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Tuesday, 26 January 2010 15:18 |
By Joanna Eng, the editor of Idealist in NYC.
::image::I love public libraries. They provide a fair system for sharing books, movies, and other media with other members of the community. It seems only natural that the library model could be expanded to include other useful, shareable items.
So I was thrilled when I heard about tool lending libraries. Tools, like books, are infinitely useful and empowering, but sometimes only get used once. Tool lending libraries, which often work just like... |
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Monday, 25 January 2010 10:52 |
By Meg Busse. For more nonprofit careers advice, browse the Career Corner archives.
::image::Since you’re on Idealist, you know that in terms of numbers, this is where to find the most nonprofit jobs. However, if you’ve been working in the sector for at least a little bit, you also know that there is no such thing as one-stop shopping in terms of nonprofit hiring. You have to look on national sites, chapter sites of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network, local job boards and... |
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Monday, 25 January 2010 10:37 |
A note from blog editor Julia Smith.
::image::This week we resume our usual blog posting schedule, spreading good ideas about community work, technology and communications, nonprofit careers and volunteer service around the globe.
As we do this, our thoughts remain with Haiti. Here is a roundup of the posts we have written about recovery efforts so far:
The Long Road to Recovery – and How You Can Help
Haiti: Technology in a Time of Crisis
Helping Haiti: Things to Consider
Haiti... |
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Thursday, 21 January 2010 13:29 |
By Erin Barnhart.
::image::When a major disaster happens in the world, it’s common, and frankly humanity-affirming, for global citizens to want to help. However, when the disaster in question is as devastating as last week’s earthquake in Haiti, it is often the case that the primary way folks are encouraged to get involved is to raise funds, raise voices, and raise awareness. And while fundraising, advocacy, and public awareness are critically important activities to participate in, they... |
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Wednesday, 23 December 2009 09:15 |
By Put Barber, editor of Idealist's Nonprofit FAQ.
::image::How to Be an Everyday Philanthropist offers hundreds of ideas for anyone with a surplus of energy to commit to good works. Constructed from the doer’s point of view, the emphasis is on the huge variety of ways anyone can recognize a need “and find a way to fill it.”
There’s an engaging autobiographical quality about Nicole Bouchard Boles’ book. She reports its origins in curiosity about how to make good use of her time... |
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Tuesday, 22 December 2009 09:56 |
Posted by Amy Potthast, who also blogs at The New Service.
::image::AmeriCorps members and Peace Corps Volunteers thinking about pursuing graduate degrees have a leg up in paying for school. More and more grad schools are extending special considerations to service corps participants and recent alumni to make grad school more affordable.
Social-impact grad school programs have many motivations for recruiting former service corps participants. In doing so, they build incoming classes of... |
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Monday, 21 December 2009 14:23 |
This post was written by Scott Stadum and originally appeared last week on the Imagine, Connect, Act blog.
::image::DARPA, the research and development office for the United States Defense Department (the same people who helped launch the Internet 40 years ago), recently held a competition whereby they placed 10 red weather balloons around the continental U.S. and challenged teams to locate them as quickly as possible.
The team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) completed... |
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Friday, 18 December 2009 09:17 |
Posted by Julia Smith.
::image::We found out this week that we're among the 100 finalists in the Chase Community Giving campaign on Facebook. We're thrilled to be included, and honored to be in such great company.
Thank you so much to all who took the time to vote for Idealist. Now we're on to Round Two – we could really use that million dollars to support our work! Please consider a vote for us on January 15. |
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Thursday, 17 December 2009 09:02 |
Posted by Julia Smith.
::image::A sampling some topics covered recently on our various blogs:
Development Blog: This blog tracks our progress as we build a new website. Learn how consultants will fit in when we launch our new site, or watch a short video about how event postings and RSVPs will work.
Idealist in NYC: On our blog "spreading good ideas around the five boroughs," learn how BoardServeNYC connects volunteers to nonprofit boards, and read about professional development with a... |
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Thursday, 10 December 2009 15:00 |
By Scott Stadum. For more advice, browse our Career Corner archives.
::image::Thanks to the web, job hunting is simpler than ever. But unfortunately, that means more competition.
No worries; you have internet access and probably a bit of time on your hands. Here are some tools you might want to explore (in addition to our Nonprofit Career Guides, of course!):
FreelanceFolder.com has a great approach that will give you a bit of leverage in your job search: you can use iGoogle and rss feeds to... |
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Tuesday, 08 December 2009 10:30 |
Posted by Julia Smith.
