By Steven Joiner. Read more Career Corner posts here.
From Hamed Saber via Flickr's Creative Commons
A recent report by The Bridgespan Group finds that nonprofit leaders from around the country foresee difficulty in filling 24,000 senior management positions in 2009 alone. The report, entitled Finding Leaders for America's Nonprofits, also addresses some of the reasons for this difficulty.
While the prospect of 24,000 nonprofit leadership positions sounds on the surface like fantastic news for anyone interested in meaningful nonprofit work, there are some important pieces of the report to consider. After all, remember that the 433 U.S. nonprofit leaders (all from organizations with annual budgets over $1 million) said that finding these leaders will be difficult. Why? Some of the difficulties highlighted include: - No clear understanding of how to find qualified candidates
- An organizations' inability to offer adequate compensation
- Difficulty in finding executives with the necessary specialized skills
- A lack of resources for find or cultivate new leaders
- No preexisting networks to find the best leaders
- Perceptions that the talent pool may have returned to the for-profit sector or reached retirement age.
From a job seeker's perspective, it may seem incredible that there is a huge pool of talent available yet these leaders are citing problems in cultivating new managers. What, then, can a job seeker do? The answer will not surprise you (since it is the same answer that Meg and I give every time we write a Career Corner post)... get involved!
We've talked a lot in the past about intentional relationship building and being an active participant in your local nonprofit sector so that you raise your visibility and help organizations see your value. Even if you are working with an organization that doesn't have one of these 24,000 leadership jobs opening up in the next six months, chances are there is a partner organization that does. For you sector switchers (or, to use Bridgespan's term: bridgers), keep in mind the report cited that 21% of the senior management positions filled in the last 18 months were filled by bridgers. But also keep in mind that, while these bridgers' business skills are desirable, there is also concern over that ever-elusive "cultural fit."
Still, I'd be willing to bet that many of these professionals were already out there networking and getting involved and they ended up being the right professional in the right place at the right time...and there's nothing stopping you from setting yourself for similar success.
These could be curing cancer! Photo by mybloodyself
By Hannah, who's down with efficiency.
Would you like to help cure muscular dystrophy? How about cancer? Find new influenza antiviral drugs? Fight AIDS?
Even if you don't have a background in science or medicine, you can contribute. It's easier that you think, thanks to a technology called grid computing. Grid computing creates a system of many individual computers that have greater computational power that a handful of supercomputers. The computational work is split into small pieces that happen simultaneously. The result? Research time can be reduced from years to months. As an example, in 2003 scientists using grid computing identified 44 potential treatments to fight smallpox. Without the grid, the research would have taken more than a year.
You can contribute to this important research by connecting your computer to the grid. Here's what you do. Register your computer with the World Community Grid, an organization whose mission is to "create the world's largest public computing grid to tackle projects that benefit humanity." Download and install a small program to your computer. When you're not using it, your computer can request data from the WCG server. Then your computer performs computations on the data, and sends it back. The computations provide scientists with valuable information that helps their research.
According to their website, World Community Grid is making technology available only to public and not-for-profit organizations to use in humanitarian research that might otherwise not be completed due to the high cost of the computer infrastructure required in the absence of a public grid. All results will be in the public domain and made public to the global research community.
This entry is one in an ongoing series about how we can all be taking small steps to help one another in tough times. Read all of our "A Little Bit More" posts here.
Posted by Julia Smith.
Stefanie Faucher
Our latest podcast is the first in a new series called "Questions With" in which we feature leaders in the social sector discussing their work and professional journeys.
In this episode Douglas Coulter interviews Stefanie Faucher about her anti-death penalty work and her role as the Program Director at Death Penalty Focus, an organization that advocates for the abolition of capital punishment.
Listen to the episode now.
Posted by Hannah Kane, who also edits our web development blog.
Photo from Genocide Intervention Network via Flickr
Students have long been involved in social change efforts, aligning themselves with diverse causes including the labor movement, anti-war movements, divestment campaigns, Fair Trade campaigns, climate change, access to education, and a lot more.
To celebrate such efforts, nominations are now being accepted for the first ever Campus Hellraisers award, honoring the year's "most noteworthy student campaigns and other creative feats of campus activism." The award is sponsored by Mother Jones, Campus Progress, and WireTap. Winning campaigns will be featured in the September/October issue of Mother Jones.
