by Willy Franzen on July 19, 2009
As I tell you every weekend, the non-profit world can never get enough top notch talent. Part of the reason is that the careers aren’t nearly as lucrative as private sector careers, but another part of it is that there are a seemingly unlimited number of non-profit organizations out there. Taproot Foundation solves this problem in an interesting way. They act as a project management consulting service while linking top notch business professionals up with non-profit organizations in a volunteer capacity. They typically work with organizations in the areas of Arts, Education, Social Services, Environment, and Health on engagements in the areas of marketing, HR, IT, and strategy management. I’m always impressed by non-profit consulting services, and this appears to be a pretty cool twist on that model.
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entry-level jobs,
human resources,
Illinois,
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New York,
non-profit,
program development,
project management,
Washington DC
by Willy Franzen on July 18, 2009
I never thought that I’d hear the words “city” and “harvest” used together as often as I do these days, but now it seems that every city has a farmers market, urban vegetable gardens, and restaurants with hyper-local cuisine. Oddly enough, City Harvest means something slightly different when they talk about harvesting food. They are “a non-profit organization founded in 1982″ and “the world’s first and New York City’s only food rescue program.” What does that mean? It means that this year they will “collect 26 million pounds of excess food from all segments of the food industry, including restaurants, grocers, corporate cafeterias, manufacturers, and farms.” They’re harvesting anything and everything that they can (as long as it’s up to their food safety standards) to feed New York City’s hungry. It’s a brilliant idea, and the organizations longevity proves that it’s working.
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New York,
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by Willy Franzen on July 17, 2009
At some point during my Junior year in college (by the way I’m back at Cornell for the weekend), I got the bright idea that I could wear slippers as shoes. These weren’t flimsy slippers, these were sturdy leather ones with shearling lining. They were made by Orvis (where I interned and had an awesome 50% employee discount), and they were great. I loved sitting in class knowing that my feet were more comfortable than everybody else’s. Then I came back from Thanksgiving break. I was admiring the Christmas lights that my roommates had adorned our otherwise aesthetically unpleasing house with, and I slipped. See, my slippers had flat rubber soles. My feet came out from under me as I fell down a muddy slope. My right hand came down hard on the sidewalk, and I had a broken wrist. I gave up wearing slippers for a while, but when my Mom bought me a pair of UGG slippers with proper soles, I reverted. Now UGG slippers are my go to shoes during the winter, and I’m a huge fan of Deckers Outdoor Corporation. They’re the company behind UGG, Simple, Teva (is it Tee-va or Tevv-a?), Tsubo, and Deckers, and they’re headquartered in Goleta, CA with a location in Flagstaff, AZ as well.
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Arizona,
California,
collections,
entry-level jobs,
marketing,
outdoors,
product development,
product management,
seo,
shoes,
software development,
web development
by Willy Franzen on July 16, 2009
Take a second and think of your favorite toy growing up. Was it a Barbie? Matchbox Car? American Girl Doll? View-Master? Magic 8 Ball? Rock’em Sock’em Robots? Hot Wheels? Polly Pocket? Even if it wasn’t one of those, there’s a good chance that it was made by Mattel. I’m sure that you’ve heard of the El Segundo, CA headquartered toy company before, but I bet you never realized just how many toys they actually make. Not only do they have some of the biggest toy names in the world, but they’re also behind all of Fisher-Price’s toys. If you always wanted to be like Tom Hanks in Big
and work for a toy company, Mattel is your chance to live every child’s dream.
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Texas,
toys,
Wisconsin
by Willy Franzen on July 15, 2009
Good startups create tools that people use. Great startups change the way people do things. Take eBay for example. Yes, people have always bought and sold junk, but eBay enabled people to buy and sell junk all across the world. By expanding the market for your junk, eBay made it worthwhile to sell stuff that would otherwise be collecting dust. San Francisco’s AirBnB hopes to be the eBay for space. Now, they’re not talking about outer space. They mean that spare bedroom that you never use. They want you to rent out your extra space, and they will help you find someone to rent it (read their FAQ for how it works). It could completely change the way that people on a budget travel… or it could be a total flop, but you have to love the idea.
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by Willy Franzen on July 14, 2009
I don’t know when wearing sweats started counting as “dressing up,” but I’m pretty sure that it coincided with when Arleta, CA based Juicy Couture became popular. I guess if you’re going to pay a bunch of money for a tracksuit, you’ve got to show it off. Ok, so I can’t say that I love what Juicy Couture has done to popular fashion, but I have to respect it. They completely changed what it means to wear sweats, and they created a new market for high priced, super casual clothing. There’s obviously more to the Juicy brand than just tracksuits, but when I hear the name Juicy, that’s what I think of.
