Monday, March 23, 2009

Have you visited Idealist.org recently?

I just got back from conducting focus groups in Oregon and I got to spend time with the super fabulous staff at Idealist.org's Portland, OR office. I've always been a fan of Idealist but meeting the Oregon Idealist team was the icing on the cake for me.

The Idealist staff are amazing passionate people who deeply care about providing the latest and greatest resources about nonprofit careers, public service grad school, international volunteering and year of service opportunities.

Idealist is known for their job postings, career and graduate fairs, however did you know they provide other resources too?

Idealist now has a Public Service grad school resource center that provides everything you need to know about pursuing an advanced degree in public/nonprofit service. Amy Potthast, Jung Fitzpatrick, and Chris Machuca created this awesome resource center. Amy is also a former PeaceCorps, Americorps and Vista member and expert about Year of Service opportunities.

Then there is Idealist's Guide to Nonprofit Careers. This handbook provides helpful advice and information about nonprofit careers and the nonprofit sector. Thanks to authors Meg Busse and Steve Pascal-Joiner for writing this amazing handbook.

I'm sure your probably familar with Idealist nonprofit career fairs, but did you know about the Nonprofit HR Resource center. I highly recommend you visit this site if you manage HR or operations for a nonprofit. I've visited this site many times when I worked in nonprofit operations and it was very helpful to me. Thanks to Joe Grant for managing Idealist Career Fairs and the Nonprofit HR Resource center.

Last, Idealist recently launched their a brand new International Volunteerism Resource Center. Anyone interested in international development must check out this site, it is very comprehensive. Erin Barnhart created this resource and knows everything you need to know about volunteering abroad.

I also don't want to forget Russ Finkelstein who leads the Portland, OR Idealist office, the amazing developers that keep the Idealist website running smoothly and the interns that help with special projects. Thanks for all you do to provide great resources to the nonprofit sector!

As a caveat: Idealist is not paying me to write this blog post, however the nonprofit research center where I work is the researcher and evaluator of their newest initiative Nonprofit Careers Month. The goal of Nonprofit Careers Month is to raise awareness of nonprofit careers and it will be piloted 5 states this October. Stay tuned for more information about Nonprofit Careers Month.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Heather,
Thanks for this incredible write up about our office and work. We really appreciate your partnership and I am glad to have finally met you in person! Looking forward to continued collaboration.

Amy

Meg said...

Heather!

It was great seeing you in PDX this past week. You did a great job facilitating the focus groups and I'm looking forward to talking more about all of the information we've gathered. The only regret about your trip up here is that you didn't get a chance to play a game of foosball in the office! Next time. :)

Meg

Anonymous said...

Heather,

It was a pleasure meeting you in PDX. I hope you had a good time with your family up here. Thanks for helping with the focus groups and this great blog post about us!