Sexiness is overrated.

Nonprofit infrastructure isn’t sexy.  When I started working in it, my friends didn’t understand what I was doing.  “What cause are you working for?” they would ask, meaning well and trying to clarify.  And when I’d reply that I was working for the health of the entire nonprofit sector, they would ask, “Isn’t that a little too…meta?  Helping the helpers?”

Meta, navel-gazing…perhaps.  But as unsexy as infrastructure is, it holds the sector together. So when Rosetta described the unexpected and unfortunate struggle of Idealist.org,  I picked up the torch in the comments and am carrying it here as well.  In my comment I mentioned my concern that associations get mired in the demands of their members and become risk-averse.  Idealist isn’t an association and doesn’t pander to the center.  It simply connects people and ideas, people and opportunities, people and people.

And like Rosetta and Kevin and other nonprofit bloggers, I ask just one thing. Whether you got a job or volunteer gig from Idealist (as I did), or just peruse it for opportunities–because it’s full of them–you can help save it.  Donate to Idealist. Blog and tweet about it.  Don’t let one of the beacons of 21st-century infrastructure crumble; our sector will be worse off without it.  And I’m not sure we can handle that right now.