When some people lose a job, they literally don’t know what to do with themselves. Others, like Jim, know exactly where to turn–to their hobby. Ever since childhood Jim had been fascinated with toy soldiers. As an adult he became a part-time collector and dealer.

Losing his job enabled Jim to realize his dream of making his hobby more than a sideline. He traded the bustle of Manhattan for the tranquillity of the Pocono Mountains where he built what has become the largest toy-soldier museum in the country. His museum, which is open to serious collectors by appointment only, is home to over 35,000 toy soldiers.

An avocation is defined as “a subordinate occupation pursued in addition to one’s vocation especially for enjoyment.” Want to turn your avocation into an enjoyable vocation? Here’s how:

Be Creative (About Making Money That Is)

Ann Kullberg always loved to draw. Then 13 years ago she discovered professional-grade colored pencils. A neighbor suggested she enter one of her drawings in the county fair near her home outside Seattle, Washington. She won first place.

At the time, Ann was a homemaker and mother of two small children, one with severe autism. When her marriage ended, Ann was at a crossroads. She could put her children in day care and go back to teaching or try to make a living with her art, a prospect Ann remembers as being “really scary.”

She knew that creativity alone wouldn’t pay the bills. But coming up with creative ways to support herself with her art just might. Today Ann travels the country teaching classes, does commissioned portraits, has a contract to write a book (her second) and is designing colored pencil by number kits for beginners.

She also has her own on-line magazine, www.annkullberg.com. Professionals and novices alike sign up for book reviews, critiques of artist’s work, business and art advice, workshop listings and more. In just four months over 200 paying subscribers signed up.

Pay Attention and Shoot High

You never know when or where inspiration will strike–so pay attention! When Travis LeDoyt was in ninth grade he signed up for his high school talent show. In typical teenage fashion, he wasn’t sure what his act would be until 30 minutes before show time. That’s when he came up with the idea to lip sync an Elvis tune. His performance took first place. At next year’s show he sang for real. And once again, he won. Little did Travis know that his last minute decision would set him on a future career path.

Out of high school the furthest thing from Travis’ mind was becoming a professional Elvis impersonator. He’d put on his blue suede shoes to perform at some local function once a year or so. But Travis says it was more of a lark than a hobby. What he really loved was music. So, at 21 he taught himself to play guitar and piano.

Last summer Travis stole the show at a local ’50s festival in Greenfield, Massachusetts. That’s when he started “paying attention.” He polished up the band, recorded a CD and set about learning everything he could about the music industry. “Once you have a goal in mind,” he says, “one thing just seems to lead to another.” With what he says were “high hopes,” the 23-year-old sent his CD to major rock n’ roll festivals around the country.

His high hopes–and hard work–paid off. Travis just returned from performing at the International Rockabilly Hall of Fame Celebration with the likes of Brenda Lee, the Comets and Elvis’s original back-up singers, the Jordanaires. Now it’s on to the big time. Travis has been chosen to sing at this summer’s Elvis Presley Festival in the King’s own hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi.

Start While You Still Have a Job

While still in the corporate world Jim Hillestadt had another sideline, freelance advertising. Today he combines being a toy-soldier collector-dealer with his own full-service ad agency. As Jim sees it, “Some are born to follow a path. Others have the good fortune to find a fork in the road and follow both paths.”

In those early years, Ann supplemented her art by substitute teaching and cleaning houses. Travis still works part-time at a large grocery chain. Few people can afford to just up and quit their jobs to follow their passion. That’s why Jim advises everyone to have some kind of parallel business in addition to his or her job. “That way,” he says, “when you’re ready to take the leap, you’ll have something to leap to.”

Getting Started

Step 1: If you already have a hobby, skip this step. Otherwise, make up your own “I’d rather be� bumper sticker. Would you rather be following sports, writing poetry, gardening, shopping, fixing things, fishing, watching old movies? Don’t get hung up on whether or not you can earn a living at your “hobby” just yet. For now it’s enough to tap into your natural interests.

