The Socially Responsible Intern Surplus

Wow, that was a great article. Thanks for sharing.

It sounds like there is a flock of highly skilled interns turning their heads to non-profits and NGOs but without any larger strategic plan. Like the blogger mentioned, 690 interns applied to 10 intern posts. There is no way an organization can make a truly informed and confident decision on who to hire. They probably won't even be able to go through all the resumes. It sounds all so chaotic.

Resumes are the tried and true of hiring single people, but it is such an arduous and complicated process. What if an organization cut their costs and saved time by using an outside consultancy firm to work on some of their projects. That consultancy firm will not only have all the resources of that organization, but will also have an extensive network of resources that they have built on their own.

I see four trends right now that we need to capitalize on: 1) the economic upswing 2) businesses cutting costs and looking for savings 3) lots of highly skilled, young people looking at community/NGO/goodwill work (partly because the Obama effect) 4) A sense of having to do business in completely innovative ways.

Let me know what you think.

Peace,
Nick

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Ruby Ku <rubyku85@gmail.com> wrote:

Saw this article and have been pondering on it…

http://www.nextbillion.net/blog/2009/04/17/the-socially-responsible-intern-surplus

Act Local, Act Global

Think of the popular slogan, "Think Globally, Act Locally".

If we operate effectively at a local level in terms of connecting young energetic people with local businesses, non-profits and other organizations then we can take the model globally by providing the same talent to organizations across the world. We can connect the local talent with international partners through the internet on a project by project basis. We still keep a personal connection because we (the social consultants) are working locally with that talent.

Check out this site:

http://www.unv.org/

It is a UN agency that matches volunteers with international organizations or projects. It is a really cool idea, but there doesn't seem to be a personal connection between anyone. I think you need that motivation sometimes to keep working.

Peace,
Nick