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California,
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entry-level jobs,
fashion,
New York,
retail
by Willy Franzen on July 13, 2009
About this time last summer I started finding a lot of job and internship opportunities on Twitter. Those were the days when Twitter wasn’t mentioned every 2 minutes on CNN. These days there’s a ton of clutter on Twitter that makes it a lot harder to reliably find interesting employment opportunities. However, I’ve recently been going back to the One Day, One Internship archives to see which companies I’ve featured there on the past that might have entry level jobs now. One of those companies is SHIFT Communications. There was a lot of buzz on Twitter last summer about their internships, and now it looks like they’re hiring at the entry level. SHIFT Communications is a tech PR firm located in Boston, MA and San Francisco, CA. Judging from the firm’s early adoption of Twitter and the fact that they link to 3 of their blogs on their home page, they’re definitely on top of the social media thing. Which is good because tech PR is often happening online.
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California,
communications,
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Massachusetts,
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by Willy Franzen on July 12, 2009
Last night I enjoyed one of my favorite Summer treats—a Dairy Queen Blizzard. Now, this wasn’t just any Blizzard. This was a Tagalong Blizzard. If you’re not familiar with Tagalongs, then you’re missing out. They are my favorite Girl Scout cookie. And that brings me to the Girl Scouts of the USA, which is a New York City non-profit organization that you probably know best for pushing cookies. Obviously, the cookies have little to do with what the Girl Scouts of the USA are all about, but the funds raised from selling the cookies enable the organization to continue to pursue its mission of being “the world’s preeminent organization dedicated solely to girls—all girls—where, in an accepting and nurturing environment, girls build character and skills for success in the real world.”
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web development,
writing
by Willy Franzen on July 10, 2009
Who knew that Barnes & Noble owned a publisher? I certainly didn’t, but it makes a lot of sense. If you own the sales channel, you might as well start creating your own product too. That’s why Barnes & Noble acquired New York City’s Sterling Publishing a few years back. It’s allowed them to squeeze more profit out of their dominance in retail book sales. It seems to me that the scope of the types of books that Sterling publishes is expanding, but their main focuses are in puzzles, photograpy, crafts, gardening, and do-it-yourself. If you really want to take a close look at what types of books Sterling Publishing puts out, you can see a list of their imprints with descriptions on the Sterling Publishing About page.
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communications,
editing,
editorial,
entry-level jobs,
New York,
North Carolina,
public relations,
publishing
by Willy Franzen on July 9, 2009
You know about YouTube. You’ve known about YouTube for years. It’s the place to go for online video. There are some competitors that offer some pretty great services, but YouTube is still the default. Now, what if you want to watch live video? Or what if you want to broadcast live video? The Bay Area’s Justin.tv beats out YouTube when it comes to live stuff. You can watch white labrador retriever puppies, live soccer, or some kid in your dorm’s lifestream. The options are pretty much endless. You may ask why anyone would want to sit on a computer and watch puppies, but you’d miss the obvious answer – they’re cute. Actually, there’s an audience for just about anything these days. Justin.tv taps into that. Live video on the Internet isn’t new. There were people doing it in 1996, but the technology now makes doing it much more worthwhile. The question of whether the actual content being broadcast is worthwhile is up to you.
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California,
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entry-level jobs,
flash,
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video,
web development
by Willy Franzen on July 8, 2009
“Go Local” is a pretty common buzz phrase these days. You’re supposed to eat local, shop local, and even study local. To some people this is a new idea, but businesses like Travers Collins & Company have been focusing on working locally for a long time (in their case since 1995). They saw a void in the Buffalo, NY area when it came to advertising, public relations, interactive and investor relations, so they filled it. Judging from the number of times “Buffalo” shows up on their client list, that seems to have been a smart move. They’re now “one of Buffalo-Niagara’s largest locally owned and operated integrated marketing communications firms,” as they have more than 40 employees.
