I had 20/12 vision until I was about fifteen. I definitely appreciated, but I didn’t realize how much until I started having trouble reading the chalk board during my Junior year in high school. Soon after I learned how life changing contact lenses (or even just glasses) can be for people with poor vision. Unfortunately, corrective lenses can’t solve all of the world’s vision problems, but there are other options. There are 36 million blind people in the world–at least one million are children in developing countries. Without treatment fifty percent of them will die within two years. SightLife is an organization that saves many of these lives. They’re based in Seattle, WA, and since 1969 they’ve been “the only non-profit global health organization solely focused on eliminating corneal blindness in the U.S. and around the world” (corneal blindness is responsible for just under a third of the world’s blindness).
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I wonder how many great books were never published because major publishing houses didn’t think they would sell enough. Even Harry Potter may have never been published if it weren’t for an 8 year old nagging her dad to get her another chapter. But it’s not always about shortsightedness. Some books are extremely important, but don’t have mass market appeal. That’s why publishers like The New Press exist. They’re a non-profit that “publishes books that promote and enrich public discussion and understanding of the issues vital to our democracy and to a more equitable world.” The New Press is based in New York, NY and has been publishing important books since 1992.
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Nearly every culture has its own take on bread. From tortillas to bialys to focaccias to baguettes to naan, there are innumerable ways to turn a grain into something a little easier to eat. There is evidence of rudimentary flatbreads from over 30,000 years ago, but we’ve come a long way since then. What I find interesting is that the staple breads from across the world are becoming luxury items here in the U.S. A non-profit that is taking advantage of this trend is Hot Bread Kitchen. They’re based in New York, NY, and they increase “economic security for foreign-born and low-income women and men by opening access to the billion dollar specialty food industry.” How? They sell a multi-ethnic line of breads that are inspired by the people whom they are training for jobs.
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This morning I read an article called Lawmakers Gone Wild in Chicago magazine. It’s about how many Illinois politicians are using their campaign funds as a tax free slush fund for personal expenses. The abuses are rampant, but only the most egregious offenders are prosecuted (and it’s often by the federal government). Much of the research for the article came from the Better Government Association, a Chicago, IL based non-profit that “works for integrity, transparency, and accountability in government by exposing corruption and inefficiency; identifying and advocating effective public policy; and engaging and mobilizing the electorate to achieve authentic and responsible reform.” Considering that the BGA has been around since 1923, you really have to wonder how bad things would be if they never existed.
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I’m pretty sure that I’ve run out of football related non-profits to write about. For past Super Bowls I’ve covered the National Football Foundation, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund, USA Football, and even the NFL (which is technically a non-profit). I’ve even taken the advertising angle with Common Sense Media and the Advertising Research Foundation. (We also covered World Vision which gives away the loser’s championship gear to developing countries.) So even though football is on my mind, we’re going to go in a completely different direction. When I was in college my parents and sister decided to replace me with a basketball (not football or American football) playing Italian exchange student who came through AFS. It was a wonderful experience for all of us. Youth For Understanding USA is a Bethesda, MD based non-profit foreign exchange organization similar to AFS that is “committed to preparing young people for their responsibilities and opportunities in a changing, interdependent world.”
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Early spring! That’s what Phil says. I love Groundhog Day, so ever year I’ve highlighted it in my post. It started in 2007 with the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, and I followed with NOAA, MyPunchbowl, Toro, and Weather Underground. This is the first year for me that the holiday has fallen on a Saturday, so I went in search of something like the Groundhog Protection Fund. The closest that I could come up with was The Wildlife Center of Virginia, which is a Waynesboro, VA based organization that “was formed in 1982 to provide quality health care, often on an emergency basis, to native wildlife.” I realize that the location probably isn’t a good match for most of you, but there are similar organizations all across the country that also have career opportunities worth considering. Use the holiday as inspiration!
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My high school had an excellent community service program. We were all supposed to do at least 25 hours per year, so there was a mix of in-school and out-of-school service opportunities. One of the organizations that we worked with was AmeriCares. I can’t for the life of me remember what project we worked on, but I know that I had a t-shirt with their logo on it that ended up covered in paint (that may have been from a completely different service project). AmeriCares is a Stamford, CT based “nonprofit disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization which provides immediate response to emergency medical needs – and supports long-term humanitarian assistance programs – for all people around the world.”
