Thanks for covering the Polaris Project. It reminded me of the organization Free the Slaves (www.freetheslaves.net). They are one of our members and it looks like they have good internship/job placement services.

I noticed that you are covering a lot of nonprofits recently.

Here’s some advice: volunteer, volunteer, volunteer! Find some way to volunteer for a cause that you are passionate about. You get extra points if you can raise money for them, especially right now. This is an extremely effective way to get a job at a nonprofit.

Why volunteer? A friend who recently graduated from grad school and looked for jobs in DC at nonprofits went on 50 informational interviews and a few real ones. She did not get one job from any of those connections. She did, however, finally get a job at Search for Common Ground, where she had volunteered part-time while she did her job search. She is much happier now that she’s landed a job.

I could write forever about landing a job in the nonprofit world. It is actually a bit different than the for-profit world but not so much that you shouldn’t do Willy & Jason’s course. I did their course and found it very helpful. Maybe the biggest difference is the ability to volunteer first to make connections – not as easy in the for-profit world, IME.

Another tidbit of free advice for entry-level nonprofit workers: learn project management! Project management, project management, project management.

Especially for international non-profits with a lot of gov’t funding. It basically all project work that you handle and work with sub-grantees from HQ. Not as sexy as some think because you are not out in Zimbabwe stuffing rice into kids’ faces. You are plugging in numbers and stressing over schedules and managing budgets and working long hours and drinking lots of coffee. If you want sexy, learn at least one foreign language and join the peace corps and then you will get more sexy jobs where the action is.

OK, that’s all for now – Roxy out!