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Action Without Borders (also known as Idealist) is a
non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
service organization based in
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, founded in 1995 by
Ami Dar Ami Dar ( he, עמי דר; born January 7, 1961) is the founder and executive director of Idealist.org. Idealist serves more than 120,000 organizations around the world and has more than 1.4 million visitors every month between the English site ...
. The group has offices in the United States and Argentina.


History

Founder Ami Dar was interested in solving social and environmental problems in the world since childhood. In 1985, after his mandatory army service in the
Israeli Defense Forces Israeli may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel * Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel * Modern Hebrew, a language * ''Israeli'' (newspaper), published from 2006 to 2008 * Guni Israeli (b ...
, while Dar was traveling in South America, he got the idea to use modern technology (phones, PCs, and fax machines) to build a network that would make it easier for people to connect and act on issue that concerned them. Dar was 24 at the time. In 1988, Dar returned to Israel. He worked as a waiter, a translator, and a marketing manager for a software company,
Aladdin Knowledge Systems Aladdin Knowledge Systems (formerly and ) was a company that produced software for digital rights management and Internet security. The company was acquired by Safenet Inc, in 2009. Its corporate headquarters are located in Belcamp, MD. Histor ...
(AKS), based in
Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...
. In 1992, he relocated to New York City to establish the North American branch of AKS. He also learned about the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...
. In 1994, during his tenure with AKS, Dar began the organization as the Contact Center Network, a community point located on the
Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...
of
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. Dar’s intention was to create a network of meeting spaces in different communities, where people could connect with neighbors who might share interests and ideas for local action. To promote the Contact Center Network, Dar established a website (www.contact.org), a simple static HTML website with 2,500 links to the websites of nonprofit organizations in 100 countries and all 50
U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
s. Dar set out to find every nonprofit organization on the Web and arrange the sites by topic and geographic location, to create a ‘virtual’ Contact Network Center, which launched in the fall of 1995. In summer 1996, Contact Center Network was relaunched as Idealist.org (an "idea list" for idealists). Idealist.org developed into a searchable database where organizations could post. This system allowed organizations to post and update detailed information about their services, volunteer opportunities, job openings, internships, upcoming events, and any material or publication they produced. Small seed grants from the
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Foundation, Markle, and
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foundations helped sustain and expand the website. In 1997, the Contact Center Network was renamed Action Without Borders (AWB) as Idealist.org reached the milestone of having 10,000 nonprofit organizations registered on the site. In 1998, Idealist began offering email alerts so that people could get notified about new opportunities posted to the site. The next year, Idealist.org began charging US-based organizations $40 to post jobs (up until then, all listings had been free). Service Employees International Union was the first organization to pay for a job listing. In 2001, Idealist launched the Spanish-language website Idealistas.org; the French-language site Idéaliste.org followed in 2003. In 2004, Idealist began its first iteration of the Idealist Graduate Degree Fairs. In 2005, the Portland, Oregon, office opened. In 2016, Idealist closed its
Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous ...
office, laying off two-dozen people who worked there.


See also

*
Community service Community service is unpaid work performed by a person or group of people for the benefit and betterment of their community without any form of compensation. Community service can be distinct from volunteering, since it is not always performe ...
*
Civic engagement Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to ...


References

{{Reflist Charities based in New York City Organizations established in 1995 Social networks for social change Employment social networks Internet-based activism 1995 establishments in New York City