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advertising,
communications,
entry-level jobs,
interactive media,
investor relations,
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New York,
public relations
by Willy Franzen on July 7, 2009
Now, I know that the name ChannelAdvisor sounds like some sort of new and improved tv guide that you can buy on the infomercials, but bear with me for a second and I’ll tell you what ChannelAdvisor is really about. The simple version is that they’re a Morrisville, NC based company that helps other companies sell online. The more complex story is that ChannelAdvisor “helps the world sell online with solutions for retailers to efficiently distribute their products across multiple online channels, drive shoppers to those products, and then convert those shoppers into customers.” That sounds good, but what does it really mean? Major retailers often have thousands of products. Their first e-commerce priority is to get their products listed on their own site, but after that they want to extend their reach to comparison shopping sites. There are tons of these comparison shopping sites, and they all have different data requirements for listing products. The retailer can try to do it on their own, or they can hire ChannelAdvisor to do it for them.
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United Kingdom
by Willy Franzen on July 6, 2009
I was lucky enough to graduate from college without having had to take out any student loans, but even if I had needed to take out a loan, at least it would have been before the “credit crunch.” These days it’s a lot harder for students to finance their educations than it was just a couple of years ago. Credit in general is extremely tight right now, and beyond that, lenders are being very picky about whom they lend to. For students with no credit history, getting a loan can be a big pain in the butt. People Capital is a New York City based startup that is aiming to change that through what they call a “peer-to-peer lending platform.” They’ve developed a Human Capital Score “to assess the creditworthiness of those just starting their credit histories,” and they’re now building out a network of borrowers and lenders to bring the idea to life. It’s kind of like Kiva for education, but with a for-profit incentive keeping things efficient.
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entry-level jobs,
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investment,
microfinance,
New York,
social investing
by Willy Franzen on July 5, 2009
Having spent 7 years at a private prep school, I know the educational value that such institutions offer. I also know that private schools aren’t accessible to everyone (but neither are great public schools). That’s why I think that it’s pretty cool that a New York City based non-profit organization called A Better Chance is achieving its mission “to increase substantially the number of well-educated young people of color who are capable of assuming positions of responsibility and leadership in American society” by enrolling students of color in Member Schools (which are apparently both public and private). Since 1963 when “23 headmasters of selective independent schools made a mutual commitment to change the profiles and compositions of their student bodies,” A Better Chance has improved the educational outcomes of more than 12,000 alumni.
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New York,
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by Willy Franzen on July 4, 2009
Last year we took a look at jobs with Phantom Fireworks to celebrate the Fourth of July, but this year it’s a weekend, and that means non-profit entry level jobs. I decided to play things a little safer, so my first thought was The National Council on Fireworks Safety, but they don’t appear to have any jobs. That led me to the Itasca, IL based National Safety Council, which is also concerned with fireworks safety. Fireworks safety is just one small piece of what the National Safety Council does though, as their mission is to “educate and influence people to prevent accidental injury and death.” And that’s just want we want to do on July 4th.
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entry-level jobs,
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New York,
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training
by Willy Franzen on July 3, 2009
Since I’m going to have a non-profit for you tomorrow, let’s start celebrating the Fourth of July today. Now, I know that you probably have fireworks, the beach, hot dogs, and hamburgers on your mind, but let’s take a minute to appreciate the Declaration of Independence. It’s the best “I Quit” letter in the history of the world. It’s like that letter that you wrote to your parents when you were 14 and decided that you were moving out, except it isn’t completely nonsensical. The Declaration of Independence has a lot to do with why this country is so great, so I hope that you’ll take a minute to give it a read today. And where do you go if you want to read the Declaration of Independence? The National Archives, of course! You can see the original document in all its glory, or you can check out a more readable version. If you’re not familiar with what the National Archives is, basically they “are the nation’s record keeper.” They preserve and keep forever 1%-3% of our government’s documents for both legal and historical reasons.
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entry-level jobs,
government,
history,
holiday,
museum,
Washington DC
by Willy Franzen on July 2, 2009
I know just what you’re thinking right now! “I don’t get advertised to enough.” (If you’re really thinking that, why don’t you check out our job search prep course that will teach you how to get a job faster?) Ok, so that’s not really what you’re thinking, but it’s what the guys at Boston based Amp Idea are thinking. They think that online advertising has developed some amazing ideas, while outdoor advertising (and other similar mediums) have lost their effectiveness. They want to bridge that gap through things like Taxi Interactive Screens, Hotel Tourist GPS, Tabletop Restaurants, and Limo and Bus interactive devices. Over at One Day, One Internship we checked out a company called Captivate Network that is doing this kind of thing in elevators, so it seems as though there is a lot of room for growth in “digital advertising in the out of home space for business owners.”
