By Penelope Trunk

People in their 20s on average change jobs every 18 months. People in their 30s — at least the ones that continue to do well in their careers — change jobs frequently as well, although at a slower pace than the 20 somethings. So if you think job-hopping is bad, change your thinking. Job hoppers are not quitters. In fact, they make better co-workers and better employees and I bet are generally more satisfied with their work life.

Here’s why:

1. Job hoppers have more intellectually rewarding careers.

In almost any job, the learning curve is very steep early on. And then it goes flat. So by the end of two years at the same job, you often have little left to learn. Which makes me wonder what people are doing to keep their brains alive if they stay at the same job for 20 years. It also makes me certain that job hoppers know more.

If you change jobs often, then you’re always challenged with a lot to learn — your learning curve stays high. This is true for office skills, and industry specific knowledge. It also applies to your emotional intelligence. The more you have to navigate corporate hierarchies and deal with office dramas, the more you learn about people and the better you will become at making people comfortable at work. And that’s a great skill to have.

2. Job hoppers have more stable careers.

Corporate America doesn’t provide stability for its employees. The only people who think it does are really old and completely out of touch. There are layoffs and downsizing and just-in-time hiring and contract workers — realities that barely existed a generation ago. The stability you get in your career comes from you. If you’re counting on some company to give you stability, realizing this is scary. But if you believe in yourself and your abilities and treat your career with this understanding, then it’s no problem. You can create career stability — you just have to do it on your own.

The way you do that is through networking. Because you can be sure you’ll need to find many jobs in your lifetime, you want network as efficiently as you can. After all, the most efficient way to find a job is through a network. It’s how most people land jobs. People who work for lots of companies have a larger network than people who stay in one place for long periods of time. Which is why job-hopping creates stability.

3. Job hoppers are higher performers.

If you know you are going to leave your job in the next year, you’re going to be very conscious of your resume — that is, what skills you’re tackling, what you’re achieving, whether you’re becoming an expert in your field. These issues do not generally concern someone who has been in a job for five years and knows he’s going to stay another five years. So job hoppers are always looking to do really well at work, if for no other reason than it helps them get their next job.

You can’t job hop if don’t add value each place you go. That’s why job hoppers are usually overachievers on projects they are involved in; they want something good to put on their resume. So from employers’ perspective, this is a good thing. Companies benefit more from having a strong performer for 18 months than a mediocre employee for 20 years. (And don’t tell me people can’t get up to speed fast enough to contribute. Fix that. It’s an outdated model and won’t attract good employees.)

4. Job hoppers are more loyal.

Loyalty is caring about the people you’re with, right? Job hoppers are generally great team players because that’s all they have. Job hoppers don’t identify with a company’s long-term performance, they identify with their work group’s short-term performance. Job hoppers want their boss to adore them so they get a good reference. Job hoppers want to bond with their co-workers so they can all help each other get jobs later on. And job hoppers want to make sure everyone who comes into contact with them has a good experience with them; it’s not like they have ten years on the job to fix a first impression.

This is why job hoppers care more about their co-workers and will go further to make them happy than long-term employees. And it if you think about it, this makes sense for a company, too: The company isn’t hiring you with any decade-long commitment, so you would be foolish to think you have to give one.

5. Job hoppers are more emotionally mature.

It takes a good deal of self-knowledge to know what you want to do next, and to choose to go get it rather than stay someplace that for the moment seems safe. It takes commitment to personal growth to give up career complacency and embrace a challenging learning curve throughout your career — over and over. And it’s a brave person who can tell someone, “I know I’ve only been working here for a month, but it’s not right for me, so I’m leaving.”

Doubtless you’ll hear that you should stick it out, show some loyalty, give it at least a year or two. But why should you take time out of your life to spend your days doing something you know is not right for you?

It is okay to quit. No career is interesting if it’s not engaging and challenging, and your most important job is to find that — over and over. Do not settle for outdated workplace models that accept complacency and downplay self-knowledge. Sure, the job market is tough nowadays - but that’s no reason to settle.

Source: BNET

Facebook is more popular than ever among nonprofits, says a recent report by NTEN, Common Knowledge, and ThePort Network.

A survey was done earlier this year of more than 1,000 nonprofits about how the organizations use online social networks. The survey asked about the use of commercial social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, for example, and about building their own “house social networks.”

