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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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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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 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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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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I grew up along the coast of Long Island Sound and spent a few weeks every summer on Nantucket. As a result I’ve always had a fascination with coastal societies. I just love seeing how the natural environment shapes the way people live. Today it may be hard to imagine how a city as large and modern as New York, NY has been influenced by its natural surroundings, but the South Street Seaport Museum shows the history of New York City’s relationship with the sea. The museum “is dedicated to preserving and interpreting the history of New York as a port city.” They do this with “16 historic and contemporary installations interweaving the city, the sea, and the Seaport neighborhood.”
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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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Last week in my write up on the U.S. Association Of Former Members Of Congress, I touched on the idea that our politicians might be more effective after they retire from public service. I think this is especially true for members of Congress who have no term limits and constantly need to worry about being reelected, but I think that presidents face similar pressures to follow the polls. Once they’re out of office, former politicians are free to work on the problems that they think are important. For President Clinton this work manifests itself through the William J. Clinton Foundation, which is Little Rock, AR and New York, NY based non-profit organization that aims to “improve global health, strengthen economies worldwide, promote healthier childhoods, and protect the environment by fostering partnerships among governments, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and private citizens.”
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Over the years I’ve come across quite a few non-profits that use sports as a tool to enact social change. Most of them focus on youth. It makes sense–when you’re young it’s easy to pick up new sports and you stand to gain the most from the positive influences of being on a team. Lately, I’ve started to see a few organizations that are using sports to help end homelessness. A few months ago I wrote about Back On My Feet which “promotes the self-sufficiency of people experiencing homelessness by engaging them in running as a means to build confidence, strength and self-esteem.” Today I came across Street Soccer USA, which is a New York, NY based non-profit that “to get homeless men, women, and youth off the streets, scoring goals on the field, and achieving their goals in life.” It’s a really neat idea, and it seems to be working.
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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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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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I’ve always had an amazing appreciation for wildlife, but after a week in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, it’s definitely grown. I’m completely amazed by how many species I was able to experience that were at one point on the brink of extinction. While the federal government has done a fantastic job in that particular situation, they’re not able to act in the same way across the world. That’s where organizations like World Wildlife Fund come in. WWF is a Washington, DC non-profit that “has been protecting the future of nature” for the last 50 years. They work in 100 countries and have more than 5 million members across the world. The organization’s vision is “to build a future in which people live in harmony with nature.” That’s a tall task considering our history, but there are certainly signs of hope.
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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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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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The domestication of animals has to be one of the biggest developments in human history. They are obviously a wonderful direct food source, but they’re even better as an indirect food source when they provide things like milk, eggs, fertilizer, and more animals. So when we talk about battling poverty, it makes sense to go back to what worked for us in the past: animals. That’s what Heifer International does. They’re a Little Rock, AR based non-profit that enables people to “donate animals to poor countries.” It’s an ingenious idea, and it’s even kind of fun. Not only does an animal provide a source for food and other products, but it also requires responsibility. Caring for an animal is an ultimate life lesson.
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Considering the way most of us Americans eat, it’s nearly impossible to comprehend that a lot of people in this world rely on subsistence farming. In the U.S., a single farmer can easily feed about 100 people, yet across much of the world it takes an entire family’s work to feed a family. When Mother Nature stops playing nice, all of that work can be destroyed and the family may be left to go hungry. A big part of the difference in agricultural output has to do with technology, which is why One Acre Fund is working to bring farming technology to the developing world. They’re a non-profit based in New York, NY and Washington, DC, but they do most of their work in Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi. One Acre Fund focuses on working directly with the poorest families–the ones that deal with hunger more than three months out of the year.
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There’s a homeless guy who lives in the park near my apartment. I’m convinced that he’s actually a superhero in disguise. There’s something different about him from the others who hang in the park. He combs his hair with a mirror, he works on his tan, and he uses his bags of stuff to do bicep curls. If you’re exercising, you have to some sort of positive outlook. That’s why I love what Back On My Feet is doing. They’re a Philadelphia, PA based non-profit that “promotes the self-sufficiency of people experiencing homelessness by engaging them in running as a means to build confidence, strength and self-esteem.” No food. No shelter. Just running at first. (There are some programs for those who have had success with the running.) We’ve seen plenty of athletic programs used to promote achievement in youth–why not try it with adults?
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Neuroscience is a word that is about as intimidating as astrophysics. Most people have no idea what it means, but they’re pretty sure that its definition is over their head. The truth is that neuroscience is simply the study of the brain and nervous system. That’s not to say it’s a simple science, but it’s a science that covers equipment that we all have. With that said, neuroscience gets a bit complex as it draws from “other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics, medicine and allied disciplines, philosophy, physics, and psychology.” (Here’s the Wikipedia article on Neuroscience.) The Society for Neuroscience is a Washington, DC based non-profit member organization for the scientists and physicians who study the brain and nervous system.
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It’s easy to think of the developing world as having completely different problems from the ones we have in the U.S. But when you look more closely, you start to realize that the link between poverty and a lack of good education is consistent across the world–our inner cities and the developing world have similar problems that require similar solutions. buildOn is a non-profit organization based in Stamford, CT that aims to break “the cycle of poverty, illiteracy, and low expectations through service and education” by “putting youth in service and building schools in developing countries.” Most non-profits either focus on education abroad or domestically, buildOn is unique in that they believe that they can better solve both problems by working on them at the same time.
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I absolutely love playing sports and participating in other outdoor activities. Physical activities are great because they provide nearly immediate feedback. You have a great idea of how you’re performing and how hard you can push yourself. That’s why the National Ability Center in Park City, UT uses activities like “alpine and cross-country skiing, snowboarding, swimming, cycling, waterskiing, horseback riding, rafting,” and more to aid the “the development of lifetime skills for people of all ages and abilities.” By using specially designed equipment and well-trained instructors (many of whom are individuals with disabilities), The National Ability Center is able to bring these wonderful activities to people who may otherwise never have a chance to participate.