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advertising,
entry-level jobs,
Massachusetts,
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by Willy Franzen on July 1, 2009
We all have at least one friend who “has a band.” He’s the one that sends you a Facebook Event invitation for his “gigs” every other week. He’s also still on MySpace (because it’s awesome for bands, of course). It may just so happen that you friend is actually really good, but he’s still waiting for his big break. Regardless of your friend’s talent level, there’s a good chance that he’s struggling with marketing his band. (That’s why that big break hasn’t come yet.) Your friend may think that MySpace is advanced as band marketing gets, but it’s not. There’s a new game in town, and it’s called Topspin. They haven’t launched yet, but they’ve already put a lot of work into achieving their mission “to provide artists the tools they need to build successful businesses.”
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business development,
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by Willy Franzen on June 29, 2009
This is a guest post by Heather R. Huhman. Heather is the media relations manager at a national health care professional association and entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com.
There have been some complaints in the Public Relations industry that agencies are not evolving quickly enough; however, Baltimore’s MGH, Inc. is never a subject of those complaints. While their Web site, and their entire agency, is currently “under construction,” they invite you to explore their “old” site for information—and by old they mean 2008. That’s how quickly they are willing to evolve.
But wait, there’s more. MGH was founded in 1995 by professionals who disagreed with the large agency mentality of overworking employees to the point of being burned out. Instead, MGH’s founders left their “comfortable jobs” to start an agency centered around retaining talented, happy employees. Today, they are 71 people strong.
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entry-level jobs,
marketing,
Maryland,
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by Willy Franzen on June 28, 2009
I’ve mentioned before that I’m on the board of advisors for a startup non-profit called National Coaching Fellows. During my time on the board, I’ve learned how challenging the non-profit world can be. Luckily, NCF has had the support of a “student-driven consulting corps for non-profits” to get through some of its growing pains. That consulting group is Chicago’s campusCATALYST, an organization that “seeks to direct the innovation, ingenuity, and problem solving skills of America’s future leaders towards community development by cultivating a rich academic and social entrepreneurship experience for college students and tangible solutions for nonprofits.” In other words, they take students from the University of Chicago and Northwestern and put them on consulting teams that help non-profits achieve their missions.
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entry-level jobs,
Illinois,
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program development
by Willy Franzen on June 27, 2009
Having grown up in Fairfield County, Connecticut, I took at least one school field trip to the New Canaan Nature Center. I think that I was pretty young, so I don’t remember the trip very well, but I do know that I always loved nature related field trips. If you’re not familiar with the idea of a nature center, it’s simply a “visitor center designed to educate people about nature and the environment.” At least that’s what Wikipedia has to say about the topic. New Canaan Nature Center certainly accomplishes that, as they have some pretty awesome facilities. In addition to a Visitor Center, they include a 4000 square-foot Greenhouse, an Education Building and Annex, an Apple Cider House, an Animal Care Building, an Herb Garden and Cottage, Two Observation Towers, Staff Residences, an Arboretum, a Wildflower Garden, and quite a bit more. It’s the perfect place for people to step out of suburban Fairfield County life and get a taste of the nature around them.
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animals,
Connecticut,
conservation,
education,
entry-level jobs,
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non-profit
by Willy Franzen on June 26, 2009
Considering the fact that I drove by a house in Michigan that was on sale for $12,500 just a few days ago, it’s pretty obvious that the real estate market still has some rebounding to do. There has been a lot of hurt in the industry over the past couple years, but maybe things are looking up. A friend who works at CB Richard Ellis let me know about a position that they’re trying to fill, and after I checked their Careers page I saw that they’re hiring for more than 200 positions. Considering the fact that they just went through a round of layoffs at the end of last year, I’d say all those job postings is probably a good sign for where the company (and maybe the economy?) is going. If you have heard of CB Richard Ellis before, you should know that they’re headquartered in Los Angeles and they’re “the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm (in terms of 2008 revenue).” Clearly $12,500 houses aren’t a problem for them.
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by Willy Franzen on June 25, 2009
When I moved to Chicago last year, just days before my 24th birthday, my parents decided that they wanted to treat me to a truly amazing Chicago experience to start off my life in the city right. They took me and my girlfriend to a dinner at Charlie Trotter’s, one of the finest restaurants in Chicago and the world. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the name, Trotter’s is usually found somewhere on Restaurant Magazine’s list of the Top 50 Restaurants in the World (although they seem to have dropped off the list this year).
