How we started
Idealist came to life in the summer of 1995—on one old computer and with no full-time staff—to help connect people around the world with opportunities to do good.
As we evolved, we gradually became known as the leading social-impact career site in the United States, with more than 1.2 million jobs and 200,000 internships posted so far.
And grew...
At the same time, volunteer opportunities have always been an important part of our mission, and in early 2025, we merged with VolunteerMatch, the largest online platform for volunteering.
Jointly, we now connect 15 million people every year with more than 200,000 organizations in 180 countries.
And now...
As you can see on our home page, we are now building on all this work to invite people everywhere to imagine a different world, and to help build it one day and one community at a time.
Our multinational team supports our community in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and never stops thinking about how to do this better.
Idealist is a 501(c)(3) organization based in New York. If you’d like to support our work, every donation makes a big difference.