Nonprofits use commercial networks the most, with only about 22% of nonprofits reporting that they operated a house network. That represented a 28% drop from 2009 when 31% of surveyed nonprofits said they had a house network. The report suggests the drop is due to the recession since house networks require considerable capital investment. In contrast, it is fairly easy and inexpensive to set up shop on a commercial site.

Facebook holds the lead among those using commercial sites, with 86% of the surveyed organizations using it (this was an increase of 6% over 2009); while Twitter claimed the loyalty of 60% of nonprofits (an increase of 38%). YouTube, while only increasing a fraction, is used by 48.1% of organizations, and LinkedIn stayed relatively steady at 33.1% this year.

MySpace took a big hit, decreasing in popularity from 26.1% in 2009 to 14.4% this year.

What do nonprofits use their social networks for?

Marketing is used by 92% of the organizations; while fundraising is done by 46%. Interestingly, there is a 104% increase in fundraising departments that “own” their nonprofit’s commercial social networks, from 10% in 2009 to 20% this year. This represents a significant trend although marketing teams and communications teams continue to be the first and second most likely “owners” of the social space for nonprofits.

Some 40% of surveyed organizations reported that they are getting donations from Facebook, but 78% of those raised $1,000 or less in the past year. Facebook is the only commercial social networking platform through which nonprofits raised $10,000 or more, but only 3.5% of nonprofits were in this category.

House social networks do a little better, with 50% of surveyed nonprofits raising more than $1,000 in the last 12 months. On the other hand, 68% of house network-owning organizations are doing no fundraising at all.

As for resources, 67% of the surveyed nonprofits that use commercial sites, and 57% of nonprofits that have house networks, devote only 1/4 to 1/2 of a full-time employee to their community efforts. Budgets are also tenuous with 59% of commercial network users devoting no budget for social networking to 33% of them spending up to $10,000.

The researchers point out that lack of a clear ROI is likely holding nonprofits back from deeper financial commitment to social networking, but lack of expertise also plays a significant role.

There are lots of fascinating data in this report that will help you compare your organization’s efforts with its peers. You can download the Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report here. Also see this post at NTEN, Is Your Nonprofit’s Facebook Page Worth It?, and this one by Beth Kanter, What You and Your Nonprofit Should Know About Facebook Changes.

Source: About.com

By Ellen McCarty
I recently overheard a career counselor advise a job-seeker to explore the nonprofit sector because “it would be less stressful”. I immediately felt the urge to interrupt and “set the record straight” but I remained silent, choosing instead to use the exchange as the backdrop for this article.

Indeed, there are many perceptions about the nonprofit sector, some right and some wrong. In this article we will explore three myths and why perpetuating them is unfair to the nonprofits and the individuals who may unwittingly make a career choice based on these misguided notions.

Myth One: People who work for nonprofits do so because they cannot make it in the for-profit sector.
According to a 2009 study conducted by The Bridgespan Group, 53% of US nonprofits with revenue over $1 million have significant for-profit management experience represented on their senior management teams, including 20% in financial roles; 42% of the EDs surveyed had significant for-profit management experience. Due to an increasing number of individuals, from baby boomers to young adults just starting their careers, who desire to “work for purpose”, I’m optimistic that this myth will eventually fade away. While it is true that some nonprofit staff would not be a good “fit” for a corporate environment, it often has less to do with their skill sets as it does their passion to support a mission as opposed to passion to make money. Indeed the skill sets needed to run a successful business are the same skill sets needed to run a nonprofit. Payroll has to be met and fundraising, much like sales in the for-profit sector, produces the revenue to meet payroll and fund programs and operations.

Myth Two: People who work for nonprofits don’t work as hard as people in the for-profit sector.
In my first Executive Director role, I operated emergency shelters for abused and at-risk children and youth. Occasionally, a person would comment on “how nice it must be to rock the little children all day”. I’m sure my eyes crossed and my mouth dropped as I stammered for a response. With limited staff resources, it can be an expectation that staff work evenings, weekends and as many hours as it takes, to support the mission and serve the clients. A typical day for a director might involve a 7:30 a.m. committee meeting to accommodate board directors’ schedules, lunch with a donor, and an evening event. This expectation cuts across all organizational positions from program staff who work late to meet with clients to membership staff who work weekends to provide direction to volunteers manning a telethon.

