In a place like New York City, it’s nearly impossible to build something without tearing something else down. That means that a lot of still useful stuff is sent off to the dump while new construction material is shipped in from afar. This is not only wasteful, but it’s also terrible for the environment. Build It Green! NYC is a New York, NY based non-profit that is “working towards reducing the amount of unnecessary construction and demolition (C&D) waste clogging our landfills.” They do this through two stores that make Build It Green! NYC “New York City’s only non-profit retail outlet for salvaged and surplus building materials.”
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I’ve mentioned before that I was on the board of a startup non-profit. We were petty clueless and needed all the help that we could get–especially when it came to fundraising. The organization eventually folded, but maybe it wouldn’t have if we had known about the Foundation Center. It’s a New York, NY based non-profit that “connects people who want to change the world to the resources they need to succeed through data, analysis, and training.” While the Internet has changed the way that the Foundation Center works, they’ve been around since 1956, so they have a long history of helping other philanthropic organizations achieve their goals.
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When you’re looking for a job, it’s hard to remember that it’s not a zero-sum game. Jobs aren’t a fixed resource, so your chance of getting a job actually increases as other people land jobs (though it’s not quite as true for internships). The mechanics behind this aren’t obvious, and that’s a big part of the reason that immigration has become such a divisive issue in our country (and lots of other ones too). The “they took our jobs” mentality satirized by South Park is unfortunately still petty common. The National Immigration Forum is working to change that. They’re a Washington, DC based non-profit organization founded in 1982 that “advocates for the value of immigrants and immigration to our nation.”
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I don’t put a lot of stock in business awards (though the lists can be great ways to learn about new companies) because so many of them are total fluff. But when I see that over the past three years a marketing agency was named one of Forbes’ Ten Great Ad Agencies 2012, one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in Advertising & Marketing, and OMMA’s Agency of the Year, I take notice. Mullen is a Boston, MA based agency with offices in San Francisco, CA, Winston-Salem, NC, Pittsburgh, PA, Detroit, MI, and New York, NY that is “on a mission to work with the world’s most innovative marketers.” They offer the full range of services including brand planning, content development, design, PR, analytics, user experience design, and much more.
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While the Holiday Season is a time that many of us offer help to the less fortunate, it’s usually in the form of gifts or donations. This kind of help is great, but it’s typically temporary. Homelessness and poverty are both societal and individual problems, so bringing about real change is going to take a lot more than a few weeks of giving. Real Change is a Seattle, WA based non-profit that “exists to provide opportunity and a voice for low-income and homeless people while taking action for economic justice.” By focusing on helping the individuals while at the same time pushing for societal change, Real Change is able to make a meaningful difference.
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I haven’t had someone read a book to me in years. The last time that I can remember was my Senior year in high school. We had our annual K-12 holiday assembly, and one of the school’s most beloved teachers read us ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. That’s a great story to be read no matter how old you are. In fact, “reading aloud with children is the single most important activity for helping them become successful readers.” That’s why when you read with a child… Everybody Wins!. Everybody Wins! is a Wellesley, MA based non-profit (with affiliates all across the country) that is aiming to “help bridge the literacy gap.”
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We often think of technology as a bunch of ones and zeros, but it’s really “the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a preexisting solution to a problem, achieve a goal, handle an applied input/output relation or perform a specific function” (at least according to Wikipedia). Technology is really the story of human advancement, and that’s why The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA must be a fascinating place to visit. It’s a place that aims to create “experiences that invite people to learn through play, evoke emotions of wonder and joy, contain solid and accessible science, show how technology can improve lives, provoke thought and inspire action, and represent [their] local Silicon Valley community.”
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I went to the same college as both of my parents. There’s no doubt that this made my transition to college easier–I knew what I was getting into, and they knew what I was getting into. The statistics back this up. Students whose parents went to college are far more likely to graduate than first-generation college students. So how do we give these students the advantages and support that typically come with a parent or parents who went to college? New York Needs You is a non-profit that is taking a crack at it. They are aiming to enable “first-generation college students to realize their college and career ambitions” through an intensive fellowship program.
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I grew up about an hour outside of New York City. My parents would take me in a few times a year, and from those experiences I developed an idea of what big cities are like. It took a while for me to realize that New York is remarkable as cities go. It’s huge. It has a prime geographical location. Its people are diverse in a multitude of ways. It’s filled with wealth, yet more than 20% of its citizens live in poverty. There is no other city in the world like New York, and that’s why the Museum of the City of New York must be a fascinating place to visit. They are a non-profit that explores “the past of this fascinating and particular place for lessons about our future” while celebrating “New York’s heritage of diversity, opportunity, and perpetual transformation.”
