer, or maybe you have a specific food allergy. Well what about the stuff that’s in your food that isn’t on the ingredients label? No mater what kind of drugs they pump into the cow that your hamburger is coming from, it’s always just going to be labeled beef. How about that bottle of water that you’re drinking from right now? It’s just water, or is it? A salmon from Lake Ontario is still just salmon, even if it’s full of PCBs (at least you can’t buy those in the grocery store). There’s a lot of stuff in our food and water that we don’t know about, which is why Washington, DC based Food & Water Watch exists. They’re “a nonprofit consumer organization that works to ensure clean water and safe food.”
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One of the cooler fly fishing moments that I’ve had was sea turtle related. I was in Costa Rica fishing for sailfish when we trolled past a couple of sea turtles. Immediately a dorado (aka mahi mahi aka dolphin fish) came out from below the sea turtles (they love hanging out under debris… or turtles) and started chasing the hookless plugs that we had let out behind the boat. We teased the fish in to the boat, I cast my fly to it, hooked it, and caught it after an amazing battle. It was a perfect example of how ecosystems work with the fish using turtles as cover to ambush prey. Unfortunately, our experience with sea turtles from the previous year’s trip wasn’t so heartwarming, as another boat from our party came across a turtle that had been tangled in commercial fishing long lines (nothing like what sport fishermen use). Luckily they were able to get the turtle in the boat and cut it free from the tangle of lines, but it was a reminder of how many risks sea turtles are facing out in the wild (see below for a picture of the turtle as it was being rescued). The Sea Turtle Restoration Project is a non-profit organization that is trying to protect sea turtles from these threats of pollution, coastal development, commercial fishing long lines, and shrimping nets.
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