Myth Three: People who work for nonprofits have less stress than people in the for-profit sector.
Of all the myths that exist, this one is perhaps the most misunderstood, especially in the current nonprofit environment when the demand for services has never been greater. Sustainable nonprofits operate as “businesses with heart” ensuring that solid business principles are consistently applied, program impact is measured and evaluated, funds are raised, and a well-crafted strategic plan guides the organization. However, as a former executive director I will always recall the most piercing question I ever had to answer…….. a client who raised his hand and simply asked “can you just tell me if I’ll have a roof over my head next year”. In the early morning hours when I would most often find myself pondering the questions and seeking the solutions, I would always find myself thinking about the person and the family on the receiving end and how their lives would be impacted if services were eliminated. Stress comes in many forms and what is stressful to one may not be stressful to another, however, it’s hard to imagine in the above scenario, that a case could be made to seek work in the nonprofit sector because “it would be less stressful”.

About the Author
“Ellen McCarty brings twenty years of executive experience in the government and nonprofit sectors. She has served as the Executive Director of two Atlanta based nonprofits and the President/CEO of the Make-A-Wish Foundation© of Georgia and Alabama. She has received local, state, and national recognition for her design and creation of programs in the juvenile justice system; residential facilities and programs for children and youth in foster care; and programs to establish permanent housing for homeless men, women, and children infected and/or affected with HIV/AIDS. Ms. McCarty is passionate about the work of the nonprofit sector and uses her real-life experiences and expertise to help organizations and individuals through her company, McCarty & Co. Additionally, she serves as a guest instructor for Emory University Center for Lifelong Learning; the Foundation Center – Atlanta; the Georgia Center for Nonprofits; and United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta.”

By STEPHANIE STROM

As many as 400,000 nonprofit organizations are weeks away from a doomsday.

At midnight on May 15, an estimated one-fifth to one-quarter of some 1.6 million charities, trade associations and membership groups will lose their tax exemptions, thanks to a provision buried in a 2006 federal bill aimed at pension reform.

“It’s going to be an unholy mess once these organizations realize what’s happened to them,” said Diana Aviv, president of the Independent Sector, a nonprofit trade group.

The federal legislation passed in 2006 required all nonprofits to file tax forms the following year. Previously, only organizations with revenues of $25,000 or more — or the vast majority of nonprofit groups — had to file.

The new law, embedded in the 393 pages of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, also directed the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the tax exemptions of groups that failed to file for three consecutive years. Three years have passed, and thus the deadline looms.

Bill Solomon, who founded Titan Youth Development in Brooklyn to provide after-school youth sports programs, first learned about the law when a reporter called to inquire about his organization’s status. The charity received its tax exemption in 2005 — but it did not start operations until last year.

“It was merged with another nonprofit — or I guess more like operated under the other nonprofit,” Mr. Solomon said. “I let this one be dormant for a while.”

He said Titan had brought in about $100,000 in revenue in 2009 through fees for service and private donations, so although he did not know about the law, he has an accountant working to prepare tax forms.

The I.R.S. has long complained it lacks adequate data on nonprofit groups because so many of them did not file tax forms. Without basic facts about organizations, the agency has little chance of overseeing one of the most generous tax breaks the federal government offers.

Donors, whose appetite for information about nonprofit groups has increased exponentially in recent years, also struggle, said Robert G. Ottenhoff, who runs GuideStar, an online database of nonprofit tax forms and analysis that many donors rely on. “This is a good thing for the nonprofit sector, even though it will no doubt create a hardship for a pretty significant number of organizations,” Mr. Ottenhoff said.

Ms. Aviv agreed, though she said she wished Congress had asked the I.R.S. to suspend, rather than revoke, the exemptions of nonprofits that miss the deadline.

“We need some way of tracking organizations,” she said. “The system we have right now gives you no real idea of who’s in and who’s not — and how can you manage a system if you don’t know who’s in or out of it?”

The I.R.S. would rather not revoke exemptions, either, and it has made a Herculean effort to let organizations at risk know it. For example, in 2007, it sent 665,000 letters to nonprofit groups that fell below the $25,000 threshold and those above that level that had not filed.

