Update, 3/29/12: Watch the webinar via the Nonprofit Quarterly archives.

So grateful for this community. (Photo: Daniel J. Sieradski)

“I need your help to save Idealist.org.” That’s the title of an email our executive director Ami Dar wrote just two years ago. It began:

Dear ___,

You know how sometimes in life you go through a bad moment, and when your friends hear about it later, they say, “Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you ask? We would have helped.”

That’s where Idealist is now, and I am writing to ask for your help.

Very briefly, here’s what happened…

Ami went on to explain that after the financial crisis in October 2008, thousands of nonprofits froze hiring – which meant that we could no longer depend on that revenue stream. We had to get creative. We expanded other revenue-generating efforts, including our Grad Fairs; made some painful decisions to streamline our operations and staff; and got by “on faith and fumes” and with a lot of help from our friends. By January 2010 we had no choice but to turn to you, the people who had attended our events, subscribed to our Email Alerts, and contributed to this community for more than a decade.

Ami sent the email to 500,000 people who had registered on our site. Your response—donations large and small, stories of how Idealist had touched your life, warm wishes—touched us immeasurably, and allowed us to get through that rough patch.

On March 28, the Nonprofit Quarterly will host Ami for a free webinar called When your Financial Model goes Bust: How Idealist Took a Risk and Pulled Through. Join us to hear more about this critical time in our history and to discuss how the lessons we learned might help in your own work.

Space is limited. Reserve your seat now at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/220154626

And to all of you who pitched in back in January 2010: thank you again. We can never thank you enough.

In the beginning of November I gave birth to my daughter Hattie. For the past three months, I’ve been knee deep in miniature clothing, parenting blogs, and really, really bad TV that helps me get through those long nights.

Now I’m back at Idealist. And while I miss talking in a high-pitched voice on a daily basis, I’m excited to again have adult conversations, think about social innovation, and revive the Idea File.

From our first Idea File post in April 2010:

I’ve missed you, dear Idealists, and all of your good ideas that make this world we live in better. After all, it’s ideas like Question Box and Failfaire and Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls that will impact Hattie as she grows up.

So tell me: What ideas of late have inspired you to Facebook, tweet, pin to Pinterest, tell everyone you know about them, and more? We’d love to help spread them on our blog.

Hi there! We’re Kim and Diana, Idealist’s Community Support Team. We read and respond to all the messages you send us, monitor the site’s content, and generally help you get the most out of your Idealist experience.

Got a question about Idealist? Get in touch: idealist.org/contact-us

We learn all kinds of fascinating things on the site and in conversation with you. Here’s our first-ever Idealist Index (inspired by the old Harper’s feature), with a bunch of things we’ve spotted recently:

185,831: Number of people who registered on Idealist.org in 2011
9,590: Organizations that joined Idealist in 2011
10,430,742: Unique visitors to Idealist in 2011
20: Percent increase in number of jobs posted in January 2011 vs. January 2012

3,266: Current number of listings including the word “exciting”
2: Listings including the word “exciting” in Buffalo, NY. (Kidding!)
10,622: People whose profiles say they’re looking for a volunteer opportunity
24: Volunteer opportunities that involve diving
110: Internships that involve dancing
19: Volunteer opportunities that involve knitting
1,107: Museums listed on Idealist

65: People who describe themselves as a “nerd” in their profiles
55: People who describe themselves as a “geek” in their profiles
8: People who describe themselves as both a “geek” and a “nerd”

28,575: Friends who “like” our Facebook page
36,082: Followers of @idealist on Twitter

5: Babies born to Idealist staff members in the last year
0: Pencils in the Idealist.org NYC office

12: Listings on the site that include the word “ukulele”
1: Number of those listings located in Hawaii

One final number: 9,237. That’s how many messages we received through the Contact Us page in 2011. We love hearing from you, so please let us know what you think of Idealist, if it’s helped you connect with any geeky-nerdy Hawaiians, or if you have questions about any of these numbers. Leave a comment below or connect with us through our Idealist profiles: Kim’s here and Diana’s here.

