Download a PDF copy of our history, milestones, and future goals here.
Our Origin Story
In April 2018, Georgetown senior Lydia Bubniak created Entry Level Jobs for Social Impact, a Facebook Group where people could share entry level, paid jobs and internships. She had been searching for entry-level positions at social enterprises, non-profits and NGOs, government agencies, and companies focused on affecting positive social change.
She kept finding a lack of resources for recent graduates in a pivotal gap. It is easy to find unpaid internships or a volunteer year posting for those early in school, not expected to support themselves yet – but you can’t do those forever. At some point, it is time for a student to transition to gainful employment. It is also relatively easy to find opportunities that call themselves entry-level, but require a couple years of experience – some even say “internships don’t count towards the experience requirement.” It’s the classic conundrum – how are you supposed to get experience if no one will hire you without full-time experience?
At some point, it is time for a student to transition to gainful employment.
As the project started to evolve, there was another social problem we found troubling. Nonprofits that serve communities are frequently understaffed, so they can’t afford to train employees or pay interns. Underpaid or unpaid nonprofit work as a career is frequently considered a luxury that requires considerable privilege, seen as a hobby, or requires a vow of poverty. Most students except for the wealthiest could not ask their families to fund a (full-time) unpaid internship, in an expensive city to boot. People who could provide valuable and perspectives and insight to organizations doing social good are unable to contribute unpaid labor with no day job. Even worse – job postings are frequently deceiving. This is unethical and one of the driving forces of frustration among students.
But there are still organizations that do socially good work, with impactful missions that are out there. There are lots of small or niche organizations or companies that do amazing work and would be excited to take in talented students, recent grads, career switchers to work on their mission. To pay for job listings on well-known jobs boards and continue to promote them among a flood of spammy postings can be expensive, and involves having to go through irrelevant resumes which they may not have time for. Meanwhile, job-searchers come across small organizations nationwide that do great work with excellent positions at that aren’t quite right for that job-searcher, yet could be the dream job for one of their peers. We are proud to be a platform where you can share valuable information and a source for knowledge for those new to the workforce. We just ask that you pay it forward; when you see great opportunities, pass them back to us!
Jobs for Social Impact started quickly started to outgrow the Facebook group infrastructure, and Leonor rose to the challenge and stuck with the project when Lydia asked for help creating a system to organize the data and display these resources on a Website. We have been collaborating, working on the WordPress site since, and now it is time for our next move upwards.
Learn more about the team behind Entry Level Jobs for Social Impact here.
Milestones
As of December 14, 2018
12,000+ unique visitors
We reached 10,000 individual site views earlier this month, after only six months of posting jobs. Upon this milestone, we released our current logo.
70,000+ page views
Our site has been viewed more than 60,000+ times since launching it. The vast majority of visitors are from the United States, but we also have a sizable international following, particularly in Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Spain, and India.
1,000+ jobs posted
We have posted more than 800 full-time jobs, more than 200 internships, and more than 250 part-time and temporary job listings. ALL internships pay at least minimum wage, and all full-time jobs meet living wage in their respective locations.
670 followers and counting
We currently have more than 670 followers and subscribers via Email, WordPress, and social media.
Entry Level Jobs for Social Impact 