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Growing up I had a really good friend who was a bad kid. We got along great, but he always found a way to get into trouble. When we were about seven, my Mom told me a secret about him. She told me that he went to “children’s jail” where he only got bread and water. I wasn’t all that gullible, but I believed it because it was totally believable. I was scared straight. What I’ve learned since is that kids don’t go to jail for “being bad,” but there is a cycle of incarceration in some of our communities that starts at a very early ages. Recidivism rates tell us that a young person who incarcerated for the first time is highly likely to be incarcerated again. Friends of Island Academy is a New York, NY based non-profit “center for youth development dedicated to breaking cycles of incarceration.” They work with “adolescents who attend school on Rikers Island every year” to “guide their trajectory to becoming economically independent young adults, connected to their communities in positive way.”
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Maybe I’m making this up, but when I was in middle school, I’m pretty sure that Sam Goody had a list on one of their walls with all of the new CDs that were coming out soon. That list, recommendations from friends, listening to the radio, and watching MTV were how I discovered new music. It worked, but it was risky. Sometimes you’d end up buying an absolutely terrible CD like Pras’ Ghetto Supastar, the album not the song. Today it’s completely different. You can listen before you buy (or keep listening and never buy), and you can get recommendations based on real data. Whether you’re using Spotify, Vevo, MTV, or iheartradio to find or consume music, you’re actually benefiting from The Echo Nest and their big data approach to music. They’re a Somerville, MA based company, and they “provide the largest repository of dynamic music data in the world – over a trillion data points on over 30 million songs — to help application developers build smarter music apps.”
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Sometimes it’s all about a name. How could I not take a closer look at an organization called Day One when I was browsing Idealist? Their name doesn’t tell you much about what they do, but it makes sense with a little context. Day One is a non-profit that “partners with New York City youth to end dating abuse and domestic violence through community education, supportive services, legal advocacy and leadership development.” Abuse and domestic violence are issues that affect people of all ages, but teenagers are especially susceptible. When you have little relationship and life experience, how are you supposed to know what is ok and what isn’t? Where do you go for help? How do you get out? Those are all questions that Day One helps teens answer.
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Do you know what baseball managers and presidents have in common? People think that they have way more control over what happens than they actually do. It’s easy to give someone all of the blame or credit, but it’s almost never that simple. If you’d like to learn more about just how important the President (either the office or any one of the individuals who has held the office) is, you’ll want to read up on the research put out by the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. They’re a Washington, DC based nonpartisan non-profit “organization that systematically examines past successes and failures of the Presidency and relates its findings to present challenges and opportunities.” They organization started in 1965 as the Library of the Presidential Papers, and took on its current name in 1969.
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Blogging is a great way to grow your personal brand to help you land an internship. WordPress is the best blogging platform and WP Engine is the best WordPress host out there (we use them for ODOJ and ODOI). Right now AppSumo has an unbelievable deal for a year of WP Engine hosting for $99 (usually $348, and worth it).
Yesterday I went shopping at Whole Foods. I bought a bunch of produce that I’m sure was shipped in from all over the world–they aren’t growing strawberries around here this time of year. While I love being able to eat out of season fruits and vegetables, I realize that I’m often paying more to get lower quality food. We’ve certainly seen a movement towards more locally grown food, but even a Michigan cherry has to travel 100s of miles to get to me in Chicago. What if food only had to moved downstairs to get to you at the supermarket? That’s what BrightFarms is a New York, NY based company that is trying to accomplish this. They design, finance, build, and operate “hydroponic greenhouse farms at, or near, supermarkets, eliminating time, distance and cost from the food supply chain.” They take on almost all of the risk and only require the supermarket to guarantee that they’ll buy the output.
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There’s no doubt that we’re in the middle of the second phase of e-commerce. The first stage was all about helping you find and buy the stuff that you want or need online. Amazon has that mostly covered, and there are plenty of retailers who fill in the gaps. But what if you want shopping to be fun? It’s all about discovery, which is why sites and companies that help you find interesting products are so popular right now. The term “curation” is being used a lot, and I think it’s appropriate. Stitch Fix is a San Francisco, CA based company that is using strong curatorial talent to sell clothing and accessories to women. They’re like a Trunk Club for women in that they send you a box of stuff (as often as you’d like) based on your response to style survey questions, and you can choose to keep as much or as little of it as you like.
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I am not a coffee drinker–never have been and never will be. I can’t even stand the smell of it, so it’s hard for me to comprehend how so many people want to start their mornings off with it. I’m either wrong or it’s the best marketing success in the world, but coffee is a massive industry–somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 billion annually just in the U.S. One of the more interesting success stories in the business is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. They’re a Waterbury, VT based company that was founded in 1981 as a small coffee shop. Instead of sticking with that model and following the Starbucks path, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters went another direction. They decided to focus on helping other people make good coffee.