No need for a magnifying glass. (Photo: Mads Boedker, Flickr/Creative Commons)

Yesterday we released a new set of features to make it easier to find the people, organizations, and opportunities that matter most to you. Play around and let us know what you think!

Click on any of the listing types (Jobs, Volunteer Opportunities, etc.) in the header on Idealist.org, or start a search based on type, keyword, or location.

To better locate the opportunities relevant to where you are or want to be, we’ve refined our radius search to including listings from your choice of 5, 10, 25, 50, or 100 miles from any location. You can also search by region. Try a search for jobs in Eastern Europe or Western Africa, for example.

When searching for jobs:

• Select Job Function, and narrow your search results by degree and experience requirements and whether you’re looking for something full or part-time.

When searching for volunteer opportunities:

• Easily find opportunities based on how much time you want to give and when you’re free to give it.
• Filter down to opportunities for groups and families, and if you’re looking to go abroad, tune-in on which organizations provide support to international volunteers.

To locate people:

• Tap into our database of hundreds of thousands of individuals that are searching for friends, collaborators, clients, and volunteer opportunities.

We’ve also made our Info Centers more accessible. Now when you search for different topics, your results might include links to our Career Center or Grad School Resource Center. We figure if you’re searching for a job, you might also be interested in ways to score your next interview, for example.

–

Questions for us? Leave ‘em below.

Ideas for more improvements to the site? Add your suggestions to our GetSatisfaction page.

Image via Gavin Llewellyn, http://www.onetoomanymornings.co.uk/ (Flickr/Creative Commons).

12.12.2011: The bullets in this post have been updated to include the percentages of social media jobs (out of all jobs posted on Idealist) each year.

Fellow Idealist Jeremy and I recently ran a little test to see how frequently “social media” appears in job postings on our site. Here’s how many listings have included the phrase over the last several years:

• 2007: 25 jobs, o.01 percent.
• 2008: 125 jobs, 0.27 percent.
• 2009: 507 jobs, 1.67 percent.
• 2010: 2,115 jobs, 4.98 percent.
• And in 2011 so far, 3,467 jobs, or 7.7 percent of all jobs posted this year.

Curious what the very first jobs to include “social media” were? Reaching all the way back to November 2006, we found four jobs from three trailblazing organizations: a Content Producer at WGBH Educational Foundation; a Social Network Designer-Manager at Games for Change; and two web developer jobs at Feminist Majority Foundation.

When I was hired in 2006, there are at least a few people on staff who were creating social media, but I don’t think they would have called it that. For example, our editor Eric checked all of the copy on our site, but he also served as a curator of news about the nonprofit sector and posted articles from around the world every day. He was blogging before we had a blog. Now social media weaves naturally into the jobs of many folks here, whether they’re writing emails for multi-channel campaigns, blogging here, or using social networking sites to learn about and grow our community.

Questions for you, dear readers:

• What has this evolution looked like at your organization? Is your organization so new that the majority of your work takes place through social media, or have you spent a lot of time convincing people of the value of this type of engagement?
• Are blogs, social networking sites, and other social media included in your job description? How much of your work time do they consume?
• If you’re a hiring manager posting one of those 3,400+ jobs, what matters to you with regard to filling those roles? How do the best candidates showcase their experience in this area?

[UPDATE, Dec. 2, 2011: Thanks for your interest! We are no longer reviewing applications for this position.]

Idealist is hiring an Accounting/Office Manager to be based in our sunny midtown Manhattan office. Want to help our audits, and our office, run smoothly? Or do you know someone else who might?

Click here to read the details. And if you know someone in New York who should apply, please pass this on!

Update, 11.23.11: We have removed the listing because the application deadline has passed. Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to apply.

Our 2011 staff retreat. Will you be in the 2012 photo?

Idealist is searching for a Director of Development to be based in our New York City office. The application deadline is November 21. If you are excited about this possibility, or know someone who would be, please check out the job listing and feel free to spread the word. Thanks!

Photo via A. Zarmeen

You may have noticed some differences to Idealist.org today, especially if you logged in to your account. Here’s a rundown of some of the updates that will make your experience on Idealist easier:

• We’ve added quick links in the header (at the top of the page under our logo) to search for jobs, organizations, people, internships, and other listings.