Lois G. Lerner, director of the exempt organizations division of the I.R.S, said that while groups would lose their exemptions effective May 16, the I.R.S. would probably not send out notices until January to give nonprofits a chance to bring themselves into compliance with the law. Donors to affected groups will be able to take a deduction for gifts until formal notification is received by the recipient organization.

Small organizations are the most likely to be hit. Experts say it is likely that many of them are inactive and were unaware of the requirement that they inform the I.R.S. when they closed their doors.

“We are moving very cautiously,” Ms. Lerner said. “The last thing we want to do is revoke the exemption of someone who has already filed.”

Source: NY Times

There had been a lull in sleazy Albany headlines. Have no fear, nothing has changed. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo provided a reminder of that on Tuesday, filing a civil lawsuit against Pedro Espada Jr., the Senate majority leader, claiming that Mr. Espada, his family and aides took at least $14 million from a family-run charity.

Mr. Cuomo said that Mr. Espada, a Bronx Democrat, used his nonprofit health care organization, the Comprehensive Community Development Corporation, as a “personal piggy bank.” The suit, part of an ongoing inquiry, seeks the removal of Mr. Espada and others from the nonprofit’s board and restitution of the charity’s assets.

Mr. Espada, who has heatedly denied the charges, founded the corporation more than 30 years ago. It runs health clinics in the Bronx, known as the Soundview HealthCare Network, that receive much of their financing from Medicaid and Medicare. The details of the suit suggest that this public service was too much about serving Mr. Espada.

The senator’s severance contract with the charity is now worth about $9 million — more than the charity has in available funds. The lawsuit also alleges that at least $250,000 in personal charges were made on Mr. Espada’s charity credit card, including vacations for the family and $20,000 to sushi restaurants that delivered to the Espadas’ Westchester County home.

When investigators began looking into whether he lives in the Bronx district he represents as the law requires, the suit alleges that Soundview paid $2,500 a month for an apartment there. It says the charity provided at least $100,000 for campaign literature. Both parties should be embarrassed by ties to Senator Espada, who has a long history of failing to file campaign finance reports and at one point owed more than $60,000 in fines. He also has starred in some of Albany’s seediest theatrics.

Last June, Republicans briefly lured Mr. Espada to their side with a leadership job and the bonus that goes along. That resulted in a month of absolutely no governing until Democrats lured him back, in part by making him majority leader, which also included a bonus.

Meanwhile, lawmakers have done nothing to pass real ethics reform. The state needs a major overhaul, starting with nonpartisan redistricting for 2011, fairer campaign finance rules and a true ethics police. Unless something changes soon, voters will have to throw out nearly the whole crowd come November.

Source: NY Times

By MONICA DAVEY

WILLISTON, N.D. — When Joey Scott arrived here recently from Montana, he had no trouble finding work — he signed almost immediately with a company working to drill in the oil fields. But finding housing was another matter.

Every motel in town was booked, some for months in advance. Every apartment complex, even every mobile home park, had a waiting list. Mr. Scott found himself sleeping in his pickup truck in the Wal-Mart parking lot, shaving and washing his hair in a puddle of melted snow.

“I’ve got a pocketful of money, but I just can’t find a room,” said Mr. Scott, 25.

North Dakota has a novel problem: plenty of jobs, but nowhere to put the people who hold them.

The same forces that have resulted in more homelessness elsewhere — unemployment, foreclosure, economic misery — have pushed laid off workers from California, Florida, Minnesota, Michigan and Wyoming to abundant jobs here, especially in the booming oil fields.

But in this city rising from the long empty stretches of North Dakota, hundreds are sleeping in their cars or living in motel rooms, pup tents and tiny campers meant for weekend getaways in warmer climes. They are staying on cots in offices and in sleeping bags in the concrete basements of people they barely know.

North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, 4 percent, but advocates for the homeless say the number of people they see with nowhere to live — a relatively rare occurrence here until now — grew to 987 in 2009 from 832 in 2008, an increase of about 19 percent.

And the problem is certain to worsen this summer as oil companies call for more rigs and thousands more workers.

“It’s hard to know where this might end,” said E. Ward Koeser, the mayor of Williston, who met this month with the governor of North Dakota to plead for state help with the housing crisis. “It’s the one thing that sometimes wakes me up in the morning and doesn’t let me go to sleep,” he said, acknowledging that most mayors can only dream of having such a riddle.

