I went to the same college as both of my parents. There’s no doubt that this made my transition to college easier–I knew what I was getting into, and they knew what I was getting into. The statistics back this up. Students whose parents went to college are far more likely to graduate than first-generation college students. So how do we give these students the advantages and support that typically come with a parent or parents who went to college? New York Needs You is a non-profit that is taking a crack at it. They are aiming to enable “first-generation college students to realize their college and career ambitions” through an intensive fellowship program.
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I’ve taken my fair share of web based courses–all with the intent of gaining skills to improve my business. I’ve learned to code, write copy, do SEO, and a lot more online. I even developed my own course on how to land a job. There are a multitude of companies in the online education space, and most are focusing on these kinds of topics. Sympoz is a Denver, CO based company that is taking a different approach. Yes, they have a few courses on entrepreneurship, but their bread and butter is the craft market. They have a section of their site devoted to woodworking and an entire brand called Craftsy that has the tagline “Learn it. Make it.” Sympoz’s goal is to create “an environment where you can watch, interact, and learn from renowned experts on your own schedule,” and so far it seems like they’re doing a pretty awesome job.
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When I moved to Chicago I joined the board of a startup non-profit. We were a group of twenty somethings with little idea of how to run a non-profit or what being on a board actually meant. Not surprisingly, the non-profit no longer exists. Our board did its best, but we were never really prepared to succeed. We probably could have used the help of Boardsource, a Washington, DC based non-profit that “supports, trains, and educates more than 60,000 nonprofit board leaders from across the country each year.” You can’t just Google “how to be a non-profit board member” and pick it up. Boardsource provides a wide array of resources that help board members serve their organizations more effectively.
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I grew up about an hour outside of New York City. My parents would take me in a few times a year, and from those experiences I developed an idea of what big cities are like. It took a while for me to realize that New York is remarkable as cities go. It’s huge. It has a prime geographical location. Its people are diverse in a multitude of ways. It’s filled with wealth, yet more than 20% of its citizens live in poverty. There is no other city in the world like New York, and that’s why the Museum of the City of New York must be a fascinating place to visit. They are a non-profit that explores “the past of this fascinating and particular place for lessons about our future” while celebrating “New York’s heritage of diversity, opportunity, and perpetual transformation.”
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Growing up I had a really good friend who was a bad kid. We got along great, but he always found a way to get into trouble. When we were about seven, my Mom told me a secret about him. She told me that he went to “children’s jail” where he only got bread and water. I wasn’t all that gullible, but I believed it because it was totally believable. I was scared straight. What I’ve learned since is that kids don’t go to jail for “being bad,” but there is a cycle of incarceration in some of our communities that starts at a very early ages. Recidivism rates tell us that a young person who incarcerated for the first time is highly likely to be incarcerated again. Friends of Island Academy is a New York, NY based non-profit “center for youth development dedicated to breaking cycles of incarceration.” They work with “adolescents who attend school on Rikers Island every year” to “guide their trajectory to becoming economically independent young adults, connected to their communities in positive way.”
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Sometimes it’s all about a name. How could I not take a closer look at an organization called Day One when I was browsing Idealist? Their name doesn’t tell you much about what they do, but it makes sense with a little context. Day One is a non-profit that “partners with New York City youth to end dating abuse and domestic violence through community education, supportive services, legal advocacy and leadership development.” Abuse and domestic violence are issues that affect people of all ages, but teenagers are especially susceptible. When you have little relationship and life experience, how are you supposed to know what is ok and what isn’t? Where do you go for help? How do you get out? Those are all questions that Day One helps teens answer.
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Five years ago today I launched One Day One Job. Six months earlier I had given up on a job search that was going nowhere and decided to try to find a way to make the job search suck less for college students and grads. I knew a little about HR, a little about how to build a website, and a lot about how to fail at the job search. It took me six months to build something launch-worthy. Five years later I have a website and e-mail list that has reached millions of people. My business is profitable. And most importantly, I’ve helped people land jobs they never would have found without me. I still have a long way to go, but what I’ve done so far is all thanks to some rudimentary coding skills that I developed in middle and high school. Being able to build a website or write software opens up a world of opportunity, which is why I think Codecademy is the perfect company to feature today. They’re based in New York, NY, and they are building “a better way for anyone to teach, and learn, how to code.”
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I’m consistently amazed by the quality of free educational content online. You can learn about almost anything at a pretty high level from any place you want. Yet so many of us still spend time looking at memes and watching silly YouTube videos. Educational content needs to be entertaining if we’re going to consume it voluntarily on a regular basis, and that’s why TED has grown so dramatically over the last few years. TED is a New York, NY based non-profit “devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.” The organization got its start in 1984 as a conference series centered around technology, entertainment, and design. That description still applies, but the set of topics has broadened and so has TED’s reach. Now you can view videos all of the best TED talks online for free.