Note: Nominees are not limited to college students. Grad students, high school students, and kindergartners are all potential candidates.
Nominate a student activist here by June 10th.
From Jung Fitzpatrick, who works in our Portland, OR office.
The check-in table at a fair last fall
Summertime has finally arrived, and so have the Washington, DC and New York City Graduate Degree Fairs! Free and open to the public, these events provide East Coast Idealists the opportunity to learn more about a wide range of local, national, and international social impact graduate programs. We are expecting representatives from more than 60 grad schools offering degrees in Public Health, Environmental Policy, Nonprofit Management, Public Administration, Business Administration, Education, and International Affairs, just to name a few.
At our grad fairs you can chat with admissions folks about the application process, and get more specific information about the options available in the area of your choice. You can also attend free panel discussions of grad school representatives explaining the ins and outs of financial aid, applications, and deciding which graduate school program is the right one for you. Our local partners— Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of DC and The Washington Center in DC, and Educational Housing Services in New York—will be on hand to provide you additional resources for your graduate experience and professional development.
If you are unable to attend one of these summer fairs, don't despair! We'll hold events across the United States this fall, including ones in San Francisco, Denver, Boston, and Virginia Beach. You can find the full list of grad fairs here.
In the meantime you can ponder grad school options at our Public Education Graduate Education Resource Center. Articles cover a range of topics: To keep up-to-date with the latest Idealist Grad Fair news and resources, find us on Twitter (@Gradresources) and Facebook.
Tell your friends! We hope to see you there.
From Celeste Hamilton:
Photo of mate mugs by blog editor Julia Smith
Interested in finding free or low cost volunteer opportunities in Argentina? Have a project or skill you want to get the word out about? Keen on meeting other Idealists just like you?
Join us for the More than Mate: Volunteering in Argentina meet-up on June 16th!
With over two thousand nonprofit organizations in Buenos Aires alone, we know it can be tough to navigate the NGO landscape in a foreign country. So we're teaming up with Voluntarios Sin Fronteras to host a mini-event dedicated to you, the international volunteer. There will be a "speed dating"-style exercise around the topic of volunteering, quick informational presentations, a chance to network with others and more.
We welcome anyone interested in community work, whether you're a volunteer coordinator at an organization, are looking to become involved or are an experienced volunteer.
Go to http://idealist.org/volunteerargentina to RSVP for the event.
Looking forward to meeting you in Buenos Aires!
From our team in Portland, Oregon:
Photo courtesy of the podcast producers
Last November, we blogged about a mentorship program taking place in our office where four of the women on our staff would be mentoring a small group of teenage girls. Coordinated by Girls, Inc. of NW Oregon, the Associates Mentoring Program provides opportunities for busy professional women to join forces with girls in crafting a project to explore different career paths, develop new skills, get to know one another, and have fun in the process.
Seven months and a ton of work later, we’re proud to show off the fruits of their labor: a new podcast! “Past, Present, and Future…The Voices of Girls and Women” explores the diverse and shared perceptions of women and girls, the stories they tell, and the common values they share. A team of three girls and four Idealists met every other week to create this new podcast, determining the theme, crafting six questions to ask each person, interviewing 17 women and girls who ranged in age from 14 to 61, and doing lots and lots of editing (with the guidance and assistance of our own Amy Potthast, host of The New Service podcasts). The end result? A twenty minute window into unique dreams and goals, stories of perseverance and ambition, and shared hopes and ideals of girls and women today.
Ready to listen? Click here.
Special thanks to rock star teammates Christa, Polina, and Galyna; Girls Inc of NW Oregon; and the many fascinating girls and women who participated in our project!
By Meg, who pretends to be a pizzaiola. Find the entire Career Corner series here.
From Flickr user eyeliam via Creative Commons
I read this interview with Matthew May, the author of In Pursuit of Elegance, a few weeks ago, and it’s been rolling around in my brain since then. In May’s book, he defines something as elegant when it is both unusually simple and surprisingly powerful.
One of the reasons I’ve enjoyed thinking about this interview is because I love how the mirror of elegance can be held up to anything with interesting results. Lately, I’ve been thinking about elegance in terms of pizza and resumes.
