non-profits?

Molly: There are plenty of real jobs on St Thomas. The problem is that most of them don't pay very well! 😉 There was a job posted for the Nature Conservancy on St Croix and it required an advanced degree. Community oriented non-profits do exist but this is one of those areas where you probably need to get rooted a little before you can find work. Have you considered teaching? Are you a social worker? Great need in Human Services and Health...

Molly,

Try checking out http://www.idealist.org, which is a comprehensive database of job openings in non-profits from around the world. You can search by location, type of position, issues/areas of interest, etc.

Your ability to get a job in a local non-profit (which is a pretty broad term covering everything from schools to advocacy groups) might improve depending on what you do. If you've got development and fundraising experience, at lot more groups might want to talk with you (that's pretty much a reality for non-profits anywhere -- people who can raise money are in great demand). If you're a program director or organizer, local not-for-profits may not be interested in you until you have roots in the community and understand the culture, norms, and local issues.

Pay scales are pretty low here from what I've gleaned, even for the senior staff, so you may have to adjust expectations even if you have an advanced degree and vast experience.

I wish you great success -- it's always a good thing to welcome folks who want to give back. Let us know what you find, okay?

HC

thanks for the advice. i figured it might take a little while until i find a job that seems "perfect" and i'm fine with taking other jobs until the job that i really want comes along. it's very true that you need to know a community too, so i'm planning on being patient until i feel like i understant the island life more. i live in NYC now and burned out on the low wages of non-profit work and felt i couldn't enjoy life here on such low salaries, so for the last 3-4 yrs i've been doing the corporate thing and i just REALLY miss working in non-profits and feeling like my 40+hrs a week makes a difference in the world (other than making money for a big corporation). however since my fiance got a nice raise at his job in STT compared to what he made in NYC we're feeling comfortable that i could go back to non-profit salaries (plus i know nyc cost of living is just rediculous)... i've seen a few postings on some sites (like Idealist) and i'll keep looking. i don't have my masters and i'm not a certified social worker or teacher, but i've been thinking a lot about teaching, so that may be a good option for me... thanks again

Molly,

Sounds like you've got all of the right attitude for making everything work out fine for you here.

I can totally relate to everything you've said -- I, too, spent a lot of years working for low nonprofit salaries and loving the work, but ended up going to a for-proft DC-based consulting firm in 1999 both to try and make some money and because that was the year I started using a wheelchair, and the national group I worked for had made no plans on how to get me back into their non-accessible office after having me work at home for three months. (They shall remain nameless so as not to embarrass this realloy wonderful progressive civil liberties group who does great work.)

I fried out after several years of working for consulting firm (even though most, but not all, of my clients were also non-profits), and chomped at the bit to get back into the issue advocacy community. I ended up taking a job with my favorite client in DC and am still with them -- I was lucky enough to have them accept my proposal to telecommute from down here. (I direct their online communications work, so it was a natural for me to work remotely, and had been doing so already for health reasons.)

I looked at a lot of positions in NYC over the years, and quickly stopped looking when I saw that they paid so little. I'm pretty confident that after working at NYC non-profit wages and paying NYC prices, the USVI won't hold any sticker shock for you at all -- and that you will make a great addition to the community you land in. 🙂

HC

wonderful! thanks for the positive advice. sounds like you have an ideal working situation right now-- hopefully i'll find something equally as good for my lifestyle. right now i'm just itchin' to get to STT and get out of dirty humid orange-alert NYC... 3 more weeks to go (at least I'm out before the Republican convention!)
thanks again