Still, where will all these happily employed newcomers live?

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Koeser, whose city had about 12,000 people at last count, but may now be closer to 15,000. “We literally have no place.”

Cranes dot the city, proof that a building boom is under way, but not fast enough.

While the rest of the country was sinking into recession, North Dakota never did. Other states nursed budget deficits, but North Dakota, even now, has a surplus. The state has a wealth of other jobs. A rise in oil production here, especially, served as an antidote to any whiff of what the rest of the nation was witnessing.

Beneath an enormous expanse of land here, workers have pumped an ever-growing amount of crude oil from a formation called the Bakken, thanks in part to new horizontal drilling technology. Government estimates put the potential recoverable oil from the Bakken, which stretches into Montana, at 4.3 billion barrels.

Now, 109 oil rigs — with scores of workers for each — are drilling in North Dakota, and some officials say that figure could reach 150 this year.

In one of the least populated states in the nation, this sudden overcrowding has upended some axioms of ordinary life.

In motels here, some people have stayed so long that they know their neighbors down the hall. Dinner comes from a microwave. “It’s a horrible way to live,” said Chris Rosmus, a Minnesotan who moved into the Vegas Motel for a month and stayed a year and a half.

In the Buffalo Trails campgrounds, an odd assortment of wooden boards, tarps and pink foam insulation are pressed up around campers, desperate attempts to add shells against the bitter cold. Fred Wise, in a camper he called his “8-by-18-foot jail cell,” was watching “Dancing With the Stars” alone at a cramped table. He grimaced at memories of temperatures dipping well below zero during the six months he has been here, temperatures at which ice can form inside these campers or freeze a camper door shut. “You’ve got to man up for this,” said Mr. Wise, 58.

Families have been pressed and strained. Mercedes Allen, her boyfriend and their 4-month-old baby, Hunter, moved here from California. Their stay with relatives stretched on awkwardly. Her boyfriend was hired to the first oil job he sought, but the living arrangements — with four adults, two children and two babies all under one roof — grew tense. By early April, Ms. Allen said, her relatives had given her a week to move out.

“It hurts to have to say, ‘I found nothing again,’ ” Ms. Allen said, as her week was running out.

If the problems are bad for oil workers, who are well paid, they are worse for locals in less lucrative jobs, who have seen their rents soar.

There are still some houses for sale here, but many of the newcomers arrive from grim chapters — foreclosures, bankruptcies, layoffs. They have little hope of qualifying for mortgages.

In the end, a relative from California drove a 31-foot camper to North Dakota for Ms. Allen, and she moved by the appointed day. The camper sits in a mobile home park without working utility connections, like electricity, for now, but Ms. Allen said she was relieved. “At least we have our own place,” she said.

In desperation a few months ago, the city began allowing trailers, campers and skid shacks (nearly windowless portable homes) to park in one of the empty, overgrown trailer parks that had been abandoned after the last oil boom ended in the 1980s.

The more than 180 companies involved in the oil operations, including Hess, ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil, are also concerned about housing. Some have rented out entire motels, and others are bringing in large, portable housing units — known as man camps — for workers to live on site, as Mr. Scott, the man sleeping in his truck, ultimately did.

Halliburton, with more than 300 employees in the area, has a 90-unit camp in place, and has asked to cart in a 158-bedroom camp used for the Winter Olympics. Some companies are helping workers make down payments on mobile homes.

For all of these struggles, few here say they wish to go back to where they came from.

Jana and Robert Stout stayed in motel after motel for four months, not finding one that could keep them for long. When Mr. Stout left for his oil job in the mornings, Ms. Stout climbed into her Buick and began the hunt for the next place. Often she sat much of the day in motel parking lots, waiting for vacancies to open up.

A few weeks ago, the Stouts got off a waiting list at a motel that had been booked for two years. They can stay there indefinitely for $450 a month. The room is tiny, big enough for a bed, a television and a hot plate. Ms. Stout’s grown daughter and granddaughter may need to stay on the floor, if they cannot find a place.

Still, the Stouts said they would never consider returning to Wyoming, where they used to live. “For what?” Ms. Stout said. “If I was home right now, I would be way worse. There is potential here.”