The winner of the How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar career coaching contest is...
Congratulations and thanks to everyone for entering and spreading the word about How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar. If you didn't win this time, stay tuned for more prizes and resources for book readers.
Here is a round up of some of the wonderful things that I have recently found in my in-box and Twitterfeed.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy has posted the transcript of a live discussion on overcoming career obstacles and preparing for a successful nonprofit career where Rosetta and I were guests.
In a recent BoardSource survey nonprofit CEO's rated their boards poorly when it comes to promoting diversity.
The New York Times has a new interactive feature where you can try your hand at fixing the nation's budget deficit. Try it here.
Moo cards are my new favorite for personalized business cards.MOO Business Cards are $21.99 for 50 customized Business Cards, each one with a different design.
Today is the last day that you can enter to win one hour of free career coaching. Buy How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar and post a comment here to be eligible.
To celebrate the great response we’ve been getting to How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar, Rosetta and I are each offering one hour of FREE career coaching (a $100 value) to someone who purchases the book by midnight EST on November 15. (Check out the great reviews the book has received from your colleagues!) All you have to do is buy the book (ebook or paperback) at the discounted rate of $19.99 (remember the price goes up to $24.99 after November 15!). If you’ve already bought the book, thank you! You’re already eligible to enter 
First, buy the book if you haven’t already. Then, fill in the comment box below with your name, email and the general area of nonprofit career development you’d like to work on. You have to comment below to be eligible for this prize. Rosetta and I will be randomly picking one winner from each of our comment sections on Tuesday, November 16. Then, we will schedule our one-hour coaching call to help you implement some of the tools found in the book. Entries must be received by midnight EST on November 15. The winner will be announced as an update to this post on November 16!
Note: Entries posted on my blog will win a coaching session with me and entries posted on Rosetta's blog will win a coaching session with Rosetta. You can post one entry on both of our sites if you like!
P.S. Even if you don’t win this time around, stay tuned for more contests and special offers just for Nonprofit Rockstar readers!
Do you feel stuck in your nonprofit career? Unsure how to take that next step? How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar is an accessible, do-it-yourself map of how to navigate the nonprofit sector and gives you the tools that you need to move from entry level to leadership. This book is designed for professionals who want to build a meaningful and rewarding nonprofit career. How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar is based on the authors’ experiences as well as interviews with nonprofit rockstars who have supercharged their careers.
You’ll learn how to develop meaningful nonprofit experience, build a strong network, establish a strong personal brand, achieve the elusive work/life balance, and move on up in your career.
Rosetta Thurman and I wrote this book together and it is chock full of all of the things that we wish we knew when we first started our nonprofit journeys.
How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar is available with two versions for you to choose from: an ebook or a paperback.
You better act fast, though. The book will only be available at the introductory price of $19.99 through November 15, 2010. After November 15, the book will revert to the original retail price of $24.99. Save $5 by making your decision to buy now!
This 189-page resource is ready for your download right now. Click here to get your copy.
Benefits to purchasing the ebook version:
189 pages of practical tips, strategies and real-life examples to help you ROCK your career The ebook version contains LIVE hyperlinks throughout the book, so you can put the 50 tips into action right away The ebook version saves paper, is searchable and can be saved to your computer to be read anytime, anywhere Includes a resource section with links to books, fellowships and professional associations we recommend. BONUS! Free 34-page ebook from Rosetta on developing your own blog BONUS! Free 14-page ebook from Trista on becoming a presentation powerhouse
Wanna hold How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar in your hands? You can also order the book in paperback format. It’s 174 pages and ships within 3-5 business days. You can order it as a paperback here.
Benefits to purchasing the paperback version:
So there is a dirty little secret in the next gen movement. Gen X folks can pull the same ageist nonsense that baby boomers do. I know this is absolutely shocking (unless you are a Gen Y nonprofit staff member that is sick of your Gen X coworkers constantly railing against your generation). Alfonso Wenker, who is a blogger at From Our Perspective and is featured in How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar: 50 Ways to Accelerate your Career, has a lot to say on this topic. From Alfonso:
I was hired for my first nonprofit job when I was twenty years-old. Yes, HIRED. It was a paid gig. AND it was a job in philanthropy to boot – and I still work for the same organization.
To this day I am still entirely humbled and grateful to Greg, my first boss, for hiring me. He took a risk and saw potential. And also, to this day, people continue to do a double take when they hear that I am in my twenties and work for a foundation in a lead program role. I still find myself saying at events and happy hours, “Yes, I am on staff and have been for three years.” It gets old after a while. Now in most settings I would expect that folks might be surprised to hear that a 23 year-old is the director of programs for a regional LGBT foundation, but the last place I’d expect to get pushback is at an event for young professionals. This has been a huge challenge for me.
When I landed what I call “the first job of my dreams”, I immediately started attending networking events, professional development seminars and of course “YP” events. Working in philanthropy I felt a little over my head at first. Everyone was older. Most everyone was white. Many had been seasoned nonprofit professionals before they arrived as program officers at a foundation.
I thought my one safe haven would be attending “YP” events. Think again. I suppose you could call what I encountered at these events, acute ageism. Sharing my age seemed to leave a bad taste in the mouths of people I thought to be peers. I continually had to assure my colleagues at these events that “No, I in fact, am not an intern. I am on staff.” I was shocked. These were supposed to be my people. We were supposed to band together about being younger in field dominated by folks 20 and 30 years older than us. Instead what I found was a general mistrust and disbelief.
Sometimes when I was not “out” about my age, I found my other young colleagues cracking jokes about “those twenty something’s” or ridiculing the work of their newest intern.
Read the rest of Alfono's post here.