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I have no doubt that I benefitted from educational gaming. While Oregon Trail only taught me not to shoot too many buffalo in one place, Type to Learn taught me how to type and SimEarth taught me about evolution. The games were simple and so were the concepts that they taught because that’s what the technology allowed. Today technology is no longer the bottleneck–imagination is. Wowzers is a Chicago, IL based company with plenty of imagination. They offer a cloud-based adaptive learning platform in the form of a game. Children pick an avatar and advance through math-based challenges. Teachers and administrators are able to monitor students’ performance as they progress through the challenges.
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I did a lot of my most valuable learning outside of school. I attended plenty of camps and after school activities, but I also dug holes in my backyard searching for historical artifacts and learned to build websites on my own. Not only were the out of school activities more fun, but many of them helped me develop skills that I still use today. School shouldn’t be the only educational outlet for children, which is why non-profits like Edventure More are so important. They’re based in San Francisco, CA, and they “inspire the playful pursuit of enrichment for the next generation” through summer camps, enrichment programming, motivational tutoring, and mentoring.
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Helping people find jobs is pretty cool. There’s a reason that I’ve been doing it for the past 5 years. I’ve built a nice list of success stories, but there’s no way that I “created over 218,000 hours of employment and generated $2.5 million in wages” in 2010 like Chrysalis did. They’re a Los Angeles, CA based non-profit that is “dedicated to creating a pathway to self-sufficiency for homeless and low-income individuals by providing the resources and support needed to find and retain employment.” Employment solves all kinds of societal and individual problems, but creating jobs isn’t nearly as easy as politicians make it sound. Luckily, Chrysalis has developed programs that help people turn themselves into desirable employees. It’s the next best thing.
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I was a total wimp when I was a kid. Despite many opportunities to do ropes courses and other similar challenges, I always sat on the sidelines. To be completely honest, it was because I was chubby and figured that I couldn’t actually complete the courses. I’m now more adventurous, but I still prefer adventure with a functional goal (like climbing down into a gorge to go fly fishing). Project Adventure is a Beverly, MA non-profit organization that offers adventure with a goal, but it’s all about personal and group development. They “seek to expand Adventure-based experiential programming, with the goal of developing responsible individuals, productive organizations and sustainable communities.” They’ve been doing it since 1971, and they keep growing their ability to advance active learning.
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I was at a wedding last night. It served as a reminder that I can’t dance. I still try, but I don’t think that it’s ever going to happen for me. That’s ok–I can leave the dancing to the dancers. Maybe I would have different feelings if I had been involved with Dancewave. They’re a non-profit that “transforms the lives of New York City youth through unique exposure to world-class, pre-professional performing arts training.” Dance is right at the intersection of arts and athletics, which makes it an ideal activity for youth programming–it builds confidence, gets kids active, and introduces them to new cultures.
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I was nearly kicked out of preschool. Some kid bit me, and I responded by biting other kids. I’m not sure what my mom said, but she convinced the school to let me stay. It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but it may have been a very important moment in my life. Early education has a huge effect on educational outcomes, so there’s a decent chance that the negative effects of not going to preschool would have followed me through the rest of my life. That’s the kind of problem that many children from low-income families encounter–though it’s because they never even got to go to preschool not because they got kicked out. Jumpstart is attacking this problem head on–they are “the only national supplemental program that leverages the power of community and adult-child relationships to build the key language and literacy skills children need to take on the world.” They’re based in Boston, MA and working in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington, DC, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas, Missouri, California, Florida, and Washington.
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When I was growing up, educational toys were pretty lame. I’d beg my mom to take me to Toys ‘R Us and not Learning Express. The one exception was the 130-in-1 Electronic Playground and Learning Center that allowed me to broadcast my own radio station by connecting wires in a particular pattern. It was one of the few “toys” that provided an opportunity to pursue my interest in technology without the help of an adult. Today’s kids have access to way cooler stuff from companies like Orbotix, LittleBits, and Sifteo. Another company that has recently entered the market is Modular Robotics. They’re based in Boulder, CO, and they manufacture Cubelets, “magnetic blocks that can be snapped together to make an endless variety of robots with no programming and no wires.” It sounds a lot like a way more interesting, robotic-themed take on the 130-in-1 kit.
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Chances are that where you live has some sort of historical society. It’s an organization that is devoted to preserving and researching the local history. They almost certainly have some sort of an archive, and they may have a museum. There are all kinds of historical societies out there, but I was still surprised that The Capitol building has its own historical society called… wait for it… the United States Capitol Historical Society. The non-profit organization is quite obviously based in Washington, DC, and it was founded in 1962 and “chartered by Congress to educate the public on the history and heritage of the U.S. Capitol building, its institutions and the people who have served therein.” The organization is not publicly funded, so they get their money from “individual and corporate memberships, gifts, grants and the sale of educational items such as the book, We, the People: The Story of the U.S. Capitol, calendars, tourist memorabilia, videos and books of general interest and academic research.”