There are few pizza places out here in Portland, Oregon that are really, really good. However, most people agree that Ken’s Artisan Pizza is the best. The crust is gorgeous. The sauce is fantastic but not too showy. The cheese and other, high quality toppings are simply and perfectly paired – no meat-lovers supreme here. I love this pizza because I can taste each component; there is no overload of ingredients, and each element (crust, sauce, cheese, toppings) can shine. It’s simple and powerful – an elegant pizza.
I feel like one of the key goals for a resume is for it to fit into this definition of elegance; a resume should be powerful and simple.
I’m sure you’ve heard that a resume (and cover letter) needs to be tailored to each position you apply to. This is where the elegance comes in. Because not only does it need to have all of essential, tailored information, but it needs to not have any extra stuff.
One way to do this is to sit down with each job posting you’re interested in. Look at the list of required skills, responsibilities, and qualifications. Can each of those points be easily found on your resume? Because the folks who do hiring are not going to search, infer, assume, or guess that you have qualifications if they’re not spelled out clearly on your resume. Similarly, they don’t have time to wade through a lot of excess information to figure out if you’re a good candidate for the job.
This is where a master resume (see Chapter 8 of The Idealist Guide, Presenting Yourself on Paper) can be incredibly useful. Put your master resume next to the job description and get rid of any bullet points that don’t match the job requirements. Obviously, if you’re left with few to no bullet points, the job may not be a good fit. But if you’ve got a good number of points left, go through them and make sure all of the bullet points add value to your resume from the perspective of each job’s hiring manager. If not, they’re just fluff. The subtractive process through which your resume is tailored to a specific position is key to making it effective and elegant.
So for both pizza and resumes, the ultimate goal is to allow each individual element to shine while creating a powerful impression of the whole. Granted, one is much better with a glass of red wine…but that’s another post.
Got any other resume tips? Or pizza suggestions? Feel free to leave a comment.
From Scott Stadum.
From the Flickr "Election" photoset by Shahram Sharif
The results from last Friday's Iranian election have sparked massive protests in the streets of Tehran and other cities throughout the country, despite the government's best efforts to disable SMS and cell phone signals and block websites like Facebook and Twitter.
Tweets, videos, blog entries and other media are making their way out of Iran due in part to the efforts of global citizens setting up proxy servers that are allowing people on the ground to bypass the government's censorship.
One of the real media stars in the coverage of the protests is Twitter, showing once again that social media has incredible potential for not only reporting the news but directly shaping world politics. Tweets were pouring in about the street protests long before CNN and other mainstream news outlets picked up on the development.
Regardless of your position on the election, it's clear that independent media is vital for allowing citizens to speak truth to power.
For further coverage of the protests in Iran, check out #IranElection on Twitter search, as well as Twazzup and the Huffington Post.
Editor's Note, 3:00 p.m. EST: Andrew Sullivan's blog is also chock-full of information.
Posted by Julia Smith.
Idealist is partnering with Mozilla and a number of other organizations for the first-ever Mozilla Service Week later this year. From September 14-21, members of the Mozilla network will be encouraged to volunteer with nonprofits and NGOs, lending a hand with hardware, software, social media, and other technology and web support.
What does this mean for nonprofits in our network? - If there's something you've been meaning to learn ("What the heck does 'Web 2.0' mean, and how might it help advance our mission?") or install (say, that gently used printer you received as a donation) or network (that old desktop computer you're hoping an intern can use)...this might be the perfect week to get help, get connected, and get answers.
- If you've never registered your nonprofit on Idealist, now is the time. It's free. Sign in, and then click "Add your organization / group" in the upper right corner of this page.
- If this is intriguing, you'll want to stay tuned to this blog and our Twitter feed throughout July and especially August and September.
Visit the Mozilla Service Week site to learn more.
From Kara Montermoso, who will be at our table at Boot Camp!
This weekend, Craigslist Foundation will host its 6th annual Boot Camp for nonprofit organizations and individuals interested in making a difference in their communities nationwide. It will be held on Saturday, June 20, 2009, on the University of California, Berkeley campus. The all-day program focuses on skills for connecting, motivating and inspiring greater community involvement and impact with an emphasis on community-building and the opportunities for collaboration among individuals, businesses, government, philanthropists, and nonprofits.
