Growing up is tough no matter where you come from. As you reach your teenage years, you have to start taking responsibility for yourself—your grades, your ambitions, and your diet. Now imagine growing up in a situation where your parents aren’t all that helpful and your community and its schools don’t have the resources to give you the help that you need to get on the right track. This is often the case in inner-city neighborhoods across America, and this includes many communities in the greater Los Angeles area. That’s why Calabasas, CA based SOSMentor was formed in 2000. They’re a non-profit organization that provides “academic mentoring, resources, and educational support to underserved students and their families.” They also put a huge emphasis on diet and fitness, which are really important things to learn about as you enter adulthood. Continue reading about SOSMentor…
Think back to your days in school. If there was one thing that you could get your hands on (besides the teacher’s edition of your textbook), what would it be? Your teacher’s gradebook, obviously. Not only could you change your own grades (which apparently can get you a felony charge if you do it on a computer), but you’d also have access to all of your friends’ grades. Fortunately, the gradebook with gridded paper that can be locked in a desk drawer is becoming an anachronism. Some teachers have been using computers for grade entry for years, but others stick to the old fashioned way. LearnBoost is a San Francisco, CA based startup that is trying to change the way that teachers manage their classes. They’re starting by offering teachers an easy to use online gradebook, but their aspirations are to offer a simple, fully featured suite of tools for teachers to manage relationships with both students and parents. Continue reading about LearnBoost…
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Ever get off to a bad start? Maybe it was a class, a sports season, or a new social situation. It’s hard to dig yourself out of the funk, right? Or maybe it was something far more important like life. Millions of people are born into poverty in our country, and that makes it likely that they’ll eventually have children who are born into poverty. It’s a vicious cycle that is nearly impossible to get out of, which means that more and more kids will be born into a very difficult situation. A Wider Circle is a Silver Spring, MD non-profit organization that empowers “children and adults to break the cycles of poverty and poor health.” By providing basic need items to struggling families, A Wider Circle puts people in a situation where success is attainable. Continue reading about A Wider Circle…
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I’m sure plenty of you intend to go to grad school in the future, or you’re considering it now that you’re realizing how tough the job market really is. I have absolutely no intention of going back to school because I’m enjoying learning by doing way too much. I also want nothing to do with standardized tests ever again. But if I was going to take a standardized test like the GMAT, I’d probably want to enroll myself in prep course (because my high school strategy of getting a good night’s sleep the night before the test can only take me so far). From what I’ve heard from friends, ManhattanGMAT is one of the best out there. They’re quite obviously based in New York City, but they have locations all across the country. ManhattanGMAT delivers success for their students by staying true to 3 core concepts: focus, superior curriculum, and real teachers (who scored in the 99th percentile on the GMAT). Continue reading about ManhattanGMAT…
I never loved school, even though I was always pretty good at it. My classes just never really fulfilled my curiosity. Luckily, my parents were always putting me in exciting (and some not so exciting) after school activities. I had Frank’s Science Den where I’d learn all about cool science stuff like Van de Graaff generators and model rockets. I participated in Odyssey of the Mind where I put my early engineering skills to the test in a competition to see which team (or team’s parents to be more accurate) could build a balsa wood structure that held the most weight. There was Little League, which I loved, and soccer, which I didn’t love. I started playing the drums in 5th grade, and went to all kinds of camps over the summers (but never sleep away). Some of these activities were quite affordable, but others came with a pretty decent price tag. Fortunately, my parents had the resources to let me try all kinds of enrichment activities. Many children across our country aren’t so lucky. The only access they have to enrichment programs are those which are free, and the free ones often get overcrowded in a flash. Urban Enrichment is a new, New York City based non-profit that is making “it possible for elementary school students from low-income families to attend the high-quality artistic and athletic enrichment programs that already exist in New York City.” Continue reading about Urban Enrichment…
