How to Find Groups that Share Your Ideals

Action Without Borders is a worldwide organization with a project to help people connect with others and exchange information on establishing freedom and respect among all people. It was founded in New York City as a center where people could exchange ideas about their communities and ways to improve them. Shortly after its founding in 1995, it expanded into a much larger organization, where information about nonprofit agencies, jobs and other opportunities could be exchanged through Idealist.org.

Idealist is a site with almost 190,000 members who post or just read comments on organizations, events, speakers and campaigns that interest them. There is information available at www.idealist.org in eleven different languages so far: English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish and Portuguese. There are long lists of Graduate Degree Fairs and Nonprofit Career Fairs, most of them in the United States.

Nonprofit organizations can be listed on Idealist, and content from Idealist can be displayed on websites. Members can elect to receive e-mail alerts or not, and there is no need to worry about being pestered with requests for donations. Action Without Borders is not affiliated with any political party or religion. Funding is provided through donations, grants, partnerships and fees, but there is no cost to become a member.

Idealist has won awards for being among the best sites for students and the best career sites. It is easy to search for nonprofit jobs or volunteer opportunities. There is also advice on starting and running community projects. There are tools for organizations, teachers and webmasters.

Connections between people and organizations can lead to action on social issues that affect all the people. There is power in numbers, and Idealist works to create the groups that make the changes. A few of the areas of focus on which information is exchanged and campaigns are started are Consumer Protection, Environment and Ecology, Government Oversight and Reform, Health and Medicine, Poverty and Hunger, Human Rights and Civil Liberties, Law and Legal Assistance, and Seniors and Retirement Issues. There are many more.

If there is not a group in your neighborhood that is working on an issue that concerns you, see if there is one in another part of the city. It might include members from your neighborhood, or maybe you could get tips from members on how they got organized and start another branch. If there isn't one anywhere near you, use Idealist to trade notes with people in other cities on how their groups are doing. Instead of just imagining a better world, help create one.