Boot Campers will have the opportunity to meet nonprofit professionals, social entrepreneurs and passionate individuals and connect with the resources that can support their missions. Twenty-four workshops will be led by experts on topics such as fundraising, future technology, advocacy and lobbying, community building, marketing and messaging, strategic planning, and measuring success and impact. Learn more here.
After Boot Camp, Craigslist Foundation will host podcast recordings of the workshops online to give everyone a taste of the Boot Camp experience, even if they weren’t able to make it to Berkeley.
Idealist's Executive Director, Ami Dar, will be part of the closing ceremony panel discussion and we'll have a table in the Exhibitor's Hall. Come by and say hi!
From our Grad Fair team.
Photo by Jung Fitzpatrick
Today is the big day! If you're in the area, the Idealist.org Washington DC Graduate Fair for the Public Good is tonight from 5-8 pm at American University.
Not in the DC area? Maybe you can attend the New York City event instead. It's tomorrow, June 18, from 5-8 pm and hosted by the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service.
At each fair, we'll have representatives from 61 social impact graduate programs. Yu'll also be able to meet our event cosponsors. In DC, we have two cosponsors, The Washington Center (TWC) and Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of DC (YNPNdc).
Since 1957, TWC has provided an integrated academic and work experience to prepare college students and professionals for lives of achievement and civic engagement. TWC’s Postgraduate Professional Development Program finds college graduates and graduate students placements in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors based upon their individual interests or degree progress.
YNPNdc is a professional community that seeks to train, connect and inspire tomorrow’s nonprofit leaders. Over 3,400 members strong, YNPNdc has been serving the Washington metro area since 2003. Through networking events, professional development seminars and a fully featured website they engage and support nonprofit professionals.
In New York, Educational Housing Services (EHS) is our cosponsor. EHS provides safe and affordable off-campus housing to the rising student population of New York City. They strive to create strong student communities in partnership with the schools and universities with which they are affiliated. If you are looking for a graduate school in New York, speak with their representatives to explore the best options for accommodation and take advantage of their insight into student life in the Big Apple.
Not in either of these cities today or tomorrow? Here's the full list of grad fairs we'll host this fall.
And be sure to check out our Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center for articles on preparing for, financing, and succeeding in your graduate education.
By Joanna Eng, who can usually be found blogging at Idealist in NYC.
From Flickr user soot+chalk
Changemakers.com, which hosts contests to help people get their ideas for social change off the ground, has just unveiled its new look and feel. Changemakers is an initiative of Ashoka, a nonprofit that works to support social entrepreneurs. The new design aims to turn the website into a community, with interactive features adding more opportunities for connection.
The web team also did their best to make the new website reflect the global nature of the Changemakers community, by keeping the design simple enough for slower internet connections, making the site available in four languages, and considering the cultural implications of even small aspects of the design: "One new feature was going to be a simple 'thumbs up-thumbs down' rating system. 'Well, it turns out that "thumbs up" is a completely obscene gesture in several key markets that we want to be deeply connected with,' said Benedict with a chuckle. 'That so typically depicts our Changemakers challenge.'"
Check out the redesigned website at www.changemakers.com.
From our staff.
By Flickr user dalbera
Who invented the Internet? Al Gore? Google? DARPA? Norbert Wiener?
You can probably find someone who will tell you, with great authority, that almost any guess you have heard is completely correct. Or completely bogus.
On the related – but much simpler – question of how nonprofits started using the Internet, a pioneer of that movement has done some online research. Jayne Craven’s “Brief Review” of developments before 1996 in online work by NPOs is posted online at her website.
It’s interesting to trace the beginnings of such familiar names as Volunteer Match, Handsnet, and yes, Idealist. Frankly, we’re proud that both Idealist and the Nonprofit FAQ have roots that go back more than a decade, to the early days of exploration about how this now familiar resource might help to build better communities and enrich people’s lives.
If you know of someone who was actively working on developing Internet connections for a nonprofit organization (or for nonprofit organizations in general) in 1995 or earlier you might want to take up the invitation toward the end of the review and give Jayne Cravens the details. After all, most of the resources she writes about were started, and continue to this day, as collaborations among public spirited people who wanted to share their enthusiasm for something new, for something utterly useful, for something that offered seemingly limitless possibilities for creative new forms of action and of service.
