nonprofits

What LinkedIn’s New Volunteer Marketplace Means For You

By Reginald Hall |

You may not be aware yet, but earlier this week LinkedIn opened its Volunteer Marketplace – designed specifically for nonprofits looking for skilled volunteers.

For instance you might serve on a small, relatively unknown nonprofit with aspirations to expand your visibility. Using Volunteer Marketplace, you can post an opening for a Volunteer Director of Marketing, along with a description of the skills and experiences you seek. Chicago Family Directions, a nonprofit who provides long-term literacy tutoring to Chicago Public School K-12 students did just that using the marketplace and had 12 applicants one day after posting its position. Continue reading →

Quick: I’m Double Parked, Want to Collaborate?

By Don Kligerman |

We were delighted by the recent splash heard on local and national news this week. President Obama announced that West Philadelphia is one of just five communities nationwide selected to be a “Promise Zone.” This is a new federal initiative to target resources to areas with significant poverty in order to transform the lives of area residents without displacing them. Continue reading →

Two Steps Past Comfortable

By Rhea May |

As we gear up for a second round of our Fairmount4Free pro bono initiative – stay tuned for an announcement this summer! – it’s important to look back on what we accomplished the first time around. For those not in the know, we launched Fairmount4Free as our very first pro bono initiative last summer, which offers $10,000 of free consulting services to smaller nonprofits in the area doing exciting work. The response was amazing (and even inspired us to expand pro bono support to the many new nonprofit leaders in our city through the PHL NExT initiative). After much deliberation we selected PhilaSoup, an education-focused microgrant dinner that awards funding to exciting classroom projects, as one of our inaugural awardees. Continue reading →

Looking Forward

By Don Kligerman |

In February, Fairmount Ventures quietly celebrated a milestone: we turned 20 years old. In sentimental moments when no one else was around we’ve had occasion to cast our minds back to what things were like for nonprofits in the ‘90s, who our clients were, our old addresses on Walnut and Chestnut Streets, and the fact that we had one email address and a staff person who had to read, print and distribute each message to its intended recipient.  Tiny phones that fit in your pocket? Really? Continue reading →