I started One Day One Job because I couldn’t land a job. After taking a bit of a break after graduating college, I realized that employers weren’t too keen on hiring someone who had been on the job market for a while. The only way that I was going to get experience was to create it for myself. People with criminal histories face a similar, but much more dire problem. That’s why Defy Ventures was started. They’re a New York, NY based non-profit that “provides carefully selected, ambitious men and women who have criminal histories with life-changing entrepreneurship, leadership, and career opportunities.”
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Tagged as:
development,
Internships,
investment,
New York,
non-profit,
social venture,
training,
venture capital
InvestmentNews is our sponsor this week, and they would like to tell you about their NextGen Virtual Career Fair on November 8th. It’s an awesome opportunity for students and interns to network and find finance jobs on the spot.
Although I always knew that I wanted to run my own business, it took me until after I graduated college to actually do something about it. It’s a shame because there are all kinds of resources available for entrepreneurs who are enrolled in college. A great example is the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. They are an Amherst, MA based non-profit that supports “technology innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education to create experiential learning opportunities for students and successful, socially beneficial innovations and businesses.” The organization exists to bring all of the great thinking ideas that happen on college campuses to life through business.
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entrepreneurship,
fellowship programs,
innovation,
Internships,
Massachusetts,
non-profit,
program development,
social entrepreneurship,
social venture
When I proposed to Amy, I had no doubt that she was going to say yes–even if I did it with a Ring Pop. Still, I thought it was only right to follow tradition and plunk down a bunch of money on a diamond. While some people see such an expenditure as wasteful, others just don’t like what a diamond means. They want a more socially conscious option. The good new for those people is that ethically produced diamonds do exist, and Brilliant Earth is a company that is hoping to make them the norm. Brilliant Earth is based in San Francisco, CA, and they are “the leading supplier of conflict free diamond jewelry.” It all started with two Stanford students, one of whom was about to get engaged. She wanted a ring that represented her values but was still something that she wanted to wear for the rest of her life. She and her fiancé struggled to find what they were looking for, and as a result Brilliant Earth was started to make the process easier for other couples looking for the same thing.
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California,
customer service,
gemology,
green,
Internships,
inventory control,
jewelry,
Logistics,
operations,
sales,
social venture,
supply chain,
sustainability
I’m not sure how I came up with the idea to feature non-profit jobs on weekends, but it has worked out well. Most of the “non-profits” that we cover are 501(c)3 charitable organizations, but occasionally we feature a trade association or lobbying organization. Today’s “company” is as close as you’ll get to a non-profit while still being for profit (and that’s why I’m writing about them on a Saturday). Community Wealth Ventures is a management consulting firm that helps “leaders innovate, grow and sustain social change organizations that build a better world.” They’re based in Washington, DC and only seem to serve non-profit and foundations. What adds to Community Wealth Ventures’ non-profit street cred is that they’re a wholly owned subsidiary of Share Our Strength (featured in 2011), which is an anti-hunger non-profit. That means that all of Community Wealth Ventures’ profits go towards Share Our Strength’s mission.
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consulting,
Internships,
non-profit,
social venture,
unpaid,
Washington DC
As you’ve probably noticed, we cover non-profit internships on the weekends. Occasionally I come across a company that feels like it should be on the weekend, but rules are rules (even if I’ve created them arbitrarily). Social Impact is one of those companies. They’re an Arlington, VA based management consulting firm and “global social enterprise dedicated to helping international agencies, civil society and governments become more effective agents of positive social and economic change.” Social Impact was founded in 1996 has grown to serve five regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia & Pacific, Latin America & Caribbean, Europ & Central Aisa, and Middle East & North Africa.
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business development,
consulting,
economics,
education,
environmental,
events,
international development,
Internships,
paid,
program development,
public health,
recruiting,
social entrepreneurship,
social venture,
training,
Virginia
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Usually we associate with brands based on our experiences with their products. After a while we know what brands we like and use brand names as a heuristic to make purchasing decisions easier. Occasionally when a brand has an exceptional story, the brand actually becomes the product. That seems to be the case with Holstee, a New York, NY based company that focuses on “lifestyle design with a conscience.” The only reason I had heard about them is that they’re often on Fab.com, yet there are a ton of people who have bought a printed version of the Holstee manifesto to put on their walls (see the manifesto here). The brand has literally become the product. Some may write off Holstee as an online store for “hipsters,” but the “People, Planet, Product” approach has a lot of meaning for a lot of people, and it’s enabled Holstee to grow their business.
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Tagged as:
apparel,
design,
e-commerce,
fashion,
green,
Internships,
New York,
social venture
Although getting money to fund a startup company isn’t what I called easy, there’s a pretty standard process for seeking investment. When it comes to starting up a non-profit, the process isn’t often so clear. This can make finding funding seem impossible. However, there are some smart people who have taken the venture capital model and adjusted it for the non-profit world. One of these organizations is New Profit, which is based in Cambridge, MA. They were founded in 1998 and they focus “on supporting innovative social entrepreneurs who have brought a pathbreaking, big idea to life in an innovative organization.” They do this through their philanthropy fund, which has funded a ton of non-profit organizations. (I’m having trouble determining whether New Profit is actually a non-profit, but philanthropy funds usually are.)