PS: DARPA is not a character in Star Trek but an acronym for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (part of the US Department of Defense), which actually did provide some of the funding for the initial networks and related research that have grown into the Internet. Norbert Wiener was an MIT professor who invented the World Wide Web (sort of) before there was any computer anywhere that could possibly have supported it.
By Amy Potthast, creator of The New Service podcast and blog.
By Stonewall Veteran Gilbert Baker
June is Pride Month, so The New Service podcast from Idealist.org is taking a closer look at the experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals serving in the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps. To listen now, click here.
Our guests are lesbian and gay former service corps participants: The New Service podcast host Amy Potthast speaks with them about agency policies affecting LGBT service, including policies around joining the corps with a same-sex partner; the experience of serving as a lesbian or gay corps member; and opportunities to serve on projects that relate to LGBT issues.
You can also read our interview with one of the only known transgender Returned Peace Corps Volunteer about his service. (Because of scheduling issues, and as a way to maintain his anonymity, we agreed to a written interview with him.)
Finally, if you are an LGBT individual considering Peace Corps service, register for Kate Kuykendall's online information session "Have Rainbow, Will Travel: The LGBT Experience in the Peace Corps" this Saturday, June 20, 2009. She'll introduce Peace Corps service more specifically, and also address issues of special concern to LGBT folks.
By Joanna Eng, who also blogs at Idealist in NYC.
From Flickr user joana hard
We're no stranger to fundraising strategies that involve baked goods. Here's another yummy model for grassroots fundraising on a global scale:
Starting tomorrow, June 20, the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale starts selling goodies, well, around the world! Over 70 community groups from New Zealand to Nigeria to North Carolina are organizing their own bake sales in the coming week as part of this worldwide initiative. And the proceeds go to over 70 different causes—most of the bake sales will benefit animal shelters, vegetarian clubs, or wildlife conservation organizations; a few others will give their proceeds to a women's resource center, a shelter for abused children, and even a local man diagnosed with cancer.
The Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale is organized in an impressively decentralized way. Each participating group organizes everything themselves, and can choose what to do with the proceeds from their bake sale. In fact, the only two rules for participating are to sell only vegan food, and not to promote the intentional harming of animals.
Whether you're into veganism or not, the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale offers a comprehensive list of tips and resources for organizing a bake sale in your own community.
Compiled by Scott Stadum and Douglas Coulter.
From Flickr user Barrybar
IdealistNews is a project of Idealist.org and Reddit where users like you can submit nonprofit news stories from around the web and vote on your favorites. Here's a roundup of some recent hot stories (titled the way users submitted them). Have you posted a link to IdealistNews yet? It's easier than ever with the "bookmarklets" tool. You can drag it to your toolbar or to your bookmarks and submit a link with the click of a mouse. Find out more.
To find more stories or share your own, be sure to visit IdealistNews
Posted by Julia Smith.
President Obama has asked everyone in the United States to heed the call of service – to pitch in and make their communities a better place. YouTube is stepping up to provide a very "21st century" way of doing just that: a new program called YouTube's Video Volunteers.
The mission of YouTube's Video Volunteers platform is to connect nonprofit organizations with skilled video makers who can help them broadcast their causes through video, reaching new audiences online and driving action around issues and projects that matter to them. The Video Volunteers page shows video-related volunteer opportunities that have been posted to allforgood.org (which includes listings from Idealist.org and VolunteerMatch). As a result, a YouTuber eager to help out might find a listing like this ("Afro Diaspora Music Video Website" in New York City) or this ("Promotional Video for the GO-Science Challenger Learning Center" in Greenville, NC).
Do you work at a nonprofit that needs help making a video? From now on, when you post a volunteer opportunity on Idealist, make sure to use the words Video Volunteer in your posting. That way, it will show up in the AllforGood feed – and as a result, on the YouTube Video Volunteers page.
To learn more, visit youtube.com/videovolunteers.
By Steven Joiner, one of the Directors of the Career Transitions program and co-author of the Career Corner series.
Our Career Transitions team has the pleasure of attending lots of events, giving presentations, and otherwise conversing with professionals looking for meaningful work in the nonprofit sector. Everyone's experiences are unique, but I do get plenty of frequently-asked questions. I recently sat down with my colleague Jung Fitzpatrick to discuss some of the common answers I often share with experienced professionals 'sector switching' into the nonprofit world.