Step 2: Once you’ve nailed that assignment, you’re ready for another. Get a notebook and label it “Shopping for a Living,” “How to Make Money Watching Movies,” or whatever it is you’d like to do. Then, get busy studying all the ways you could do just that. Here are some good places to start:

The Web
Visit web sites featuring your hobby or interest. Note what potential customers are looking for. See if you can find any untapped niches.

Industry associations
Professional and industry associations offer a wealth of information. Is whipping up a four-course meal your idea of a good time? The United States Personal Chef Association (www.uspca.com) can help you get out of your kitchen and earning money in someone else’s.

Into crafts?
Check out the National Craft Association (www.craftassoc.com). You’ll find craft and trade show listings, a small business center and handy resources like the Directory of Wholesale Reps for Crafts Professionals.

Books
There’s a book for practically every hobby or interest. Love sports? Read “Careers for Sports Nuts: & Other Athletic Types” by William Ray Heitzmann and Mark Rowh. Love to shop? Cathy Stucker (aka “The Idea Lady” at www.idealady.com/mystery.htm) tells you how you can get paid to shop and eat.

Magazines
The larger bookstores are where you’ll find such niche publications as Cats & Kittens, Canoe & Kyack and Gold Prospecting. Peruse the ads for clues as to possible income streams.

Step 3: With your notebook filled with lots of neat ways to turn your hobby into your job, you are, as they say, ready to rock n’ roll. From here, says Travis, the formula for success is pretty straightforward: “Have a goal in mind. Then go for it.” Elvis himself couldn’t have said it better.

Untraditional workers make major headway.

Dramatic increases in temporary, “free agent” jobs and a related shift away from traditional nine-to-five employment could be precursors to a change in the structure of the American workforce, according to a study by national staffing company Kelly Services, Inc.

Before the economy stalled, a record one-quarter of all U.S. workers were listed as free agents last year. Assuming the economy rebounds and grows to support this trend, 41 percent of all U.S. workers could become free agents within the next decade.

The study initially cited a growth rate in the U.S. workforce for temporary/contract workers of 22 percent, with another 13 percent considering free agency. Today, 26 percent of the survey’s respondents work as free agents, and 17 percent are considering it. The shift is being driven largely by worker dissatisfaction with internal corporate cultures and by the broad recognition among corporations that hiring in specialized categories is not what they do best.

For the Time Being

“Free agents are searching for more job satisfaction with fewer restrictions than with conventional employment,” said Carl Camden, Kelly’s Chief Operating Officer. “This is particularly true among those under 30 years of age. They are the group most interested in free agency and account for the potential strong growth of temporary and contract workers in the future.” Free agents are defined as workers employed outside the traditional labor force in such positions as freelancers, independent professionals, full-time temporary workers, consultants, and contractors.

As specialized technologies and services expand in the free market economy, so do the number of free agents required by business to implement the specialties and so do the number of business managers hired to monitor the free agents. This means that the growth of a full-time temporary work force is occurring at a rapid pace.

“You have to look at companies heavily staffed with specialists in such diverse areas as accounting, insurance, 401(k) planning, and information technology,” says Paula Fleming, Director of Human Resource Effectiveness at Xerox. “It’s often beyond the company’s core competency to manage these specialties as their complexities grow. That’s when the companies outsource to staffing agencies that know the specialties cold. By doing this, the companies create both new opportunities for free agents and a runway for new managers who have to deal with the agencies.”

But there is a downside. “When the economy slows the free agents usually get released first, and thus serve as a safety valve to shield full-time employees from layoffs,” says Steve Armstrong, a Kelly Vice President and General Manager. “But the shoe is on the other foot in good economic times. That’s when the hiring decisions are on the side of the free agents and they can take their time sizing up companies they might like to work for.”