::image::A podcast series called One Minute How-To recently asked our Director of Volunteerism Initiatives, Erin Barnhart, to explain how to volunteer abroad...in 60 seconds or less! To listen to Erin talk very fast, click here.
In the episode, Erin references our International Volunteerism Resource Center: http://www.idealist.org/ivrc. If you're thinking about volunteering or doing community work in Latin America (or doing it already), you might also enjoy our group... |
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Friday, 04 December 2009 09:31 |
Posted by Julia Smith.
::image::Idealist has the chance to win $25,000 or more. If you have a Facebook account, will you take a moment to vote for us?
http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/1147901
If you haven't already, you'll be asked to become a fan of Chase Community Giving. You'll then be able to vote for up to 20 of your favorite US-based organizations.
If you've ever found a job, volunteer opportunity, graduate degree program, valuable piece of career advice, or... |
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Thursday, 03 December 2009 12:10 |
By Scott Stadum.
::image::Google Wave can be hard to describe, even for the people that have been using it for a few months. I've heard it described as an email-instant messenger-wiki hybrid, which is close. You also have the ability to embed certain applications built for the platform, like maps, videos and collaboration tools.
As more people find Wave invites in their inbox, they begin to experiment and find novel uses. Lifehacker has a great list of interesting uses beyond the obvious... |
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Wednesday, 02 December 2009 14:44 |
By Joanna Eng.
::image::If you have a vegetable garden, you know that some years you'll end up with more tomatoes, cucumbers, or basil than you know what to do with. Gary Oppenheimer, director of a community garden in New Jersey, noticed that many plot holders were actually leaving large amounts of vegetables unharvested in the garden. So he came up with a project called Ample Harvest that helps gardeners connect with local food pantries in order to donate their unused produce.
Most of the... |
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Tuesday, 01 December 2009 09:33 |
By Celeste Hamilton.
::image::I fully disclose that I'm not a social entrepreneur in any sense of the word—unless my business making friendship bracelets for charity when I was 12 counts—but I admit that I have a crush on all things social enterprise-related. So I was excited to learn about UnLtdWorld, a site specifically for idealistic inventors. (Thanks, Elifarley Cruz, for a leaving a comment on our Imagine, Connect, Act blog!)
I know what you're probably thinking. With so many social... |
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Thursday, 26 November 2009 09:49 |
By Celeste Hamilton, who works from Idealist's Buenos Aires office.
::image::Last week, we launched a new global network of idealists – people who believe there's more all of us can do to move from good intentions to action.
A lot of people agree—10,086 people from 159 countries and counting—and since the launch I've been the person they can contact when they want to share an idea, suggestion and/or story related to this initiative.
One wonderful story came from Sally Smith in... |
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Friday, 28 August 2009 12:47 |
Compiled by Douglas Coulter.
::image::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):Obamas Want to Start a White House Farmers Market
A Map of Future Worldwide Water Stress
$25 baby incubator for premature newborns in poor places
What's Killing Alaska's Homeless?
Here's a question...how can we use the... |
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Thursday, 27 August 2009 12:56 |
From Scott Stadum.
::image::Yesterday morning we invited Idealist users (via an addition to our nightly email alerts) to take a brief survey in hopes that we could learn more about your social media habits. Here are the results.
These may be a bit biased, since the type of person who might be inclined to take a survey like this is probably more active online than one who is not. Still, the results are worth a look. You can see the actual questions and the breakdown of the responses here, but... |
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Wednesday, 26 August 2009 10:28 |
From Anne Lind, User Involvement Manager.
::image::Do you want to help us build a brand new Idealist.org? We're looking for Idealist users who are interested in giving feedback on, and testing new features that we're developing.
Before we launch the new Idealist (Idealist 3.0 or i3 as we call it around here) we'll conduct several rounds of usability testing in our New York City office. If you live in NYC and are interested in helping out, please fill out this quick survey and we will... |
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Monday, 24 August 2009 08:02 |
Exactly two years ago, we launched the Idealist.org Podcasts. Since then we've shared almost 50 stories and interviews from people across the world. Our series themes include The New Service, Idealist Careers, Idealist Community, and Questions With (a Q&A format featuring leaders in social change).
We asked the podcast team to name their favorite episodes for your listening pleasure, and they couldn't help but get a little nostalgic...
::image::From Amy Potthast:
Peace Corps in China... |
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