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Even though it will be another year until we celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day again, I don’t think that we’ve had enough pirate talk for the week. Just kidding, no pirate talk today, but we are going to take a look at a non-profit called Story Pirates. They’re based in New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA, and they pair “experienced teachers with talented artists to collaborate with schools and community organizations in creating exciting, dynamic classes covering a broad range of academic topics.” That’s actually a kind of boring way to put it. One of the programs that they’re best known for is taking stories that kids write and acting them out. How could that not be absolutely awesome?
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Many job seekers fail to realize how important it is to write well. With so much communication happening over e-mail, your ability to express your ideas clearly and forcefully through the written word will have a direct effect on your career outcomes (and that’s why you need to spend a lot of time on writing great cover letters). While writing is something that most of us work on throughout our lives, the most important development happens in our early years. That’s why 826 National works with 8 centers across the country that “offer a variety of inventive programs that provide under-resourced students, ages 6-18, with opportunities to explore their creativity and improve their writing skills.” The San Francisco, CA based non-profit “provides strategic leadership, administration, and other resources to ensure the success of its network of eight writing and tutoring centers.” The centers are located in Ann Arbor, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC, and together they’ve serve about 30,0000 students each year.
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One of the most underrated life moments is when you learn how to read. Even though it’s more of a progression than a single point in time, I remember (almost) exactly where I was when I became a reader. My family was headed to Florida on an Amtrak train (we thought it would be fun, and it was… kind of), and I had a Super Mario comic book. Somewhere in North or South Carolina I went from stumbling through it to reading it. From that point on I was a reader and I had the ability to educate myself. Teaching kids not only to read but to love reading is one of the most important things that we as a society can do, which is why I love non-profits like The Literacy Lab. They don’t appear to be very big, but the Washington, DC based organization is aiming “to provide high-quality, individualized reading remediation to low-income students in order to increase their literacy skills, leading to increased academic success and greater opportunities in life.”
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I don’t know why adults even bother asking kids what their favorite class is. They’re obviously going to either say recess or make something up because they know that they’re not supposed to say recess. As a kid I felt bad for liking recess more than the rest of the school day, but now I realize that recess is totally underrated. It’s a time for social interaction, safe risk taking (or are monkey bars banned now?), decision making, and more. It’s also a fantastic way to get kids to burn off energy so that they can be more focused in the classroom. Playworks is an Oakland, CA based non-profit (but they work in cities across the country) that aims to “improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.” In other words, they’re all about recess.
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One of the most important skills for both internship searching and starting a successful career is creativity. That’s why I devoted an entire section to it in our Job Search Prep course (it’s free in case you didn’t know). The tough part is that our education system seems to beat creativity out of students with grading rubrics and multiple choice tests. That’s why we need more places like the Children’s Creativity Museum, which is a San Francisco, CA based “interactive art and technology museum for kids.” Creativity can’t be taught in a traditional way–it has to be done through experiences–and that’s exactly what Children’s Creativity Museum offers.
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When you hear the word media, you usually think about exciting markets like sports, entertainment, and technology, but there are media businesses in nearly every niche that you can imagine. Business-to-business isn’t something that most college students and recent grads think about, but it’s an area with a ton of opportunity. 1105 Media is a company that “provides integrated business-to-business information and media” with a “focus on technology, products, policy, regulation, and news delivered through an assortment of media including print and online magazines, journals, and newsletters; seminars, conferences, executive summits, and trade shows; training and courseware; and web-based services.” It’s not the kind of content that you consume in your free time, but there are people who do, and they’re extremely valuable to reach. That’s why Chatsworth, CA based 1105 Media has a business that seems to be growing.
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One of the most underrated job/internship search skills is anticipation. You can do fine being reactionary and trolling job postings, but if you really want to elevate your chance of finding success, you need to take things to the next step. That means seeking out opportunities before they become apparent to other people. How do you do this? Look for non-obvious news items that might indicate future opportunities. The Museum of Mathematics in New York, NY provides a perfect example. They’re opening in 4 months, and they’re aiming “to enhance public understanding and perception of mathematics.” It’s being opened in response to the closing of the Goudreau Museum, which was a small museum of math in Long Island.
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I’m really tempted to start with a lawyer joke today, but I’m not looking for a lawsuit. I know that it can be hard to feel bad for lawyers, but they actually have it tough these days–especially the young ones. The job market has gotten so bad that elite law schools are hiring their own graduates on a large scale with the intent of fudging their after graduation employment rate. While the new grads are getting hit the hardest, the glut of lawyers on the market has an effect on the entire profession. Any lawyer who wants to stay employable needs to continue learning and improving. That’s where Lawline.com comes in. They’re a New York, NY based “provider of Online Continuing Legal Education courses for attorneys across the country.” Their subscriptions are many orders of magnitude cheaper than law school, so getting a positive ROI on education from Lawline.com seems like a sure thing.