According to Armstrong, home computer use and the explosion of the Internet could add measurably in the future to the general trend toward free agency. “Direct placement websites that work from resumes give free agents the opportunity to monitor openings offered by national staffing companies on a daily basis,” he said.

Uncle Sam Steps Up

The Federal law removing social security disincentives for senior citizens will also have an impact. As of last year, millions of vigorous men and women over sixty-five were free to seek “gold collar” jobs for the first time since Social Security started. These are jobs that pay well and have strong career opportunities, but don’t require a four-year college degree.

The push for gold collar jobs may lead to an even greater work force challenge: ‘platinum jobs,’ according to the Kelly study. These involve professional careers in law, science, finance and information technology that require even more skills and training than the gold collar jobs.

That’s where companies like Volt Information Sciences help, says Volt area manager Francine Pieper. “We’re dedicated to a broad range of highly-skilled disciplines, from supplying the professional services of temporary medical doctors and lawyers to technical printing to office support. All of these areas have seen substantial growth in recent years.

“There’s also growth in the number of retirees who work full-time to augment their incomes and in the number who only work three or four months a year so that they can travel and enjoy themselves,” Pieper explains. “For example, we have a retired fire chief who likes to stuff envelopes just so he can to talk to people and meet prospective golf partners. I don’t think he’s going to alter the structure of the American workforce much, but he’s certainly lots of fun to be around.”

“I thought I wanted to work at a ski area,” he says, explaining that he wasn’t exactly certain of what kind of work he would do.

To be extra sure about his major, Peder sought help from Layne Meredith Nelson, director of career services and academic support at Western State.

“She helped me out a lot,” he says. “I took some career tests to feel out if recreation was a strong point for me. It was one of the top things on the list of jobs that would fit my personality.”

Peder, who’s not related to Layne, says he began working in the career center during his freshman year and became familiar with all it had to offer. So when he became interested in global positioning and geographic information systems — computerized mapping — in a sophomore environmental studies class, he knew where to go to get help in finding how to turn his interest into a career.

Peder researched the uses for the mapping systems, which are primarily used in engineering. He learned that the same techniques that are used to map things like flood plains and water sources can be used in recreation.

“There’s a growing need for mountain bike mapping,” Peder says, explaining that ski areas could benefit from the mapping techniques as well. “It’s kind of the wave of the future.”

Through career services, Peder found an opportunity to perform a “guest analysis” for the Crested Butte Mountain Resort, using a special geographic information systems computer program to track and map where the resort’s guests live and help predict where to target advertising for future guests.

“A lot of marketing firms are starting to use it,” Peder says. “People understand things much better when they see maps.”

Peder spent the summer between his junior and senior years volunteering for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, teaching employees how to use global positioning and geographic information equipment. Then he spent the fall semester of his senior year as a teaching assistant in a geographic information systems class at Western State. He has been able to keep his major in recreation and tailor it to his newfound interest. He knows he has found his calling.

Making Your Interests Marketable

Layne Nelson says that Peder isn’t the only student she’s counseled who’s been able to find a way to make a living doing what he loves. And she points out that any student with a strong interest can do the same.

What can you do if want to turn an interest into a career?

“There’s no set routine, really,” Layne says. “A lot of it is just brainstorming. I usually start out by asking students what they really see themselves doing to make sure they understand what they’re talking about…A lot of it is just conversation.”

Trish Bergmaier, director of career services at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Ga., says she starts in the same way with students who are looking to make their interests marketable.

“The first thing I like to do is sit down and talk with them,” she says. “I ask them what are some things they are good at.”

Both career counselors say they often give students assessment tests to help them decide if they’re really suited to the area they’re considering.

“I’ll also send them away to do some research about the careers they may be interested in,” Layne says.

Bergmaier says she also likes to have students do research in books and on the Internet.

Some students, Bergmaier adds, know what career they want to pursue, but need to find an appropriate major. She points to a student she counseled several years ago who wanted to become a wedding planner.