There aren’t a lot of things that I can do for 12 hours straight. I’m not even sure that I can sleep that long anymore unless I’m sick or completely sleep deprived. Yet for some people it’s a tradition to participate in or attend free twelve-hour music marathons. It all started in 1978 when a group of New Yorkers came “together to create their own performing arts center.” It became a movement and a non-profit organization called Symphony Space, which has been “embraced by its cultured and educated neighbors and become the centerpiece of the Upper West Side Renaissance.” Cultural institutions like community theaters can have wonderful effects on neighborhoods and their residents, so it should be no surprise that Symphony Space is still going strong and garnering tons of support 32 years later. Continue reading about Symphony Space…
Happy Independence Day! (And Happy Birthday Mom!) Today we’re celebrating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Though I’m sure you’re showing your patriotism, chances are that your celebration includes some combination of barbecuing, beach, beer, baseball, and blowing stuff up. The Daughters of the American Revolution take the Fourth of July a little more seriously. They’re a “non-profit, non-political volunteer women’s service organization dedicated to promoting patriotism, preserving American history, and securing America’s future through better education for children.” They restrict membership to women “who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution,” so they also happen to be “one of the most inclusive genealogical societies in the country” with 165,000 members. I’ve seen the DAR march in my town’s Memorial Day parade, but their work goes far beyond making public appearances. Continue reading about Daughters of the American Revolution…
I’m up in Michigan for my annual Father’s Day fly fishing trip. The town that I stay in is called Grayling, which is named after a fish. Unfortunately, it’s a fish that I’ll never catch here, because it’s extinct—at least the Michigan population is. Back in the 1800s the entire state of Michigan was logged, and apparently the value of the wood harvested from Michigan during the Gold Rush was $1 billion greater than the gold found in California during the same time. That had some serious environmental consequences, and one of those was the extinction of the Michigan Grayling. The introduction of trout to many of Michigan’s rivers didn’t help either, as they outcompeted the grayling for food. Luckily, we still have populations of grayling in Montana, Alaska, and much of Canada. They’re not completely lost, but there are plenty of species that we’ll never get to see. ARKive is changing it. Not only are they fighting to prevent many species from going extinct, but they’re also documenting the world’s most endangered species so even if they are extirpated, they’ll never be completely lost. ARKive is an initiative of Wildscreen, a UK based organization with an American arm located in Washington, DC. Continue reading about ARKive…
International relations is becoming more and more important. There is just too much to gain from cooperation across borders for us not to put a lot of effort in developing international relationships. That’s why Bridging Nations exists. They’re a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that uses education to build bridges between nations through education. Their target audience is “leaders in government, business, and the non-profit sector,” and the organization’s message is focused on “promoting an informed, multifaceted forum of exchange.” The end goal is to promote policies that create mutual benefit for people across nations. By bringing together economics, leadership, and technology, Bridging Nations thinks that they can build relationships that will make everyone better off. Continue reading about Bridging Nations…
Now that we’re done celebrating a hockey victory here in Chicago, it’s time for World Cup fever. I’ve never been a huge fan of soccer—probably because it’s not the most suitable sport for someone who was both chubby and asthmatic growing up—but even I can get into the World Cup. If there’s any sport that bridges all cultures, it has to be soccer. And that means that it’s particularly well suited to international non-profit work. That explains Grassroot Soccer, a Norwich, VT based non-profit that was started by former professional soccer players to help fight HIV in Africa. They do this by training “African soccer stars, coaches, teachers, and peer educators in the world’s most HIV-affected countries to deliver an interactive HIV prevention and life skills curriculum to youth.” They’re especially focused on using the excitement surrounding the 2010 World Cup to increase engagement with their programs.
I actually spent some time on the phone with Grassroot Soccer’s Founder Tommy Clark last year, and learned about how the organization has grown since it started as an idea. Since you probably can’t do that, you should check out this wonderful video that Grassroot Soccer has put together.
