How worthless is a penny? The only reason people pick them up off the ground is for good luck. Stores have dishes in which they give pennies away. And there’s a group of people who fervently advocate retiring the penny. In fact, the value of the metal in pennies produced prior to 1982 (that’s the year they switched from copper to zinc) is higher than the currency value of the pennies themselves. We’ve pretty much established that pennies are worthless; however, there’s a New York City based service learning non-profit that has a very different take on the penny. They’re called Common Cents, and they are the creators of The Penny Harvest. Since 1991 they’ve worked with children aged 4-14 to make $6.8 million in grants to community organizations. How have they mobilized kids to do this? By collecting pennies! That’s right. They’ve collected $6.8 million in pennies.
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Being a tourist is fun, even if it makes you feel a little stupid. The only problem with doing touristy things is that you miss out on a lot of what a city has to offer. Major attractions have the resources, reputation, and connections to bring in lots of people, but they often lack the local feel that tourists often seek. Smaller attractions often struggle to get people in the door, despite the fact that they are many times more interesting than their larger counterparts. Cultural Tourism DC is a non-profit organization that is trying to change that in Washington, DC. They aim to “strengthen the image and economy of Washington, DC, neighborhood by neighborhood, by linking more than 200 DC cultural and neighborhood organizations with partners in tourism, hospitality, government, and business.” It’s a perfect idea for a city that is so packed with history and culture that you could probably do the tourist thing every day for a year without running out of things to do.
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tourism,
Washington DC
As an entrepreneur I am a strong believer that businesses are often the best way to solve problems. Don’t get me wrong—I love non-profits, but the ruthlessness of the business world breeds efficiency and effectiveness. We’ve seen plenty of non-profits try to cure poverty, yet poverty remains one of the world’s biggest problems. Lately we’ve seen more and more business based solutions aimed at eradicating poverty. TechnoServe, is a non-profit (the irony!) that is doing just that. They help “entrepreneurial men and women in poor areas of the developing world to build businesses that create income, opportunity and economic growth for their families, their communities and their countries.” What they’re doing may sound like some new social entrepreneurship startup, but they have a 40 year track record of successfully transforming the lives of the world’s poor. I guess business based solutions to poverty aren’t a new idea at all.
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What’s good? Depending on your mindset right now, that question could have a lot of different answers; however, today we’re talking about GOOD, a company and integrated media platform that makes “a magazine, videos, and events for people who give a damn.” They’re relatively new on the scene, and they’re breaking a lot of rules when it comes to how to run a media company. For instance, instead of keeping your subscription fees, they’ll donate them to the non-profit of your choice. Since magazines don’t actually make money on subscription fees, they think this is better for business. They’re well known for their “unique editorial perspective,” but they’re even better known for their “fresh visual aesthetic.” I first came across their website GOOD.is to see some of their amazingly gorgeous (and informative) infographics.
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California,
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magazines,
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media,
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product development,
software development,
unpaid,
web development
Memorial Day is one of my favorite holidays—not only because it signifies the start of summer, but also because I love small town patriotism. My hometown always has a fantastic parade that is often accompanied by a fighter jet fly over. Now, today’s employer may not immediately make you think of Memorial Day like last year’s did (it was Weber-Stephen, the manufacturer of my favorite charcoal grills), but you’ll realize pretty quickly why the National Park Service is a great choice for today. Not only are some of the parks that they manage great places to celebrate the Memorial Day weekend outdoors, but they’re also responsible for quite a few memorials including The Marine Corps War Memorial, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, The Korean War Veterans Memorial, and The World War II Memorial. Memorial Day is really about our fallen heroes, and the National Park Service is constantly working to honor them by maintaining and managing our memorials.
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nationwide,
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Washington DC
I’ve always had a grudge against Long Island. It’s not because I went to college with half of Long Island at Cornell or because of those stereotypes that you hear about Long Islanders. It’s the fact that I grew up in Southeastern Connecticut, and Long Island blocked us off from the beautiful Atlantic Ocean. Since Long Island isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, I’ve learned to live with it, and I can even enjoy an occasional visit there. It really is a beautiful place with amazing beaches – it even has farms. Unfortunately Long Island is only so big, and there are certainly some problems from growth (try driving out to the Hamptons on a Friday night). That’s why organizations like Sustainable Long Island exist – they aim to “promote economic development, environmental health and equity for all Long Islanders, now and for generations to come.” They want to encourage smart growth so that everyone can enjoy Long Island, whether they want to live, work, or vacation there.