“She wanted a four-year degree and she wanted to stay at our university,” Bergmaier says, explaining that the student knew someone who already ran a wedding-planning business.

“I had her do informational interviewing,” Bergmaier says. “I had her look at some wedding planning books and referred her to a professional association.”

After all that, Bergmaier says, she and the student began looking at possible majors.

“She chose management with an emphasis in small business,” Bergmaier says, adding that the student also spent her weekends working for the friend who is already in the business. By the time she graduated, Bergmaier says, she was ready to go into business for herself.

Layne says she also encourages students to talk to people working in fields related to their interests.

“We give out names of people they can talk to,” she says. “Sometimes that helps clarify things for them.”

Layne stresses that students who hope to turn an interest into a career shouldn’t try to go it alone.

“Take advantage of the resources at your career center,” she says. “Talk to faculty members. Go to career fairs…Just get some idea.”

“I love what I do.”

Ask people who work in community development about their careers and that’s what you’re likely to hear. It’s a field in which you can be entrepreneurial and ambitious, take risks and earn a living, yet feel fulfilled by knowing your work has a positive impact on people’s lives. Because it often offers unusual opportunities for creativity and leadership, it can be a good choice for young professionals starting careers.

Community development is the economic, physical and social revitalization of a community, led by local residents. The field emerged about 30 years ago as a grass-roots movement to improve living conditions, most often in low-income areas. It has since grown into an industry, and continues growing, with jobs in urban, suburban and rural areas in every state and overseas.

Volunteering and Internships Are Keys to Future Jobs

The difference that community-development efforts can make is evident in the South Bronx, N.Y., says Paul Grogan, a vice president at Harvard University and former president of the Local Initiatives Support Corp., a national organization based in New York that finances local community development housing and business initiatives. “In 1979, [the South Bronx] was rubble, the dustbin of history. Today it’s still poor. But housing is booming, crime is down, and you can see the start of economic revival. A new supermarket is opening, there’s a Little League team playing, it’s now a place where life is normal,” he says.

Partnerships Are Key

The field relies on partnerships between resident-led and professionally staffed neighborhood groups and public-sector and for-profit investment and support. Nonprofits pursue programs, such as low-income housing or job-training for at-risk youth. These are supported by local, regional and national nonprofit intermediaries which provide funding and technical assistance. Sources of business-sector backing can include corporations, investment banks, law firms, lenders, mortgage companies and even venture-capital pools.

“In a growing number of corporate boardrooms, lagging neighborhoods are now touted as targets of opportunities,” says Neal Peirce, a syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C., who writes about state and local issues. For some banks, community-development finance has become an important business line. For example, Bank of America has made a 10-year $350 billion commitment to community-development lending. Additionally, developers, property-management companies and business owners are partnering with local groups in housing and economic development ventures.

The public sector assists these efforts by providing subsidies and funding services, regulating, monitoring and even partnering in projects to make direct loans or reduce risk. Further, universities and foundations are expanding their support of community-development initiatives.

In Tune With the Times

Demand for talented community-development professionals has swelled over the past decade, and the career’s popularity has grown. “Community development is fully in tune with the times,” says Peirce. “The field is entrepreneurial; its approach spans the political spectrum and is popular because it combines doing good for people and communities with the ethic of self-help and self-improvement.”

The field spans a variety of careers and industries involved in economic and social revitalization. Dan Nissenbaum and Roxie Perez-Lohuis represent either end of this spectrum. Nissenbaum, 36, is a senior vice president at Chase Manhattan Bank’s community development lending arm. Perez-Lohuis, 28, is a manager in a social-services program run by a Bronx nonprofit neighborhood organization that owns more than 1,500 apartments. She helps tenants overcome obstacles in their daily lives, such as finding day care so they can work, and build their skills to help themselves and each other.

Even though they come to the field from different approaches, they share a similar enthusiasm.

“My job is full of excitement. The phrase ‘doing well by doing good’ may be trite, but it’s true,” says Nissenbaum.