Grassroot Soccer has been so successful because they’ve connected two seemingly unrelated things. By taking the excitement around soccer in Africa to bring attention to the plight caused by HIV, they’ve built an organization that is extremely capable of achieving their mission of education and development. If Grassroot Soccer sounds like something that you want to be involved with, then check out their Join the Team page and their Internships page. These internships are a little different, as they’re based in Africa and require a ton of dedication. You can find all of the info on the Internships page and the Internship FAQ. The positions are unpaid, and require fundraising. There’s no info on any office internships in Vermont, but I bet there might be some opportunities there too.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
I have a good friend from Cornell who has been working in the world of education since he graduated with me in 2006. He often sends me recommendations of companies that I should feature, and I’ve actually covered quite a few of them. Earlier this week he sent me a note about Achievement First, a New Haven, CT based non-profit organization that manages charter schools across Connecticut and New York. (Sidenote: Having a friend like mine who is super-connected and aware in a particular industry or area can be huge for your job search.) Achievement First got its start in 1998 when a group of founders got together with the goal of creating a public charter school. They succeeded, and the result was Amistad Academy—and it’s been an amazing result. Over the past 7 years, Amistad Academy students have beat state averages in reading and math on the Connecticut Mastery Tests. In 2003 they built on this success by making Achievement First a separate entity to take the lessons learned from Amistad Academy and spread them throughout the region. Since then Achievement First “has grown into a network that includes 17 academies under nine charters in four cities.” Continue reading about Achievement First…
You know somebody is rich when they have a foundation named after them. You know somebody is really rich when their kids have their own foundations. That was the case with Andrew W. Mellon. In 1940 his daughter Ailsa Mellon Bruce established The Avalon Foundation, and in 1941 his son Paul Mellon established The Old Dominion Foundation. In 1969, with the combined value of the foundations at $220 million, the children decided to merge their foundations in honor of their father. That seems to have been a good decision considering that The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which is based in New York City, has assets totaling $6.5 billion in 2007. In case you don’t know who Andrew Mellon was, you can read his story here. The short of it was that he was held in the same esteem as men like Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, Morgan, and Frick, but he differed in that “he excelled in four fields of endeavor: as a businessman and banker; as a politician and statesman; as an art collector; and as a philanthropist.” Continue reading about The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation…
The magazine industry is kind of an ugly place to be right now. Don’t get me wrong, there are still some great internship opportunities with periodicals, but the iPad hasn’t saved the industry yet. The problem is that most magazines rely on selling ads to drive revenue since subscriptions almost never cover costs. Unfortunately, ad dollars are moving online where performance can be easily measured. Additionally, many companies have cut back on advertising during the recession. But what if you worked at a magazine that didn’t have to worry about selling ads. At YES! Magazine, that’s exactly how it is. They are a Bainbridge Island, WA based non-profit magazine “that supports people’s active engagement in building a just and sustainable world.” Subscriptions cover about half their costs, and the other half is covered by donations. Since YES! Magazine doesn’t need a profit margin, they can operate way more efficiently than for-profit magazines. Continue reading about YES! Magazine…
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Yesterday I came across a New York Times article about how Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, recently donated money to a non-profit called Charter School Growth Fund so that they could acquire online education startup DreamBox Learning, which creates web-based games to teach elementary school students math skills. As far as I can tell, the Bellevue, WA based startup will remain a for-profit entity even though it will be owned by a non-profit fund. Along with the donation Reed Hastings also invested $10 million into DreamBox to help them expand the number of subjects that they cover and to reach more schools with their software. You have to think that a large portion of that investment will be spent on hiring new people in the not so distant future. Continue reading about DreamBox Learning…