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This is a guest post by Heather R. Huhman. Heather is the media relations manager at a national health care professional association. She is also the entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com, a career expert for the CAREEREALISM Twitter Advice Project, the job search expert for Campus Calm and author of the e-book “Gen Y Meets the Workforce: Launching Your Career During Economic Uncertainty.”
Issue advocacy, media strategy and crisis and reputation management are three of my favorite areas of public relations—and three specialties of Washington, DC based corporate communications and public affairs firm Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates (CLS). According to their Web site, CLS works to “inform target audiences, change critical perceptions and solve high stakes problems.” So, whether you spend the day lobbying Capitol Hill with a worthy cause, keeping up-to-date with the latest media changes or stepping in when crisis erupts, I think you’ll find CLS a truly exciting place to work. With a median employee age of 27, CLS offers a mix of young, energetic co-workers and seasoned professionals from whom you can learn. Other perks? Working with clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to non-profit organizations to foreign governments. It’s a great environment in which to get your feet wet.
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community development,
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Washington DC
Sustainability has become a major buzzword over the past few years. Anyone who wants to appear to be a qualified leader has jumped on the bandwagon and started using the word loosely. For the most part we identify “sustainability” with the environment, but it can really apply to anything. My definition is something like “helping to create a situation in which you can keep doing what you’re doing for a long time.” It’s really about a long-run mindset instead of a short-run mindset. For Institute for Sustainable Communities sustainability is a long run thing. They’re a Montpelier, VT based non-profit that has had sustainability on its mind since it was founded in 1991 by Vermont’s then-governor Madeleine M. Kunin.
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I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m on the Board of Advisors of a startup non-profit called National Coaching Fellows. One of my fellow board members also has a full-time job at another Chicago based non-profit organization called Near West Side Community Development Corp. She said that they’re looking for interns, and asked me to share some information on the internships with you guys. Near West Side Community Development Corp. was established in 1988 “to create a viable, mixed-income community in West Haven without the displacement of low and moderate income residents.” They’re doing all kinds of things to make this happen, but they remain focused on doing everything in their power to make one small area of Chicago a better place to live.
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A lot of companies use the term “rock star” to describe the people that they’d like to hire. I don’t understand why “all star” never caught on – it’s more appropriate. Rock stars come with all kinds of problems and aren’t necessarily the most desirable employees or interns, but all stars are the best at what they do. The All Stars Project is a non-profit organization based in New York City that is “dedicated to promoting human development through the use of an innovative performance-based model.” Even though their logo kind of looks like Rock Bands, they’re all about creating all stars. They do this by “sponsoring community and experimental theatre, developing leadership training and pursuing volunteer initiatives that build and strengthen communities.” They offer a wide range of programs that are centered around theatre and the performing arts.
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Sorry for the delayed post today. For some reason the Internet connection in our office wouldn’t connect to our server, which meant that we couldn’t publish today’s post this morning. I trudged across town through the snow in 12 degree weather to make sure that you got your internships today.
Niche communities have always been a big part of what the Internet is all about. In the olden days if you lived in a small town and had eclectic interests, you’d have a really tough time meeting people with the same interests. Those days are over. Now you can find an online community for anything – anything. Although today’s company isn’t all that odd in the market that they target, they’re certainly focusing on a group that has been forgotten until now. Savvy Auntie is “the first community for cool aunts, great aunts, godmothers, and all women who love kids.” We’re not sure whether they’ve sided on the pronunciation “ant” or “awnt,” but either way they’ve decided to own the market for enthusiastic aunts.
Interns Are Like Nieces and Nephews…
In a lot of ways having an internship is like having a savvy auntie. If you want to have both, then you’re in luck. Savvy Auntie is currently looking for a number of interns. They have internships available in Video Production, Content, Gifts, and Community. The internships are unpaid, require 10-20 hours of work per week, and are located somewhere in New York/Northern New Jersey (they don’t make it very clear). They also require that their interns own a laptop. There isn’t a whole lot of information available on these internships; however, you can check out the profiles of Savvy Auntie’s current interns. If you think it would be cool to work with a former Fortune 500 executive to build a community of savvy aunts, then send a cover letter and resume to Jobs@savvyauntie.com. If you’re apply for the Content internship, be sure to include 3 writing samples.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
Do you think a community for aunts and other women who love children is a sustainable business idea?
