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CNN.com had a piece from CareerBuilder.com about the top 10 job prospects for Non-Profits. The growth numbers they cite apply to “advocacy, grantmaking and civic organizations field and administration is still the place to be salary wise.

I was rather amused at the opening lines of the piece-

“Do you feel your contributions in the workplace are overlooked? Are you consistently swamped with work at the office, but still feel empty when the week ends? At the end of the day, are you ashamed of what you’ve accomplished and how you reached the end result?”

Except for the bit about how you reached the end result, I think I am safe in saying that even non-profit people feel this way about their jobs. Though for non-profit people, the shame at the end of the day is more over how little you have accomplished in relation to what needs to be done.

Working in non-profits bestows no special grace that eliminates these feelings but they certainly may be offset with a greater feeling of satisfaction than you had in your for-profit job.

Just in case you are curious to compare some salaries, CareerBuilder also did a list of the top jobs in 10 industries back in February.

I think I witnessed an honest to god significant Pro-Am occurrence last week. (I say significant because there are a lot of smaller examples all around me everyday.) One of the professors at my school, Paul Cravath, donated his book to the college library last Friday. Not a big thing in itself certainly, but it was how it got published that is interesting.

A gentleman with a passion for the Cambodian art around Angkor Wat was interested in the story behind the figures of dancers found in the area. Having read two sentences somewhere of the professor’s doctoral thesis on Cambodian Dance Drama, he asked the read the whole thesis. The gentleman decided the thesis should be published and set about making it so despite having never published a book before.

Now the professor has a gorgeous looking book published supported by a nifty website. This week, the book appears on the cover of Publisher’s Weekly. Okay, sure it shares the cover with 11 other books, but still it is pretty impressive. (Its the one on the bottom row in the middle.)

Granted, it wasn’t cheap to print even 800 copies but nothing says that Pro Ams are necessarily poor. The man who funded the project seems pretty canny and has a plan to recoup his nut in a manner that doesn’t depend on making college students spend a lot of money on it as a text book. The idea that one man’s passion for Cambodian art would inspire him to publish the work of another having no experience in doing so is mind boggling to me. I suspect that in a 5-10 years this sort of thing might not be so surprising.

In fact, the practice might prove a little dismaying. In the discussion of his book, Engaging Art, at the APAP conference, Steven Tepper mentioned that while people might be inspired by the technology facilitated Pro Am environment to write a book, their enthusiasm and hard work might not translate into something worth reading.

So you may ask, does the world need a book on Cambodian Dance Drama? Well I can attest that it is pretty comprehensive. It is also probably the definitive book on the subject since no similar text exists in English, French or Cambodian. Given that the author got out of Phnom Penh while the Khmer Rouge were shelling the airport, he may have been the last one to see some of the source materials.

If it does prove to be of some value, its availability to scholars and the public will be the result of one man’s passion. Otherwise, its sole existence would have been in a box under a bed and in a microfilm archive.

There are times on my blog when I am critical of people’s practices or state/imply that there is action that needs to be taken to improve a situation. With that in mind, I also think it important to acknowledge when people do act to rectify a situation. Such is the case with the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. As I have mentioned, I am involved with their Emerging Leadership Institute and have been one of the initial forces behind making the experience worthwhile for the once and future participants.

A number of alumni (including those who had just graduated) met during the conference to discuss what where we wanted to see the program go and how the APAP leadership could help. In attendance was newly hired Education Specialist, Scott Stoner who had declared before a room full of people on the previous day that if APAP didn’t make significant inroads in developing a significant knowledge base, thinking strategically and making use of the people that they have on their team, he wouldn’t be working there next year. So we knew we were dealing with someone who was quite serious about effecting change.

So two days ago I had a conference call with the other two people who helped spearhead the effort to get the ELI alumni together and advance our agenda with the APAP administration. (Laura Kendall, Lied Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Joe Clifford, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College. Smart, passionate people. Give them fulfilling jobs with good pay!) We spoke about involving more people in planning and programming for next year. We also divvied up responsibility for talking to different people at APAP to remind them about the changes and additions we would like to see implemented.