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Even if you get a full ride, college isn’t cheap. There’s a huge opportunity cost along with all kinds of hidden expenses that make higher education inaccessible to so many. When you consider that people with college degrees make nearly double the salary of those without degrees, you have to think that education after high school is pretty important (even though it’s pretty obvious that a big part of that statistic is driven by selection bias). The good news is that despite the continuously rising costs of college, the U.S. is at or near an all-time high in terms of the percentage of 25 year olds with a Bachelor’s degree. Still, there’s a long way to go, and that’s why The Institute for College Access & Success, which is based in Oakland, CA, exists. They aim to “make higher education more available and affordable for people of all backgrounds,” and they do this by “conducting and supporting nonpartisan research, analysis, and advocacy.” Continue reading about The Institute for College Access & Success…
Consultants are typically seen as hired mercenaries. Sometimes they get a bad rap, but at least they’re compensated well for it. I have to think that those who work at The Advisory Board Company have at least a somewhat better reputation since their company’s clients are all mission driven. What does mission driven mean? Well, most of The Advisory Board Company’s clients are in the healthcare industry (think hospitals and health systems, not insurance providers), but they’ve recently moved into working with universities too. I hadn’t heard of The Advisory Board Company until a One Day, One Job reader e-mailed me (you can reach me at willy@onedayonejob.com if you want to share a tip or success story) to tell me that he recently received a job offer from them. Apparently they do a ton of entry level hiring (along with some interns), and they’re continuing to grow well beyond the 5 employees that they started with in 1979. Since then they’ve grown to more than 1,000 employes, and they’ve served “more than 2,800 leading healthcare and higher education organizations.” Additionally, they’ve grown beyond their corporate headquarters in Washington, DC to having offices in Chicago, IL; San Francisco, CA; Austin, TX; Portland, OR; Nashville, TN; London, UK; and Chennai, India. Continue reading about The Advisory Board Company…
Last year I took it easy on Easter by telling you about Rabbit Rescue, and this year I’m going to do it again. If you’re serious about looking for an Easter related internship, you’ll probably want to check out opportunities with Easter Seals, Jelly Belly, or Just Born Quality Confections (Peeps!). You may also want to check out some other candy companies that I’ve profiled like Mars, The Hershey Company, Charles Chocolates, and Vosges. The reason that I’m mentioning all of these is that today we’re going to take a (quick) look at PMCA (which was formerly known as the Pennsylvania Manufacturing Confectioners’ Association). They are a Bethlehem, PA based non-profit, international association of candy manufacturers. They have board members from many of the companies that I just mentioned (and also from Blommer which runs the factory that makes my neighborhood constantly smell delicious), and they act with a three-fold mission.
It’s all in the name of candy. The PMCA does have staff, but it’s hard to say whether they offer internships or not. However, the PMCA FAQ does note that the organizations staff will try to help link you up with any jobs in the candy industry if you send them your résumé and areas of interest (they’re hoping to add a Career Center to their web site in the future). Maybe they’ll do this for internships too, so reach out to them through their Contact page if you’re interested. Continue reading about PMCA…
Think back to your best school teachers. They probably went above and beyond teaching the school board mandated curriculum. They came up with new ideas for projects, experiences, and maybe even trips that would take your learning to the next level. But how did your teachers pay for these extras that weren’t in the budget? Maybe they fought tooth and nail to get some extra funding, or maybe they even paid for something out of pocket. No teacher should have to do that, and no teacher should have to scale back his or her teaching because of a lack of funding (within reason, of course). Luckily, there’s now a better way for teachers to fund classroom projects. It’s called DonorsChoose.org, and it’s a New York City based non-profit organization. The site allows teachers to propose funding requests for classroom projects. DonorsChoose.org users can search these requests for projects that appeal to them, and make donations to directly fund a given classroom project. Continue reading about DonorsChoose.org…
This has nothing to do with physics, but yesterday was likely the greatest day in Cornell athletics history. I’m a happy guy. I’m also a guy who took AP Physics and found it extremely difficult. Despite the fact that our survival is based on having a basic understanding of physics (like knowing how a spear will fly when you throw it at a mammoth), most of us have basically no clue about the scientific side of physics. That’s not the case with the folks at The Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD. The APL is a division of Johns Hopkins University, and it’s “a not-for-profit center for engineering, research, and development.” The Laboratory’s work has a huge impact on the success of our nation—they work in areas like Air and Missile Defense, Homeland Protection, Biomedicine, and Civilian Space. Continue reading about Applied Physics Laboratory…