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Tagged as:
communications,
Internships,
investment,
Massachusetts,
non-profit,
social entrepreneurship,
social investing,
social venture,
unpaid,
venture capital
Volunteering is a great thing to do while you’re in college. It’s an opportunity to do good while building valuable skills and putting yourself to work doing something other than studying (which is really helpful when you start looking for a job). Obviously volunteering isn’t only for people who have time on their hands, yet many non-profit organizations treat it like it is. Why would you have a top notch software developer running around picking up trash when he or she could be fixing a few bugs on the organization’s website? Why have a brilliant investment banker building a house when he or she could be managing the organization’s endowment? If the volunteers want time away from work and would prefer to do something different, that’s totally cool. But what if they want to offer pro bono services? Where do they find organizations who can make the best use of their time? Catchafire is a New York, NY based B-Corp (a for-profit company with a social mission–we actually featured internships with B Corporation) that aims to fix this problem. They want to “make it easy for every professional to use their skills for good, and to make it easy for every nonprofit and social enterprise to access and effectively use pro bono as a way to build capacity within their organization.”
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business development,
consulting,
esign,
Internships,
marketing,
New York,
paid,
product development,
product management,
sales,
social entrepreneurship,
social venture,
software development,
user experience,
web development
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One development that I’ve become more and more aware of since I graduated college is that of social entrepreneurship. The startup culture doesn’t apply solely to for-profit ventures. The tough thing about starting your own non-profit is getting money to run the organization. Early stage businesses can either grow organically by selling products or get investment at the cost of a portion of future revenues. Early stage non-profits don’t have as many options because most donors only want to give money to established non-profits that have a track record of doing good things with the money. That’s where New York City based Echoing Green steps in. They invest in and support “outstanding emerging social entrepreneurs to launch new organizations that deliver bold, high-impact solutions.” Since Echoing Green is already an established non-profit, they’re able to raise money to support upstarts that already have top notch founders and world changing missions, but not much else.
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development,
green,
Internships,
New York,
non-profit,
paid,
program development,
social entrepreneurship,
social investing,
social venture
As a member on the Board of Advisors for a startup non-profit, I know how hard it is to get things going. Building a website, raising the first $1,000, and writing a “business plan” are all huge challenges that separate ideas from real non-profits. And that doesn’t even include getting started on the good work that is the organization’s mission. The first few years are filled with ups and downs, and leaders of non-profit startups can use every little bit of extra help that they can get. One way that they can get that help is to work with Sparkseed, a San Ramon, CA based non-profit organization “that exists to develop the next generation of social entrepreneurs and increase their impact on society.” It’s an incubator/angel fund for early stage, student-led social ventures (both for-profit and non-profit).
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administrative,
California,
design,
development,
Internships,
non-profit,
social investing,
social venture,
unpaid
Homelessness is pretty terrible, but the problems that it leads to can be even worse. One of those problems is often AIDS. Housing Works is a New York City based non-profit that “provides homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS and their families with housing, meals, medical care, drug treatment, social support, employment opportunities and other lifesaving services.” The cool thing is the scale that they’re doing this on—they are “the largest community-based AIDS service organization in the United States.” That means that since 1990 they’ve served more than 20,000 New Yorkers.
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administrative,
design,
Internships,
New York,
non-profit,
outreach,
research,
social venture,
unpaid,
writing
Believe it or not, over the past week One Day, One Internship has been coming to you from a lodge on the banks of the Grand Cascapedia river in Quebec. As I’ve learned this week, fishing for Atlantic Salmon is extremely difficult, even though you can often see the fish right in front of you. In some pools there appear to be plenty of fish, but none of them will bite. That’s probably a good thing considering the fact that the estimated annual run on the Bonaventure (where we’ve been doing our fishing) is only about 1,500-2,000 fish. That means that if I catch and release my daily limit of two fish, I’ve caught .1% of the entire run. Even though we’d really like to, we can’t even think about killing one of these fish to eat—they’re too precious. Luckily, CleanFish is a company (and a B Corporation, you know what that is now!) that offers sustainable seafood that we can eat. They’re based in San Francisco with offices in Gloucester, MA and Los Angeles, CA as well, and they’re changing the way that we eat seafood.
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California,
food,
Internships,
marketing,
Massachusetts,
paid,
social entrepreneurship,
social venture
We first found Better World Books when we were looking for non-profits jobs to write about for One Day, One Job (in case you were wondering, here are non-profit internships). We quickly realized that they weren’t a non-profit, but a “for profit social venture.” That means that Better World Books operates with the goal of profitability, but they donate all profits to non-profit organizations such as Books for Africa, Room to Read, and the National Center for Family Literacy. It’s a really cool model that seems to be working well for them.
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Tagged as:
acquisitions,
auditing,
California,
Georgia,
Internships,
marketing,
social venture