Imagine my pleasure when I got an email yesterday from APAP sent out to all alumni signed by Scott Stoner and others essentially committing to address all the issues we had discussed at our conference meeting. My partners in crime and I pretty much don’t have to do any reminding.

Among the the things they have committed to do are:

Send a letter from Arts Presenters’ President/CEO Sandra Gibson to recent graduates’ chief administrator – acknowledging the value of participation in the program and you as a member of the ELI network (done)

This was actually very important to the alumni. I am thrilled to see it has already been done. The ELI alumni feel the experience is valuable but don’t believe the chief administrators feel the same. Frequently, they won’t send new people to the conference or resend the program alumni. We felt the letter would help reinforce the value of participation in the administrators’ minds.

But we also know that conference attendance involves a considerable investment of time and money. While the ELI alumni are committed to finding ways to help finance or reduce the fees for returning alumni, we are also dedicated to providing opportunities for interaction between the annual conferences which is where the next three goals APAP has come in.

Identify links to online and other information and resources to assist with building knowledge and skills.

Identify opportunities for ELI members to meet on-site at state, regional and national arts meetings and conferences (links to meeting calendars and suggested events will be forthcoming in the near future)

Create a home for ELI on the Arts Presenters website and an online facility for peer-to-peer networking

This last item was actually fairly important to the ELI alumni. We had been frustrated with the Listserv as a communication tool. Until Scott Stoner mentioned that they were going to try to create an improved communication system, one of our agenda items for the meeting was to decide on an alternative mode like Yahoo Groups.

One last thing related thing I want to say. I was very impressed by how thoughtful and perceptive my colleagues in the ELI program are. In addition to all the aforementioned items we felt were important, there was also well considered conversation about where the ELI program fit into the greater process. People noted that in two years the student volunteers at the conference would be ready to apply for the Emerging Leadership Institute. It was also noted that since the first ELI class was 6 years ago, those early attendees were moving beyond the emergent portion of their careers.

By the end of the meeting a loose framework for three stage track starting with greater focus on improving the conference experience of the student volunteer and grooming them to apply for the ELI program a couple years down the road. Then would come the ELI experience and the aforementioned improvements. Finally a person would transition into an Advanced Leadership stage with a slightly different system to support their needs and goals.

It was a little strange to be organizing a group for the first time, turning to some of the members and telling them that they should make plans to leave and start their own group. Fortunately, those people were already of the same mind. They were happy the effort to organize was going forward, but they suspected they were moving past the scope of the group.

Yes, I know it all sounds very self-congratulatory. Frankly, having left a lot of meetings in my time feeling good about the future when the discussions came to pass and then having nothing actually develop at all, I am a little dazed to be involved with an effort that is apparently bearing fruit. (Though I am still realistic enough not to count my chickens.)

Want to know why people get depressed and cranky after the Christmas and New Year holidays? It’s not that the cold blustery depth of winter sets in with no joy in sight until the Spring. It is entirely the Salvation Army’s fault. According to an article on giving by Arthur Brooks, psychologists “…believe that charitable activity induces endorphins that produce a very mild version of the sensations people get from drugs like morphine and heroin.”

So it isn’t all the snow. People are just going through withdrawal when the Salvation Army packs up their bells and kettles. You may think all that bell ringing is annoying, but in reality, they just leave you wanting more.

The article cites a number of surveys and studies which have found that people who give, be it time, money or blood, are much happier than those who don’t. “American households, people who gave money to charity in 2000 were 43% more likely than non-givers to say they were “very happy” about their lives. Similarly, volunteers were 42% more likely to be very happy than non-volunteers. ”

There is a chicken-egg question in the article. Do people who are happy to begin with give more often or does giving lead to a feeling of happiness? Brooks cites a study that shows more happiness after giving, but I still wonder if predisposition has something to do with it.

In any case, it seems that scheduling the annual deadline for tax deductible giving with the Christmas holidays is well timed. If having the atmosphere permeated with goodwill doesn’t provide the impetus to give, the tax incentive adds a little more motivation.