We’ve grown up in the age of extreme sports. Not only did we get to see the X Games when it was a new thing, but we also got to see sports like snowboarding make their way into the Olympics. I’m sure many of you have tried (and failed if you’re anything like me) your hand in at least one extreme sport. The best thing about extreme sports is that they’re huge confidence boosters for kids. While just playing baseball isn’t usually good enough—you actually need to be good at it—being able to do an extreme sports is an accomplishment in itself. That’s why it’s a perfect outlet to help “enhance the health, abilities, personal growth and social engagement of people with autism,” which is what the Basalt, CO based non-profit, Extreme Sports Camp, is all about. Continue reading about Extreme Sports Camp…
If you woke up this morning with a sore throat, what would you do? I bet many of you would get on the computer, type your symptoms into Google, and probably end up on WebMD trying to self-diagnose. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing (maybe we should leave the diagnosing for the doctors), but it’s how most of us operate these days. We have a remarkable amount of medical information available at our fingertips, and WebMD, which is based in NYC with a significant presence in a number of other cities, is responsible for a lot of it. They consider themselves “the leading provider of health information services, serving consumers, physicians, other healthcare professionals, employers and health plans.” If you read that closely, you probably noticed that WebMD’s business goes well beyond their consumer facing website. Continue reading about WebMD…
I don’t know about where you are, but here in Chicago it’s pretty clear that spring is on its way. We’re going to break 50 degrees this week, and the geese are already back and looking for places to nest. I may be in a huge city, but I’m not completely out of touch with nature. However, I’ve always wanted to spend more time closer to nature. The Institute for Environmental Awareness is a Massachusetts based organization that offers that kind of experience. Their mission is “to promote and support programs and services that encourage living and learning in harmony with the Earth and all Life,” and they do this through a number of earth-based, outdoor education programs. You may have noticed that I couldn’t find a suitable logo for them. That’s because their website looks like it’s from the mid 90s, and I wasn’t going to subject you to yellow text with a black drop shadow over a photo of a tree. An ugly website may be a bad indicator for a marketing firm or a web startup, but not for a nature based organization. Continue reading about Institute for Environmental Awareness…
If you’ve been searching for internships for very long, you’d probably do anything to go back to Senior year of high school when you were applying to college. It’s not that the admissions process is particularly fun, but at least it has a set timeline and a fixed set of options. Still, there’s plenty of room for improvement. That’s why there are quite a few young entrepreneurs who have built companies that aim to make the college process better, just like I’m doing with the entry level job and internship searches. One of these companies is San Francisco based Zinch, which was founded by Mick Hagen, a Princeton dropout. They’ve created a social network that allows high school students to connect with the colleges that they want to attend. There are more than 700 colleges and universities that invest in Zinch, which is why more than 1.5 million students have created Zinch profiles to show off to admissions counselors and to apply for scholarships and financial aid packages. Continue reading about Zinch…
I don’t know if you’ve ever spent anytime on the Appalachian Trail, but if you haven’t, you should. The trail stretches from Georgia to Maine, while the range of mountains touches as far south as Alabama and as far north as Newfoundland. It’s 1,500 miles of natural beauty that is prime territory for naturalists and adventurers. Back in 1876 there was a club called the Appalachian Mountain Club started in Boston for people who enjoyed the range. Now the club consists of more than 12 chapters and 100,000 members—it’s the “nation’s oldest outdoor recreation and conservation organization.” They’re still based in Boston, and they’ve developed into a non-profit that promotes “the protection, enjoyment, and understanding of the mountains, forests, waters, and trails of the Appalachian region.” Continue reading about Appalachian Mountain Club…
For most of us museums are just places to go to visit for a day and to learn something new. We rarely think about what is going on behind the scenes, but we should. At many major museums there is also a significant research function. A perfect examples is the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, PA, which sounds like a research institution, but it also runs a museum. In fact, The Academy is the “oldest natural science research institution and museum in the New World” according to Wikipedia. The Academy has been at the forefront of biological and earth sciences since its inception, and it continues to promote public education in those areas. Just to give you an idea of the scale on which they operate, their collections include more than 17 million specimens. That’s crazy! Continue reading about Academy of Natural Sciences…