When I dined at Charlie Trotter’s I chose the Grand Menu, which is an 8-course tasting menu. Although the menu is constantly changing, I had the pleasure of enjoying: Prince Edward Island Oysters with Sea Water & Pickled Daikon; Chilled Snow Lake Trout with Roe, Watercress & California Crayfish; Four Story Hill Farm Quail with Spring Onions, Chanterelle Mushrooms & Chorizo; Grilled Nantucket Bay Scallop with Boudin, Pig’s Tail & Fennel; Forty Eight Hour Braised Short Rib with Lobster Mushrooms & Fermented Black Garlic; Concord Grape Sorbet with Grape Leaf & Parsnip; Honey Crisp Apples with Cider Granite & Ginger Jelly; and Black Mission Figs with Shaved Fruit Cake, Marcona Almonds & Pedro Ximenez. It was an amazing meal that took food to a level that I didn’t know it could reach.
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hospitality management,
Illinois,
Nevada,
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by Willy Franzen on June 24, 2009
Jason Seiden and I often refer to the work that we’re doing with Found Your Career and other courses that we’re developing as career triage. It’s a practical, informal, and just-in-time approach that gives you what you need when you need it. I’m sure that Triage Consulting Group (which is based in both San Francisco and Atlanta) chose their name for a similar reason, although it might also have something to do with the fact that they’re “financial consultants to the healthcare industry.” The company was started to serve the needs of hospitals, and they do this through 10 services that drive 98% of their revenue: Payment Review, Workers’ Compensation Review, Contract Analyses and Negotiations, Litigation Support, Clinical Denials, Medicare Review, Revenue Cycle Consulting, Silent PPO Review, Capitation Risk Pool Audits, and Government Compliance Audits, including Medicaid and TRICARE.
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California,
consulting,
entry-level jobs,
finance,
Georiga,
health care
by Willy Franzen on June 23, 2009
When we were developing Found Your Career (our entry level job search prep course that we guarantee will help you get a job faster), we spent a lot of time figuring out how we were going to host all of the video content. Once your video hosting needs go beyond YouTube and the other free sites out there, things start getting a little complicated. Had we known about Ooyala, we might have tried using them to host our videos. They’re a Mountain View, CA based startup that provides “an end-to-end solution for content owners to transcode, manage, deliver, analyze, and monetize their video assets.”
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entry-level jobs,
information technology,
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software development,
video,
web development
by Willy Franzen on June 22, 2009
All of the cool new websites are built on the Software as a Service model these days. How often do you actually go out and buy a box with software CDs/DVDs in it and install it on your computer? How often do you download something and install it on your computer? Probably not nearly as often as you use a website like Google Docs, Flickr, LinkedIn, or even Facebook. It makes so much more sense for the company to run the software and hold the data on their servers, while all that you have to do is login from an Internet enabled web browser. Project SaaSure is a San Francisco based startup that “was started on the premise that businesses need an easier, more cost-efective way to manage their web applications.”
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California,
engineering,
entry-level jobs,
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by Willy Franzen on June 21, 2009
Father’s Day is almost always a little bittersweet for me, as it marks the end of a week long fly fishing trip with my Dad to Northern Michigan. I hate for the trip to be over, but there’s no better way to celebrate the holiday than having spent a week with my Dad doing what we love—catching fish. Last year I searched high and low to bring you a post about the National Fatherhood Initiative, and this year it wasn’t easy to find another Dad related non-profit. Lucky for you, I came across the Fatherhood Educational Institute, which is based in Chicago. I know that I couldn’t have done half the things that I’ve done in my life without my Dad (like start this business), so it makes a lot of sense that the Fatherhood Educational Institute aims “to promote positive fatherhood involvement in povery stricken communities.” Great fathers are so important to the success of their children.
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education,
entry-level jobs,
holiday,
Illinois,
non-profit,
outreach
by Willy Franzen on June 20, 2009
As much as I should have a great appreciation for architecture because my father is an architect, but I must admit that I’m still not quite there yet. However, as a guy who occasionally builds websites, I fully appreciate “the practical problems of human interaction in the built environment.” That’s why I think that San Francisco based Public Architecture is a pretty cool non-profit. Their logo is their mission statement, and if the font is too small for you to read (ummm can we say problems of human interaction?), then here’s what they do: they put “the resources of architecture in the service of the public interest.” How do they do that? Through a method, a model, and motivation.
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administrative,
advocacy,
architecture,
California,
entry-level jobs,
non-profit,
operations
is the funniest, most in-your-face career guide on the market.