Here are the seven questions we cover in the podcast. - What are the job prospects for a senior level sector switcher? Would I need to start at a lower level and work up?
- I want an upper-level management/leadership role. Where are those jobs?
- I have [insert exhaustive list of impressive skills] from decades of work in [insert industry]. Why can't nonprofits see this? or How do I make myself stand-out from the 100's of resumes organizations may receive for a given position particularly if I don't have paid experience in the non-profit sector?
- Generally, for-profit positions earn more money than nonprofit positions. Are non-profits less likely to consider candidates with for-profit experience because they expect that the candidate would have to take a significant paycut and therefore not really consider the position?
- What may be some red flags in my resume or cover letter if I'm coming from the for-profit sector? How do I address those?
- What kind of further education (certificate courses, community workshops) can help me improve my candidacy for nonprofit work?
- Is there any other advice or resources that may be helpful to for-profit professionals hoping to transition into nonprofits?
Click here to listen to the podcast, and make sure to check out "The Idealist Guide to Nonprofit Careers for Sector Switchers" for more in-depth information about finding work in the nonprofit sector.
From Celeste Hamilton, who works in our Buenos Aires office.
From AmazonCARES via Flickr
Currently working or volunteering with a local community in Latin America, or about to be? Have a knack for storytelling? Idealist.org is seeking 10 or so initial bloggers from all over this vibrant region to share experiences, ideas and resources for the "La Vida Idealist" blog.
The "La Vida Idealist" blog will be community powered, with its target population being English-speaking expats/travelers who are interested in free and low cost nonprofit work. We are seeking a wide range of experiences, from social entrepreneurs to those about to start their volunteer journey to career switchers.
We are striving to find honest, compelling voices that aren't afraid to explore fears, touch upon both the good and not-so-good sides of community work, and let humor shine through.
We are also open to showcasing your experiences living the Idealist life in various formats (print, video, audio, or visual), as well as cross-posting entries if you are already blogging.
If you think you might be a good fit, please visit http://www.idealist.org/blogger/latinamerica to learn more.
From Amy Potthast, who first announced this news on her blog, The New Service.
This week we launched a free, downloadable book called Service Corps to Social Impact Career. It's a companion to The Idealist Guide to Nonprofit Careers, and it's intended for national and international service corps audiences of all ages.
Most resources and trainings focusing on “life after the corps” begin and end with career search skill building. Service Corps to Social Impact Career is unique; it emphasizes integrating career development throughout the term of service.
The book highlights practices that current corps members can incorporate during their service experience which will also prepare them for their next steps: discerning one's professional calling, gaining relevant skills, building relationships, and documenting accomplishments.
For corps members actively transitioning from their Peace Corps, Americorps, or other service term to a career or further education, Service Corps to Social Impact Career also provides concrete advice on representing one's transferable skills in person and on paper, as well as suggestions for handling the emotional and logistical challenges of the transition.
The book also offers tips for corps members just starting out in a new job, with discussions of adjusting to new income, taking ownership of their work, supporting their former corps, continuing their professional development, and much more.
Check it out at idealist.org/lifeafter...and if you think it's useful, please pass it on!
By Joanna Eng, who manages the Idealist in NYC blog.
From Flickr user arvindgrover
We might not think that nonprofit organizations typically have to deal with as many problems of workplace discrimination and lack of diversity as the corporate world does. After all, we're already out to make the world a better place, aren't we? But when it comes down to it, there is often a lot more we can be doing in this area.
"I was recently asked to chair a languishing diversity committee at my medium-sized nonprofit." This is the challenge faced by just one of the professionals that Carmen Van Kerckhove seeks to help in her blog about diversity in the workplace. The latest installment gives guidelines on how to start a diversity committee. Other topics she has covered include How do I convince my non-profit that it needs to improve its cultural competency? and How employee affinity groups can help you recruit and retain a diverse workforce. Not all of her advice is specifically for nonprofit organizations, but most of it applies across sectors.
Besides Carmen's advice, we at Idealist have compiled additional resources to help nonprofit professionals find best practices in the area of diversity: Our Nonprofit Human Resources Center offers a section dedicated to cultural diversity.