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If you’ve seen our contest for the HP Magic Giveaway called Bringing Magic to Your Job Search, you know that random acts of kindness are sometimes rewarded handsomely. It was probably Third Grade when I first heard the term “random acts of kindness,” as we were celebrating Random Acts of Kindness week. I remember making a big chain of construction paper links that each had a random act of kindness that one of my classmates or I had done. It was kind of hokey, but it got the point across. Construction paper might be for kids, but random acts of kindness are for everyone. You should never outgrow them, and that’s what the RAKE Project, a Washington, DC based non-profit, is preaching. Their founders are anonymous (although you’ll probably meet them if you score an internship), as they consider themselves part of the “working poor,” so they’ve started this organization to offer “emergency fund relief to working middle class people.”
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Periodically the news is riddled with stories about how the airlines are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Lately the focus of doom and gloom commentary has shifted to finance and insurance companies, but that doesn’t mean that the airlines are doing any better. There’s one company that is seemingly never in the conversation about struggling airlines – Southwest Airlines. If you’ve ever flown Southwest, you probably know why. They do things differently, and it makes flyers happy. Even though it seems like almost no one can succeed flying commercial routes, Southwest continues to impress. Air travel isn’t going anywhere – it’s too important to us, so forget about all the bad things that you hear about the airline industry, and start thinking about an internship at Southwest Airlines.
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Tennessee,
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transportation
It seems to me that most college students reduce their TV watching when they get to college – at least the ones who don’t have cable in their dorm room. There are too many other things that you either have to do or want to do, so watching tv moves down the list. Still, communal dorm TVs get pretty crowded during primetime. I mostly used the TVs for watching sports, and trying to watch a Yankees game on a “good” TV night often required that I walk down a few floors to find a group of fellow fans who were already watching. Not once in my TV hopping did I come across any of my peers watching something with educational value. Had I been hoping to watch something like the shows produced by American Documentary, I probably would have been out of luck. If you are one of the kids who usurps the communal TVs and ensures that you get your weekly fix of PBS, then an internship with AmDoc might be a great way for you to spend part of your Fall. If you’re one of those kids watching primetime TV or ignoring TV for the better things in college life, but you still love PBS, you’d also make a great intern at AmDoc.
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television,
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web development
What’s your favorite public place? Where would you most rather be than sitting in front of a computer searching for internships? I guess that with wifi you could actually be in your favorite public place while searching for internships, but that’s a relatively new development. The odds are that your favorite public place is somewhere that you feel like a part of the community. Project for Public Spaces is a non-profit organization that works to increase the number of “people-friendly settings that build local value and serve community needs.” In other words they want to make it easier for people to get out of the house and interact by providing better places to do so.
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Internships,
New York,
planning,
project management,
research,
research and development
Considering that it’s July, hockey probably isn’t the first thing on your mind right now, unless, of course, you’re sweltering in a room without air conditioning dreaming of the cool air inside the rink. The offseason is a time for National Hockey League Teams to address their needs, and that isn’t only about the personnel who wear ice skates. Although many of the NHL Teams have major Summer internship programs, they also need interns during the hockey season. While you may be focused on baseball or the Olympics right now, you should get your mind back to hockey for a bit and try to find an internship with an NHL Team for this coming fall or spring.
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Ohio,
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Tennessee,
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If you’re a college student who is looking for an internship now, you’re probably just a little too young to have appreciated the unbridled free downloading of everything under copypright that those of us who are a bit older enjoyed in college. Those were the days of Napster and AudioGalaxy, before the RIAA started suing students and instilling fear in the hearts of downloaders everywhere. If anything good has come out of the whole situation with student downloading, it is that there is probably a slightly better general understanding of copyright laws than there used to be (we admit it, we had to look really hard for that silver lining). If you take an especially strong interest in copyright, you might be interested in Creative Commons, a non-profit organization that addresses many of the issues that college students face when it comes to understanding how copyright works. Creative Commons isn’t going to get you off the hook when you get served a DMCA notice via your school’s administration, but they are helping to spread the ideology of openness when it comes to intellectual property.
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