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Ever have a class that required a clicker? Wouldn’t you rather use your phone? Top Hat Monocle is a San Francisco based company that is reinventing the college lecture experience. They’re looking for Campus Business Development Associates all across the country to spearhead campus adoption by reaching out to professors, raising awareness about Top Hat Monocle, and working closely with our sales and marketing teams to create a strategy that works. Find out how to get one of these internships!
I’m kind of obsessed with subscription based business models right now. I’ve been trying to come up with some new ones on my own, but I’ve also been investigating those that are already out there. One non-obvious (at least to me) subscription offering that seems to be gaining a lot of traction is underwear. There are a number of players in the market, so it must mean that people like getting new pairs of underwear on a regular basis. One of these companies is Me Undies. They’re based in Beverly Hills, CA, and they offer “the world’s most comfortable underwear in all your favorite colors and styles.” Oh yeah, and they do it at a way better price than designers who offer underwear of the same quality.
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This morning I got an e-mail from Amazon.com. As part of a settlement with book publishers, I will receive an automatic credit to my account “that it will range from $0.30 to $1.32 for every eligible Kindle book that [I] purchased between April 2010 and May 2012.” That’s good news, but it’s indicative problem. We live in a time when intellectual property is becoming a massive economic issue. The patent stuff between Apple, Samsung, Google and dozens of other players is getting ridiculous, and our government is trying to pass legislation that significantly inhibits our ability to share information. As someone who has built a business based on intellectual property, I understand why rightsholders are being defensive, but I also think that they’re hurting their businesses by limiting use of their content. We need some sanity, and that’s exactly what Public Knowledge is aiming to restore. They’re a Washington, DC based non-profit that “preserves the openness of the Internet and the public’s access to knowledge, promotes creativity through balanced copyright, and upholds and protects the rights of consumers to use innovative technology lawfully.”
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One mistake that most college students make is that they focus too much on sexy industries and companies during their internship search. There’s no doubt that following your interests can lead to really good things, but there are so many “boring” industries and businesses that can provide amazing learning opportunities while being surprisingly interesting. Advantage Business Media certainly falls into this category. They’re a Rockaway, NJ based “digital business-to-business information company” that “has successfully transitioned itself from a print-centric publishing company into digital-centric media organization.” B2B is a space that many young people are barely aware of, but it’s absolutely massive.
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I had exercise induced asthma as kid, but I really enjoyed playing sports. That probably explains why I loved baseball, tolerated basketball, and avoided soccer and lacrosse as much as possible. Despite the fact that more and more kids are as out of shape as I was, soccer and lacrosse have both seen a ton of growth over the past two decades. The Moylan family has been well ahead of the the trend. In 1984 one of the family’s six kids (Mike) was assigned a high school business project, so he decided to start a small soccer catalog called Eurosport. The family embraced the business, and it became Sports Endeavors. They spent a decade doing the mail order thing, and then they made an amazingly smart move in 1994. The Hillsborough, NC based company bought Soccer.com and Lacrosse.com. Combining an already existing business with those domain names made for a killer combination, and that’s why Sports Endeavors has continued to grow–though they still only focus on soccer, lacrosse, and rugby.
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Even though it will be another year until we celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day again, I don’t think that we’ve had enough pirate talk for the week. Just kidding, no pirate talk today, but we are going to take a look at a non-profit called Story Pirates. They’re based in New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA, and they pair “experienced teachers with talented artists to collaborate with schools and community organizations in creating exciting, dynamic classes covering a broad range of academic topics.” That’s actually a kind of boring way to put it. One of the programs that they’re best known for is taking stories that kids write and acting them out. How could that not be absolutely awesome?
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When I was a kid I was jealous of the kids who went to one of the other elementary schools in town because they had an awesome carnival. I was kind of a wimp about carnival rides, so the most intense ride that I would go on was called the Himalaya. All it did was spin you around kind of fast. While the painting on the ride was certainly accurate to the name, I’m not sure that it was a very good representation of Himalayan culture. The Rubin Museum of Art in New York, NY is. It’s “a dynamic environment that stimulates learning, promotes understanding, and inspires personal connections to the ideas, cultures, and art of Himalayan Asia.” It also won’t make you nauseous like the ride might.
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I’m getting married in Chicago next year. It’s going to be a pretty big wedding, and Chicago is surprisingly short on non-hotel venues that can handle our numbers. With the help of our wedding planner we visited a bunch of venues and finally chose one that is going to be great. Then we had to do the same thing for the rehearsal dinner. The trouble is that it’s extremely hard to figure out which venues are possibilities. Had I know about Eventup, it would have been a lot easier to get an idea of what’s out there. They are a Santa Monica, CA based startup (with a sales office in Chicago, IL) that offers a “marketplace that connects people who are looking to find and book the perfect venue for their event with venue owners who are looking to rent out their space.” It’s surprising that there isn’t already an established player in this space, but Eventup seems ready to fill the void.