“This work is very rewarding, the type of reward that nourishes the soul,” says Perez-Lohuis.

Community development work can involve:

• community organizing,
• financing, housing and new businesses,
• redeveloping deserted industrial sites,
• job training,
• joint-venturing in developing local supermarkets and
• shaping public policy.

Employers include:

• community-based nonprofit organizations,
• banks,
• city, state and federal government,
• business enterprises,
• academic institutions,
• foundations,
• real-estate development companies,
• social-service agencies,
• job training and placement organizations,
• investment firms and
• think tanks.

Entry-Level Jobs

Even beginning jobs can offer challenge and interest. Shelia Slemp, 26, works for Neighborhood Progress Inc., a Cleveland organization. She designed and now manages a program that links college students to internships in grassroots community-development groups.

Slemp found her current position through an internship organized by Case Western Reserve University, where she’s pursuing a graduate degree in social work. She’s been participating in volunteer and civic organizations for years with her parents’ encouragement. After graduating from the University of Virginia, where she majored in government, she spent two years as an AmeriCorps intern, working in teams with community residents on building a greenbelt trail and other projects.

Community development appeals to Slemp because of its interaction with local groups that are “constantly innovating and thinking creatively,” she says. “I find building community by encouraging people to be involved is much more effective than through any corporate or government agenda.” She works 25 hours a week, setting her own hours, while continuing her studies.

Building Upon a First Job

An advanced degree usually isn’t necessary for your first job. The wisest career journey starts with an entry-level job. This experience will help you decide whether you really do enjoy the work, the kind of work you like best and the setting you prefer.

From your first job, you can climb the ladder in your organization. It may even pay for further education or training. Many banks, for example, offer first-rate in-house training. Or you might take a series of jobs — some paid, some volunteer — to try out different settings.

As an alternative to an advanced academic degree, you might consider enrolling in training courses. During the past three decades, a specialized nonprofit sector has grown that offers workshops on general community-development concepts and strategies, as well as specific techniques, such as commercial real-estate development. .

The Downside

All right, nothing is perfect. The best part of this career is seeing the positive changes in lives and neighborhoods that result from overcoming the economic factors that cause economic and social decline. The hard part is the frustration, day in and day out, of pushing against forces that resist change. Sometimes it’s people who can’t or won’t break out of their cycle of poverty. Other times it’s an external event, like a plant closing that eliminates neighborhood jobs.

Although community-development jobs often are more flexible than most, they may require long hours, including evenings to attend meetings or weekends to complete special projects. You may have the opportunity to quickly gain responsibility and experience in a variety of work mainly because your organization is understaffed, leaving you to handle many tasks and take the reins.

Another drawback can be compensation. Though salaries in nonprofit community-development organizations are comparable to those at other nonprofits, the pay is generally lower than in the for-profit sector.

A Springboard

This is a field where you could spend a lifetime or use as a springboard to another career. Former community developers lead foundations, banks, development companies, publishing houses and universities.

Others have followed a path to elected office, becoming mayors, state and local legislators or U.S. Congressmen and women. For example, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) started out in public life organizing her neighborhood to fight the construction of a highway that would have cut the area into disjointed pieces. The neighbors won.

Volunteering and Internships Get You in the Door

Community service, through internships or volunteering, is a good way to land your first community-development job. It’s best not to walk in cold. Demonstrating your interest gives you an edge. If there’s a community-development group active in a neighborhood in your city, volunteer for its programs. Local and national religious institutions, including Habitat for Humanity International, based in Americus, Ga., and the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, also run community-volunteer programs.

Internships usually are structured positions within an organization, which will teach something about the work in return for your labor. They also may pay a stipend. Many local, regional and national community-development organizations and foundations have created formal internship programs. Or you can approach a community-development group and make your own slot.