Diversity is a key factor in not just traditional human resources, but volunteer management as well. Our Volunteer Management Resource Center offers advice on how to make volunteer opportunities as accessible as possible to diverse populations (including those with physical or mental disabilities, the homeless, military communities, and immigrants and refugees), and how to engage volunteers across generations.
Compiled weekly by Scott Stadum and Douglas Coulter.
From Flickr user SIR:... via Creative Commons
IdealistNews is a project of Idealist.org and Reddit where users like you can submit nonprofit news stories from around the web and vote on your favorites. Here's a roundup of some recent hot stories (titled the way users submitted them).
Have you posted a link to IdealistNews yet? It's easier than ever with the "bookmarklets" tool. You can drag it to your toolbar or to your bookmarks and submit a link with the click of a mouse. Find out more.
To find more stories or share your own, be sure to visit IdealistNews.
From our Nonprofit Careers team.
From Flickr user Jeff the Trojan
Do you have photos of the diverse and exciting ways that people can work in the nonprofit sector?
We're looking for images that showcase the wide range of career options available in the sector for a project we're coordinating called Nonprofit Career Month. This is an initiative designed to raise awareness of nonprofit career opportunities, and we'll be sharing more about it in the coming months. The photos we select will be used in a short promotional video for this initiative that will be featured on Idealist as well as on several other partnering organization's sites.
Pictures can be of anything relevant – people planting trees, representing in court, traveling internationally, filing taxes, coordinating events, doing research...and beyond!
To submit a photo:
Please send the highest resolution or largest version of the image you have (or email us a link) to ncm@idealist.org. Please include "Nonprofit Photo Submission" as the subject of your email.
Along with the photo, be sure to include: the organization you (or the person in the photo) are working for, the job title, the place, and any other relevant information.
The fine print: By submitting your photograph to Action Without Borders/Idealist.org, you are granting us the rights to edit, publish and distribute it in any way. Please do not submit photos that include persons under 18.
Thanks so much for your help!
From Celeste Hamilton.
Photo via Radio La Colifata
On the outskirts of Buenos Aires tucked away from the ubiquitous tango clubs and steakhouses lies Hospital Borda, the largest and oldest mental hospital in Argentina. But this isn't your typical psychiatric ward. In the middle of its courtyard stands a small, bustling building full of recording equipment and unbridled energy, where patients take the mic each Saturday. This is Radio La Colifata, the first radio show in the world to be broadcast out of a mental hospital.
Our latest podcast follows Idealist staff member Celeste Hamilton, a transplanted New Yorker and Ceci Gil Mariño, a native Argentinean, as they give us an intimate glimpse at why everyone from taxi drivers to famous musicians can't get enough of Radio La Colifata. We hear from staff and patients, or colifatos as they like to be called, about how it all began, why it's lasted almost two decades – and why this innovative form of public therapy has spawned 40 similar radio stations all over the world.
To listen in English, click here.
To listen in Spanish, click here. This is the first time we have been able to produce our podcast entirely in Spanish; if you listen, please let us know what you think.
Special thanks to Victoria Bembibre, Martín Waserman, C. Andrea Sottosanto, Josefina Murphy, Carolina Villanueva, Martin Celis, Rodrigo Tabernero, and Verónica Carmona Barrenechea for their help with this podcast; to Cheba Massolo, Agri, and Julio y Agosto for sharing their music; and to the Radio La Colifata staff and colifatos for inviting Idealist into their world.
By Scott Stadum, who most recently wrote A Missed Opportunity for Facebook Causes?
A few weeks ago, Kiva, which is widely known for their microlending work in the developing world, announced the launch of a small pilot lending program in the United States.
For the pilot, Kiva is partnering with ACCIÓN USA and Opportunity Fund with funding going to such projects as child care, construction, transportation services and catering.
Kiva's expansion into the U.S. seems like a logical next step and allows for them to become "a truly global organization," supporting entrepreneurial opportunities around the world. Of course, the launch hasn't gone without criticism; many ask whether this will divert attention and resources from Kiva's continuing work in developing countries. On the opposite side of the argument are those who are thrilled that lending opportunities will open up to people in the U.S. who otherwise would never see a loan from a bank.
I'm looking forward to watching how the pilot progresses and what other types of microentrepeneurial projects are included in the program. This particular model is clearly very successful; what are your thoughts on Kiva's expansion into the U.S.?
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