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When I was in 9th grade I had to take a Health class. One day our teacher had us write letters to our future selves. She told us that she’d send them to us when we graduated high school. I never saw that letter again. I guess I’ll never know how I’m stacking up against the expectations of my 14 year old self. While many lessons from health class seem trite at the time, they can have life-long beneficial effects. Unfortunately, many public schools can’t afford to offer health education. This is a big problem because “teenagers today are engaging in risky behavior at alarming rates, harming their bodies and their futures.” Peer Health Exchange is a San Francisco, CA based non-profit organization (but they’re working across the country) that fixes this problem by recruiting, selecting, and training “college student volunteers to teach high school students a comprehensive health curriculum.” My sister is one of these volunteers, and she’s had a wonderful experience so far (which is why she has been bugging me to feature PHE).
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Earth Day is a contrived holiday. It was designed as a day of teach-ins across the country to educate students about environmental evils. April 22 was chosen as the date because it fit perfectly between spring break and final exams. If you want to maximize on-campus student activity, this is the time of year to do it. It’s worked. Earth Day now has more than 40 years of history behind it, and it continues to be a great way to rally people for environmental causes. Earth Day Network is a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that organizes Earth Day activities across the world while also focusing on environmental causes year round. In the past they’ve “executed successful environmental campaigns on issues ranging from climate change and drinking water to voter registration and saving the whale.”
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Have you ever bought Easter candy after Easter? They’re usually giving it away at about 90% off. We live in a country where food is so plentiful that it becomes undesirable if it’s not the right color or in the right packaging for the time of year. Those egg shaped Reese’s instantly won’t sell, even though they have a better peanut butter to chocolate ratio than the normal cups. It’s easy to forget how lucky we are to live in a society where one of our biggest problems is an overabundance of calories. The International Food Policy Research Institute is a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that serves those who aren’t so lucky. The IFPRI envisions “a world where every person has secure access to sufficient and safe food to sustain a healthy and productive life and where food-related policy decisions are made transparently, including the participation of consumers and producers.”
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I was really lucky in that my parents sent me to a top notch private school for 6th through 12th grade. I have no doubt that it had a significantly positive effect on my education. Why? Because it was a truly great school. Private schools obviously aren’t the only great schools (and plenty of private schools aren’t all that great), but there’s no doubt that many of our country’s public schools are underperforming. 50CAN is a New York, NY based non-profit organization that is pushing for education reform because they believe that “Great Schools Can Change Everything.” They don’t just mean test scores and individual outcomes. They mean our economy, our democracy, our dreams, our competitiveness, our health, our communities, and pretty much everything else. 50CAN is different from many of the education focused non-profits that you’re likely familiar with in that 50CAN is focused squarely on advocacy.
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I think I saw one of the best hockey games I’ll ever see in my life last night. I made the drive from Chicago up to Green Bay, WI to see the heroic Cornell Big Red take on the evil University of Michigan Wolverines in the first round of the Division I NCAA Tournament. I was devastated when Michigan scored two goals in the first minute and thirty three seconds and relieved when the second goal was called off after the officials viewed the replay. In addition to the overturned goal, there was a shorthanded goal, a missed penalty shot, a 5 minute major, a prolonged 5×3 that didn’t lead to a goal, a game tying goal late in the 3rd period (for the bad guys), and an overtime game winning goal for the good guys. I woke up with no voice and an inability to think about anything but hockey, which is why we’re going to take a look at Colorado Springs, CO based USA Hockey today. It was founded in 1936 and has been “the National Governing Body for the sport of ice hockey in the United States” since.” In addition to that, USA Hockey does everything that it can to “promote the growth of hockey in America and provide the best possible experience for all participants by encouraging, developing, advancing and administering the sport.”
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I’m not big on St. Patrick’s Day, but judging from the number of people that I’ve seen dressed in green today, I’m about the only one who isn’t. It gets pretty ridiculous here in Chicago, and I’m sure it does in quite a few other cities. It makes me wonder what people from Ireland think of the way Americans celebrate the holiday. I’m sure some of the people who have been helped by the Irish International Immigrant Center in Boston, MA have an opinion. It’s a non-profit organization that “has supported Irish immigrants since 1989 and has grown into a multiservice center for people from 120 countries helping them find their place in our multicultural society.” While most of us think about Irish immigrants coming to America in the 1800s, there are certainly still people immigrating. That’s why the Irish International Immigrant Center exists.
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I think it’s pretty mind blowing how interconnected the world economies have become during my lifetime. While international trade has existed for many thousands of years, never before have people had to rely so heavily on the production of others half way around the world. I generally think this is a great thing, but many issues come along with the growth. The World Economic Forum is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab in Geneva, Switzerland to be “committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” The World Economic Forum, which also has offices in New York, NY and Beijing, China, is probably best known for its annual meeting at Davos where they bring together some of the world’s most important leaders to engage on some of the most pressing issues.
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Environmental issues and politics make an interesting combination. The environment is typically a long-run issue, and politicians are historically bad at dealing with anything that isn’t in the short-term. If you don’t believe me, look no further than the national debt or the Social Security situation. The reason for this is that most voters don’t get fired up about stuff that is going to happen in 5/10/100 years. Voters get fired up about the present, so that’s what politicians cater to–remember it’s all about reelection. If you want politicians to act with a long-term mindset, you really have to push them, and that’s exactly what the League of Conservation Voters does. They’re a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that “works to turn environmental values into national priorities.” They do this by focusing on two key areas: educating the public about environmental issues and helping elect pro-environment leaders.
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