Mark Gaines used networking and informational interviews to find a desirable employer. He learned about the Dallas division of Ryland Homes, a for-profit housing development company, and got his foot in the door by creating an internship with them. “They’d never had an intern before,” says Gaines. He was selected by the National Congress for Community Economic Development, a trade association in Washington, D.C., to participate in its emerging leaders training program. Gaines also has teamed with two other graduates of the program to launch Resurgence Magazine , a Web site devoted to community development.

His latest project is a collaboration with a newly formed nonprofit, the African-American Pastor’s Coalition, building 284 market-rate homes in a long-ignored section of Dallas. As part of the project, he administers a mentoring program that helps African-American builders complete about one-fifth of the homes.

Then think of the guilty pleasure you feel when you emerge briefly from your reverie to notice the harried businessmen and businesswomen scurrying through the terminal as they rush to make their flights to Toledo, Tulsa, Tallahassee, or some other mundane metropolis.

For some, business travel is the spice that makes a job intriguing. But for many others, it’s a burden to be endured, a necessary evil that disrupts family life and grinds down both body and mind. Jet lag. Connecting flights. Shaky commuter planes. Airline food. Weatherwoes. Miserable airport traffic that can cause you to be late for your appointment or your flight. It’s enough to make some frequent fliers long for the moment they can plant their feet firmly on the ground and their seats firmly behind a desk.

This is not to say that business travel always is a drag — far from it. A handful of trips a year can offer a welcome break from the monotony of the workaday office. In addition, business travelers meet new colleagues, make new friends — and often establish a network of contacts that can be valuable in a future job search. The willingness to travel often is a sign to the employer that you’ll “pay your dues” to the company; some bosses see it as a test of loyalty and commitment.

Business travel also can benefit your private life. Most corporate travelers accumulate frequent flier miles on their individual accounts, a perk that can pay off down the road with free airline tickets, rental cars, and hotel rooms that can be applied to personal vacations (if there ever is time for a vacation). For those enterprising or flexible enough, business travel schedules sometimes can be reworked to allow for visits with far-off family and friends, or a little sightseeing. For instance, instead of forcing a worker to fly out Friday morning and returning later that night, many bosses will allow you to stay in town a few weekend days, if you so desire, and perhaps fly back on Sunday — although the employee likely will have to foot the bill for expenses incurred beyond those related to business.

A welcome trend in the business world is the growing popularity of destination resorts that cater to conventions and large corporate gatherings. Savvy executives know that holding the annual branch managers’ meeting in Aspen or Palm Springs — rather than at corporate headquarters in, say, Pittsburgh — can be a big morale boost. There’s nothing like a little skiing or golf to lift spirits and liven up those boring seminars.

More often, however, business travel leaves little time to experience the ambiance and take in the special sights of particular destinations. Marathon meetings with clients can leave executives with a desire to do little other than head back to the hotel, order up room service, and hit the sack early. What’s more, the growing world-wide popularity of office complexes near large airports means that on a three-day trip to “Munich,” you might never get closer than 20 miles from the Bavarian delights of that colorful city. Looking for local color at one of those small, quaint hotels? Given the international expansion of the big hotel chains — and the barter deals companies increasingly are negotiating with such chains — your room in suburban London might look an awful lot like the bland digs on your last trip to Chicago or Charlotte. The best most business travelers can do is sample a restaurant or two; the normal itinerary — back and forth from airport to hotel to office to airport — usually won’t give you a real feel for a city or a region.

Business travel comes in a wide range of styles — from road trips in one’s own car, with sleepovers at the roadside budget motel, to first-class airline and hotel accommodations with service staff that pampers the traveler and goodies that flow freely. But even the beneficiaries of the most luxurious business travel — for instance, professional athletes, who fly on chartered or team-owned planes and stay in four-star hotels — can grow weary of the grind. A rookie NBA player probably will revel in the attention lavished on him by obsequious hotel staffers and flight attendants on the team’s private jet. He’ll probably love the nice per diems for meals, and he likely will enjoy sampling the nightlife in each city he visits. On the other hand, veterans who have seen and done it all usually grow jaded in regard to the fast lane of life on the road, and long to get back home to their families.