You thought that you were done with test prep, but now the economy is in a rough spot and the job market is kind of weak. You’re hoping that things will bounce back before you graduate, but in the back of your mind you’re thinking about grad school. And that means doing the standardized test thing all over again. Luckily, things have changed since you took the SAT or ACT. The one size fits all approach of classroom instruction is out, and “adaptive learning” delivered through an online platform is in. Knewton is a New York City based startup that is one of the leading innovators in the test prep market. They seem to be mostly focused on the graduate school test prep market, although they do offer an SAT prep course too (PrepMe is a similar company that focuses only on pre-undergraduate test prep). Knewton is not only focused on improving the quality of test prep results, but they’re also working hard to make test prep more affordable and more interactive. Continue reading about Knewton…
It’s Super Bowl Sunday, which means that it’s time to talk about internships in football (we’ve featured NFL internship in addition to a few other cool opportunities). Since it’s our practice to feature non-profits on the weekend, I started browsing around the NFL’s Join the Team site, which features all of the league’s charitable work. One of the things that I came across was the Play It Smart program, which partners “academic coaches with student-athletes in order to, ‘take a student-athlete’s passion for sports and intense dedication to their team and transform it into a force for greater good in their lives.’” It’s a partnership between the NFL Youth Football Fund and the National Football Foundation. I decided to focus on the latter, as they’re exactly what I was looking for—a football related non-profit. The organization’s full name is The National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame. The Foundation is located in Irving, TX, while the Hall of Fame is located in South Bend Indiana. The organization’s mission is “to promote and develop the power of amateur football in developing the qualities of leadership, sportsmanship, competitive zeal and the drive for academic excellence in America’s young people.” Continue reading about National Football Foundation…
I always thought that .edu domains were reserved for accredited colleges and universities. It seems as though those restriction may have loosened (or they may have never been as tight as I thought they were). Lately I’ve seen some dodgy online education sites built on .edu domain names, so when I came across Academia.edu, I assumed that’s what they were. A closer look showed me that they’re nothing of the sort; in fact, they’re not an academic institution at all. They’re actually a San Francisco based startup that is building an online portal to help people find out “who’s researching what.” It’s kind of like LinkedIn meets a Wiki, but it’s only focused on academia. If you’re a PhD student, you can use it to track down other researchers in your field for collaboration. If you’re a journalist, you can use the site to find sources for articles. If you’re a high school student looking at colleges, you can use it to find professors who will help you achieve your ambitions. It’s a really cool idea, and it seems to be gaining some traction. Continue reading about Academia.edu…
You thought that you were done with standardized tests. No more #2 pencils and filling in bubbles for you. Guess again. An internship with the Princeton, NJ based Educational Testing Service would take you right back to Junior year in high school with all the standardized tests. They are “a private, nonprofit organization devoted to educational measurement and research, primarily through testing.” They’re behind AP Tests, the PSAT, the SAT, the TOEFL, the GRE, and plenty of other tests that you may have taken during your academic career. Their aim is to “advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research,” and I’d say they’re doing a pretty good job. A lot of people have a strong distaste for standardized tests, but it seems that we are yet to find a better way to measure and compare achievement across groups. I was surprised to learn that the ETS is a non-profit organization, but it’s probably better for the people who take the 50 million tests that the organization administers annually. Continue reading about Educational Testing Service…
Last night I was driving home and heard a radio commercial for an 89 cent burrito. It made me realize how cheap calories are these days. Cheap calories used to be a good thing. It meant that fewer people would go hungry, but unfortunately cheap calories are often low-quality calories. As hunger becomes less of a problem, nutrition continues to be a major problem. The Food Trust is a Philadelphia based non-profit that “works to improve the health of children and adults, promote good nutrition, increase access to nutritious foods, and advocate for better public policy.” They work with “neighborhoods, schools, grocers, farmers and policymakers” to educate people about making the right food choices while also making access to good food easier and more affordable. Continue reading about The Food Trust…