Keep on Learning
Lawline.com has thousands of faculty members who have developed courses on a very wide range of topics. Their online CLE (Continuing Legal Education) programs not only allow lawyers to keep learning and get better at their jobs, but they also are sometimes required for lawyers who want to keep their licenses. What’s most interesting is that Lawline.com is that they give away their content for free. Lawyers only have to pay if they want to get credit for the courses they take. I love it when business see reality and don’t try to hold on to a dying business model (too bad lawyers often are the ones obstructing this kind of innovation). Even though Lawline.com is all about the law, you don’t have to be a lawyer to work for them. Their Internships page shows that they have opportunities in:
- Customer Support
- Accreditation
- Web Development
Lawline.com has done a nice job with their Careers site, and they really push their company culture (they even have a blog about it). It’s paying off as they were ranked 21st in Crain’s Best Places to Work in New York City. They don’t mention anything about whether the internships are paid, but if they follow the law…
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
What’s your favorite lawyer joke?
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It’s easy to take Google for granted, but the ability to find almost any piece of information in less than a second is pretty extraordinary. Google’s biggest problem is also its biggest strength: depth. It’s easy to get overwhelmed or distracted by all of the information. Sometimes you need a more focused tool–especially in educational settings. That’s what Gooru is all about. They’re a Palo Alto, CA based non-profit organization that is “organizing free, online education resources into searchable collections, accessible from any web or mobile platform.” By combining machine learning technology with human curation, Gooru is able to provide a resource for students to find what they need without the distractions of other search engines.
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Having so much money that you can give it away is something that we can all aspire to. The Haas family certainly achieved that. The donations started in 1945 through the Phoebe Waterman Foundation when they gave for “relief in post-War Europe, scholarships for fatherless children, and support for medical and educational institutions.” By 1955 the family was making grants of more than $100,000 a year, so they hired someone to manage the foundation. By 1970 the number reached $7 million per year, and the foundation was renamed the Willliam Penn Foundation. Today the fund has nearly $2 billion, and distributes approximately $80 million annually. The organization is based in Philadelphia, PA, and “is dedicated to improving the quality of life in the Greater Philadelphia region through efforts that foster rich cultural expression, strengthen children’s futures, and deepen connections to nature and community.”
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Last weekend we took a look at International Rivers and how they are ““at the heart of the global struggle to protect rivers and the rights of communities that depend on them.” While rivers are my favorite body of water, they aren’t by any means the only ones that that are essential to the livelihood of nearby communities (and it’s not just communities in the developing world that are so dependent on bodies of water). That’s why we’re going to take today to look at a non-profit organization that aims to protect a single watershed. Heal the Bay is devoted to protecting and reviving Santa Monica Bay, “the centerpiece of Los Angeles’ beach culture, and the geographic center of the LA region.” They’re based in Santa Monica, CA, and they’re focused on both the aesthetic and economic reasons for healing the bay.
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When my fiancée and I were invited to a wedding in Jackson Hole, I insisted that we go and stay for at least a week. I had been once before when I was about 12, and I’ve been dying to get back. I’m here, and I love it. There’s nothing like waking up and looking out the window to see huge mountains. Since I’m in Jackson, WY, I decided to see if there are any interesting non-profits here with internship opportunities. My search immediately led me to the Teton Science Schools, which is an organization that has “been educating, training, and inspiring students about the natural world” since 1967. They serve people of all ages, and their focus is quite obviously on using the amazing natural surroundings to teach science.
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I had some pretty awesome after-school activities when I was a kid. I played baseball and basketball, but I also did some sort of space/science class and participated in Odyssey of the Mind. Then there was the time on the computer, which didn’t seem all that important, but ended up shaping my career. Time out of school can be extremely important for educational outcomes, which is why BOOST Collaborative exists. They are a San Diego, CA based non-profit that “is committed to creating opportunities for change in educational and social services agencies serving youth in the out-of-school time hours.” While most organizations in this space focus on working directly with kids, BOOST Collaborative focuses on working with the people who work with kids.
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Education doesn’t have to be expensive, but it often is. In the U.S. we have a culture of financing education for people. Parents put aside college funds, colleges provide financial aid, private organizations offer scholarships, and there are all kind of student loans available. In much of the rest of the world, education is seen as a luxury. Vittana is a Seattle, WA based non-profit that is working to change that through microfinance. They “envision a world of opportunity, where educated minds and skillful hands work together to uplift the next generation, breaking the cycle of poverty.”
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