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There’s currently a lot happening on the foreign policy front, and it’s hard to imagine a future where foreign policy isn’t even more important than it is now. Our world has become extremely interconnected, and it’s becoming more and more important that we get along with our neighbors. There are all kinds of non-profits working on these issues, and one is the Center for The National Interest, which is based in Washington, DC. The organization was founded by former President Nixon as the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, but they rebranded in 2011. They typically take the Realist perspective (here’s the Wikipedia article) on foreign policy, which is based on the belief “that mankind is not inherently benevolent but rather self-centered and competitive.”
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Many job seekers fail to realize how important it is to write well. With so much communication happening over e-mail, your ability to express your ideas clearly and forcefully through the written word will have a direct effect on your career outcomes (and that’s why you need to spend a lot of time on writing great cover letters). While writing is something that most of us work on throughout our lives, the most important development happens in our early years. That’s why 826 National works with 8 centers across the country that “offer a variety of inventive programs that provide under-resourced students, ages 6-18, with opportunities to explore their creativity and improve their writing skills.” The San Francisco, CA based non-profit “provides strategic leadership, administration, and other resources to ensure the success of its network of eight writing and tutoring centers.” The centers are located in Ann Arbor, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC, and together they’ve serve about 30,0000 students each year.
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I don’t know why adults even bother asking kids what their favorite class is. They’re obviously going to either say recess or make something up because they know that they’re not supposed to say recess. As a kid I felt bad for liking recess more than the rest of the school day, but now I realize that recess is totally underrated. It’s a time for social interaction, safe risk taking (or are monkey bars banned now?), decision making, and more. It’s also a fantastic way to get kids to burn off energy so that they can be more focused in the classroom. Playworks is an Oakland, CA based non-profit (but they work in cities across the country) that aims to “improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.” In other words, they’re all about recess.
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Last week in my write up on the U.S. Association Of Former Members Of Congress, I touched on the idea that our politicians might be more effective after they retire from public service. I think this is especially true for members of Congress who have no term limits and constantly need to worry about being reelected, but I think that presidents face similar pressures to follow the polls. Once they’re out of office, former politicians are free to work on the problems that they think are important. For President Clinton this work manifests itself through the William J. Clinton Foundation, which is Little Rock, AR and New York, NY based non-profit organization that aims to “improve global health, strengthen economies worldwide, promote healthier childhoods, and protect the environment by fostering partnerships among governments, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and private citizens.”
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Judging from the current approval ratings, the American people are planning on making a lot more former members of Congress in the upcoming election. Since a group of people with an overall 80% disapproval rating might struggle to find work after they’re relieved of their jobs, we’ll need to find something for all of them to do. Luckily, there’s the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress, which is a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that “utilizes the unique skill sets of its 600 members to provide pro bono public service programs and initiatives both at home and abroad.” Apparently, the organization used to be just a “conduit to keep former Members in touch with each other and create social activities” but has evolved to be something far more valuable. As much as I like to make fun of members of Congress, I realize that they’re for the most part extremely smart people with exceptional experience and political leverage. That’s a valuable combination, and a non-profit is a great place to put it to work.
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When I’m looking for “the most beautiful things on earth,” I usually go fly fishing for trout. Even if I don’t catch anything, I’m likely to find what I’m looking for. For other people a search for “the most beautiful things on earth” means that they’re going shopping. If antiques, vintage furniture and design, fine art, estate jewelry, vintage couture, and more are what you consider beautiful, then you’ll love 1stdibs. They’re a New York, NY based company that runs an online marketplace for unique and beautiful things. They bring “together more than 1,600 of the most prestigious international dealers” to offer a quality of merchandise that you don’t typically find online. There’s some really cool stuff on their site, so I highly recommend browsing for a bit to get a sense of what they typically sell.
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One of the best parts of growing up in Connecticut was the history. As a kid, I was always imagining myself back in the Revolutionary era. There were constant reminders of the past, and I found them fascinating. (One of my favorite hobbies was digging holes in my backyard looking for artifacts.) The tough thing is that New England is a thriving part of our economy, which means that there is constant pressure to erase the past so as to build something better. That’s ok to some extent, but history needs to be preserved. Historic New England is a non-profit that does just that. It’s a Boston, MA based “museum of cultural history that collects and preserves buildings, landscapes, and objects dating from the seventeenth century to the present and uses them to keep history alive and to help people develop a deeper understanding and enjoyment of new England life and appreciation for its preservation.”
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