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publishing,
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social media,
unpaid
Yesterday I heard that Y Combinator is funding its first non-profit. It’s pretty cool to see a for-profit incubator dipping its toes into the non-profit world, but there have been non-profit incubators around for a long time. One of them is Earth Island Institute. They’re a Berkeley, CA based organization that acts as a “hub for grassroots campaigns dedicated to conserving, preserving, and restoring the ecosystems on which our civilization depends.” So far they have incubated over 100 startup environmental projects and helped them get off the ground by providing administrative and financial resources that are essential for early stage non-profits.
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My goal is to help you with career exploration–to introduce you to career opportunities that you didn’t know existed. We’re nearly 2,000 employers in, and we’ve already helped a lot of people land amazing jobs and internships. But in the grand scheme of exploration, finding cool companies to work for just isn’t that impressive. There’s no danger, and there’s almost no chance of finding something truly new. Real explorers are in The Explorers Club, a New York, NY based “international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore.” It’s a non-profit that was founded in 1904 and exists to promote “the scientific exploration of land, sea, air, and space by supporting research and education in the physical, natural and biological sciences.”
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The United States’ foreign policy these days seems to have a pretty heavy focus on countries that are about as far away as geographically possible. Our relationships with China, India, and much of the Middle East tend to get more attention (especially in the press) than our relationships with our closest neighbors. Technology has made the world a much smaller place, but it’s still important to keep an eye on our own backyard. That’s what Inter-American Dialogue does. They’re a Washington, DC based non-profit that is “the leading U.S. center for policy analysis, exchange, and communication on issues in Western Hemisphere affairs.”
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In a place like New York City, it’s nearly impossible to build something without tearing something else down. That means that a lot of still useful stuff is sent off to the dump while new construction material is shipped in from afar. This is not only wasteful, but it’s also terrible for the environment. Build It Green! NYC is a New York, NY based non-profit that is “working towards reducing the amount of unnecessary construction and demolition (C&D) waste clogging our landfills.” They do this through two stores that make Build It Green! NYC “New York City’s only non-profit retail outlet for salvaged and surplus building materials.”
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I’ve mentioned before that I was on the board of a startup non-profit. We were petty clueless and needed all the help that we could get–especially when it came to fundraising. The organization eventually folded, but maybe it wouldn’t have if we had known about the Foundation Center. It’s a New York, NY based non-profit that “connects people who want to change the world to the resources they need to succeed through data, analysis, and training.” While the Internet has changed the way that the Foundation Center works, they’ve been around since 1956, so they have a long history of helping other philanthropic organizations achieve their goals.
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When you’re in school, you get a distorted view of what principals do. You see them deal with troublesome students and institute new rules, so you kind of assume that discipline is their main role. As you get older you realize that the job goes much deeper. They’re the CEOs for their schools. They have to manager a team of teachers, work with school boards, communicate with parents, and much more. A good school is often the product of good administrators, which is why a non-profit called New Leaders “develops transformational school leaders and designs effective leadership policies and practices for school systems across the country.” The organization is based in New York, NY and also has locations in 12 urban areas.
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When you’re looking for a job, it’s hard to remember that it’s not a zero-sum game. Jobs aren’t a fixed resource, so your chance of getting a job actually increases as other people land jobs (though it’s not quite as true for internships). The mechanics behind this aren’t obvious, and that’s a big part of the reason that immigration has become such a divisive issue in our country (and lots of other ones too). The “they took our jobs” mentality satirized by South Park is unfortunately still petty common. The National Immigration Forum is working to change that. They’re a Washington, DC based non-profit organization founded in 1982 that “advocates for the value of immigrants and immigration to our nation.”
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I remember a lot of the commercials from my childhood better than the shows that they were aired on. That’s probably because the commercials were designed to ensure that I remember them, while the shows were more about entertaining me in the moment. I’ve been bombarded with commercial messages since I was born, and I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. I’ve learned a lot from commercials–how marketing works and how not to be a sucker for example. I’ve even learned about some great products. My opinion is probably not shared by the folks at Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, a Boston, MA based non-profit that is working “to reclaim childhood from corporate marketers.”
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While the Holiday Season is a time that many of us offer help to the less fortunate, it’s usually in the form of gifts or donations. This kind of help is great, but it’s typically temporary. Homelessness and poverty are both societal and individual problems, so bringing about real change is going to take a lot more than a few weeks of giving. Real Change is a Seattle, WA based non-profit that “exists to provide opportunity and a voice for low-income and homeless people while taking action for economic justice.” By focusing on helping the individuals while at the same time pushing for societal change, Real Change is able to make a meaningful difference.