• Your account menu has moved to the upper right-hand corner of the page, where you’ll always have quick access to your bookmarks, saved searches, profile, and preferences.

• Your saved searches are now more accessible too! Just hover over the arrow on the green Search button and you’ll see a list of your saved searches. Want to turn your saved searches into Email Alerts? Simply hover over your name in the upper-right hand corner and click on “My Searches.”

• If you administer an organization (or two or three), you’ll notice that you have quicker access to your org’s page, notifications, preferences, and invoices.  Hint: it’s right next to your name in the upper right-hand corner.

Enjoy, and let us know if you have any questions.

Last week we were very fortunate to be able to bring together our whole staff for a retreat in one of our home cities: Portland, OR.

Almost the whole team.

Before the retreat, we laid out seven goals. They included: Break out of our normal day-to-day work and recharge; challenge ourselves to think in new ways and learn new things; celebrate our successes; reflect on the past four months; look ahead at the next four; go in-depth on topics and projects that have organization-wide significance; be together and have fun!

A typical day in Portland: our site developers look at a list of upcoming projects in order to prioritize them.



On the final morning of the retreat, we got out of the office and into the fresh air. (Pictured: Mike, Craig, Josh, Minnie, and Enzo.)

We surveyed the whole staff ahead of time to get input on the agenda and goals. People from every team led sessions on everything from knowledge sharing to agile software development to volunteer recruitment and appreciation.

Amy, facilitator extraordinaire, helped us develop ground rules for the whole retreat; Josh's wiki-like brain was put to the test during a trivia game.

Other highlights included visits from Holly Ross of NTEN and Suzanne Bader of Mosaic Consulting. Thank you both for your time and wisdom – you definitely helped us with the second goal, “challenge ourselves to think in new ways and learn new things”!

During a break, Diana even found time to teach her fellow Community Moderator, Kim, to ride a bike. Talk about being together and having fun:

Go Kim go!

Now that the retreat is over, we have a ton of planning and work to do – and that includes reflection about how to make future in-person gatherings even more effective.

What does your organization do to reconnect? If you organize staff retreats, I’d love to hear…

• Is the emphasis on big visioning, nitty-gritty work and decisions, or something else?
• Does your staff facilitate it, or do you rely on others to help lead your reflection and planning?
• What other things do you take into account?

Have too much canned corn at home? Consider donating to a food drive. (Photo by Bernard Pollack, Flickr/Creative Commons)

If you’re anything like me, you have a stash of clothing that you swear you’re planning to wear any day now, but that you haven’t touched in years. Or your organization has a pile of old laptops in a back closet. Or you have some medicine you’d really rather not throw away but don’t need. So many of you have contacted us (including a staffer’s beloved grandma!) asking where you can donate these goods that we decided it was time to put together a resource.

Take a look at our Community Support Team’s Resources for making a noncash donation page and visit Charity Navigator’s site for more great tips.

Here are a few highlights that we’ve compiled:

• Donate items that are new, unused, or nearly new; a charity probably can’t make use of old junk any better than you can (…and may have to use valuable resources to do it).

• If you are looking to donate medicine, it must be unused, unopened, and unexpired. Laws vary state to state, so make sure you check here or ask your pharmacist for more information.

• Consider selling your items and donating the money you receive to charity. Try Craigslist, Ebay, or get offline and organize a garage sale!

• Look for a local charity to maximize your impact. This cuts down on transportation costs for you or for the charity. Make sure you get in touch with them to insure your donation will be welcome and useful!

• Not all donations are tax-deductible. Take a look at IRS publication 562 to see if your donation qualifies, and if so, consult IRS publication 561 to correctly determine the value of your donation. (We found Donateguide.com’s Tax Informations on Donations page to be a friendly way to access this information.)

Check out our full resource here. Of course, you can also use Idealist to search for organizations in your area, and get in touch with them directly about your items to donate.

If you work with or know of an organization that we should add to our list, please contact us here!