The Realist Idealist

…with me.

It does feel a little weird to post something from elsewhere that is essentially about yourself, but that said, I think the work that PIR/.ORG is doing to promote do-gooders on the web is great.  Put simply, I’m thankful to be a small part of it, and raise a bit of awareness of them too.

www.thewebbys.org

This is an interview I did with them a couple weeks ago - mostly focused on Idealist.  I was particularly pleased they asked about net neutrality and it’s importance.  Neutrality is one of the most important issues facing small organizations in my opinion and it’s something that almost no nonprofits/.ORGs are talking about.

Q: How does Idealist live up to the .ORG mission of serving the public interest?

A: You can more or less boil what Idealist.org does down to these five words: “turning good intentions into action.”

All too often people want to make the world or their community a bit better place, but simply don’t know how or where to start. So whether it’s through volunteering at a nonprofit, working for an NGO, inspiring a company’s employee network to give back, connecting with other websites, spreading a darn good idea, creating informational resources, or connecting individuals of all kinds around the world, Idealist brings together these necessary pieces so that intentions can more effectively and responsibly be harnessed to create a better world.

Q: As the Internet becomes increasingly commercialized, what can non-profit websites do to stay competitive while not losing their civic-minded identity?

A: Idealist has been live on the web for about 13 years now - grandfatherly as web-based organizations go. In that time, we’ve learned a lot about how to be a successful, competitive .Org - though as our founder and executive director, Ami, can tell you, many of the lessons haven’t come easy.

Among the best lessons we’ve learned are these:

1) Be authentic. The web 2.0 road is littered with the remains of many philanthropic and otherwise do-gooder websites who tried to be something other than who they were or emulate something already being done. As a website, be who you are, do what you do, do it really well, and you’ll stand out.

2) Nothing online is “build it and they will come.” (Except YouTube). Building, launching, maintaining, and growing a nonprofit website is extraordinarily hard work, and many of the sites we’ve seen come and go seemed to think they would simply go live and the rest would take care of itself. Either that, or they changed their business plans three times in a year when their initial strategy didn’t pan out immediately. Making the world a better place with a website takes a lot resources, support, external hand-holding (I don’t mean the Kumbaya kind of hand-holding), will power, resilience, and patience. As Paul Loeb writes “the Impossible May Take a Little While.”

Q: What are your thoughts on net neutrality?

A: Keeping the web neutral is an issue that all nonprofits and .Org’s should care passionately about. Unfortunately, it’s almost completely undiscussed in .Org circles. The tools and capacity available to any small group of people or organization trying to make a positive difference in the world are for the first time in the world’s history almost on par with the largest government and corporate entities - and the single greatest neutralizer making that possible is of course the internet. If the great commons that now exists becomes a new series of road blocks, detours, and “last mile” hurdles, the very nature of the web will change, and as relatively small, mission-based organizations, it’s folks like us that will lose out. In this regard I’ve been a big fan of Ben Scott and his quiet crusade to keep the web open and free.

Q: How does Idealist support itself financially?

A: About 95% of Idealist’s funding every year is earned income. A majority of that income comes from job listings posted on the site by nonprofits and NGOs in the United States, for which we charge $60 per post - an awfully meager sum I might add. Pretty much everything else on the site from posting volunteer opportunities to events and resources in any country is free.

Another substantial revenue stream for us are the events that we run around the country each year. Working with myriad partners Idealist hosts and runs Nonprofit Career Fairs, Graduate Degree for the Public Good Fairs, a Nonprofit Technology Summit, and dozens of smaller gatherings across the US, Latin America and Western Europe.

Q: What’s your favorite part of working at Idealist?

A: A couple weeks ago a woman named Jenn came up to me at an event in Austin, TX and asked, “Are you with Idealist?” to which I replied naturally, “Hi…uhh…yes.” She then grabbed my hand from my pocket and shook it, while looking me very sincerely (and almost uncomfortably at first) in the eye. She went on, “I just want you to know that Idealist.org changed my life…I was in a dead end job that I hated, and then I went to a meeting with a friend where I heard about Idealist and I visited the site that night. Two days later I was booking a ticket to South Africa to volunteer with a group who builds schools and homes. When I returned from volunteering, I went back to Idealist, found an organization I loved, and applied for one of their jobs listed on the site. Now I’m in my sixth month in this position, and I can’t believe my life!”

Experiences with people like Jenn around the world who have truly had their good ideas facilitated into action through Idealist is undoubtedly the best part of my job, and it never…EVER…gets old.