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Christmas is widely known as “the most wonderful time of the year,” but for many that doesn’t ring true. If there’s any group that deserves to have an joyful holiday season, it’s children. Most kids just want to receive a few gifts and know that someone loves and cares about them. Unfortunately, for millions of children that isn’t a given. Luckily, there are a number of non-profit organizations that help make it happen for kids who may not otherwise have a Merry Christmas. We looked at Toys for Tots last year, and this year we’re going to talk about a program called Angel Tree “that connects parents in prison with their children through the delivery of Christmas gifts.” It’s part of a larger non-profit called Prison Fellowship. The Lansdowne, VA based organization that envisions “a future in which countless prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families, are redeemed, restored, and reconciled through the love and truth of Jesus Christ.”
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I haven’t had someone read a book to me in years. The last time that I can remember was my Senior year in high school. We had our annual K-12 holiday assembly, and one of the school’s most beloved teachers read us ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. That’s a great story to be read no matter how old you are. In fact, “reading aloud with children is the single most important activity for helping them become successful readers.” That’s why when you read with a child… Everybody Wins!. Everybody Wins! is a Wellesley, MA based non-profit (with affiliates all across the country) that is aiming to “help bridge the literacy gap.”
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We often think of technology as a bunch of ones and zeros, but it’s really “the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a preexisting solution to a problem, achieve a goal, handle an applied input/output relation or perform a specific function” (at least according to Wikipedia). Technology is really the story of human advancement, and that’s why The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA must be a fascinating place to visit. It’s a place that aims to create “experiences that invite people to learn through play, evoke emotions of wonder and joy, contain solid and accessible science, show how technology can improve lives, provoke thought and inspire action, and represent [their] local Silicon Valley community.”
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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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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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Last night Cornell played Michigan in an ice hockey game at Madison Square Garden. Cornell came out with a 5-1 win, which I was ecstatic about. The Big Red not only surprised its fans with a great performance after two pretty terrible weekends, but they also came out for the 2nd period in camo jerseys. I’m a traditionalist, so usually I’d be upset with any change to the team’s uniforms, but this was for an amazing cause. It was part of a fund and awareness raising effort for Wounded Warrior Project, which is a Jacksonville, FL based non-profit that aims “to foster the most successful, well-adjusted generation of wounded service members in our nation’s history.” While I was enjoying a hockey game last night, there were men and women ten years younger than me risking life and limb to ensure my safety. The costs of war can be extreme, which is why it’s important that those of us who enjoy the safety provided by our service men and women do our best “to fulfill the needs of injured service members.” That’s what Wounded Warrior Project is about.
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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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I’ve written profiles of nearly 500 non-profit organizations with internships. I’ve seen all kinds of organizations, but I always find it hard to evaluate how effective they are. Data isn’t nearly as prevalent in the non-profit world as it is in business (though that’s changing), so it’s hard to get a sense of which organizations are doing the most with their dollars. Luckily, there’s an independent third party that evaluates non-profits called Charity Navigator. They’re based in Glen Rock, NJ, and you’re probably familiar with them if you’ve ever spent much time on non-profits’ websites. Charity Navigator seems to have become the gold standard for determining which charities are most suitable to donate to.
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Do you know what baseball managers and presidents have in common? People think that they have way more control over what happens than they actually do. It’s easy to give someone all of the blame or credit, but it’s almost never that simple. If you’d like to learn more about just how important the President (either the office or any one of the individuals who has held the office) is, you’ll want to read up on the research put out by the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. They’re a Washington, DC based nonpartisan non-profit “organization that systematically examines past successes and failures of the Presidency and relates its findings to present challenges and opportunities.” They organization started in 1965 as the Library of the Presidential Papers, and took on its current name in 1969.
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Now that the election is over, we know where the country stands on choosing a leader. But it’s still not all that clear what the collective wants on individual issues. There’s no doubt that polls guide policy, and that’s why the 2012 NORC Election Survey is important. It “was designed to measure public opinion about important issues the country faces – economic recovery, health care costs, and extreme partisanship,” and it is based on data collected both before and after the election. The survey is conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago (also known as the National Opinion Research Center), which is a Chicago, IL based non-profit organization that aims to “to conduct high-quality social science research in the public interest.” The organization was founded in 1941, and it has done research on a wide range of topics including Children and Youth, Criminal Justice, Economics, Education, Energy, Environment, Health, Human Development, International Development, Poverty, Security, Special Populations, Substance Abuse, and Sustainability.
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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 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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