The jobs discussed on this list are meant to serve as a representative selection, not as a comprehensive list of careers that involve travel. Obviously, the individual circumstances will dictate whether a particular employment situation involves travel. Indeed, even positions you wouldn’t expect to entail taking a trip or two can offer that opportunity. For instance, waiters and waitresses aren’t normally counted among the globe-trotters of the working world — but it’s certainly not unusual for a large, specialty chain that is launching a new restaurant in another city to send experienced staffers from an established location to the new site on a temporary basis, to help train personnel and get things organized for the opening.

So take a look at this list to get an overall feel for the nature of business travel. You may not find the particular field you are considering; if not, try to find a similar one, which in some cases may approximate the travel opportunities.

You may be someone who loves to fly and to stay in hotels; on the other hand, you may despise traveling or be unwilling to risk the loss of family time business excursions often require. Whatever the field, however, the guiding principle of business travel is: smaller doses usually are better.

So, teachers are ready, willing, and able to serve small businesses. Is there a catch?

Well, there is a teacher shortage, and the U.S. Department of Education predicts that it will reach crisis proportions with an expected increase in students, and when teachers born during the baby boom start to retire and there aren’t enough young teachers around to replace them. Every bright communicator-negotiator-manager that an entrepreneur entices away from a school is one less educator teaching America’s children.

That’s a dilemma for Ben Klasky a former Teach for America Corps member, Mr. Klasky taught at an inner-city school in Louisiana for two years. Now, he is hiring employees for his company.

Mr. Klasky speaks highly of the passion teachers bring to their work and the maturity their experiences give them. “I obviously need to get good people and to get team players,” he says. But emotionally and ethically, “I would have a less hard time hiring somebody from a competitor,” Mr. Klasky says, “than recruiting from a school because the need is so great.”

He even discourages publicizing the attractiveness of teachers to corporate employers: “I would hate for somebody to get the picture that teachers are great people and then all of a sudden have it be even harder” for schools to hire teachers, he says.

Educators May Benefit

But is his attitude fair to teachers? Long term, competition for their services increases their value and will force their pay — and their status — up, say current and former educators. Those are the real keys to attracting and retaining teachers. And that, ultimately, could be very good for American schools, though in the meantime an accelerated exodus no doubt would be painful, say the educators.

Horizon Software System’s Karen Larson doesn’t feel guilty for luring teachers away from schools. “I’m a firm believer in public education,” she says. “I sent my children to public schools. But the way we pay teachers is a travesty. And then we don’t even give them control over their work. They’re going to leave anyway.”

Poor Customer Relations

Dan James, vice president of business development at Carolina Biological Supply Co. in Burlington, N.C., a company that produces science materials for classrooms, says his company doesn’t directly recruit in the schools. He points out that there are competitive and ethical reasons for education-related businesses not to recruit teachers. “Our market is the schools,” Mr. James says. “You’re recruiting your own customer and that doesn’t make you a good vendor. We appreciate how hard it is for schools to get people.”

That’s not to say former teachers don’t work at the company. “A lot of teachers just come to us,” Mr. James says.

Entrepreneurs must decide for themselves whether recruiting teachers is corporate carpet-bagging — or a belated recognition of teacher skills that ultimately strengthens the profession. But for those businesses that do decide they covet teachers, legions of passive job seekers are out there. Says Annie Huggins of Horizon, “I have not [conducted] a single training session where a teacher doesn’t come up to me and say, ‘So what did you do to get this job?’ ‘Who did you talk to?’ And when they hear it was really easy, they’re amazed. I can read it in them: They want out, but they don’t know how to do it.”

If ever a college senior seemed likely to eschew the world of signing bonuses and stock options, it was Monica Nah Lee.

Caught up in the challenges of education reform, the Amherst College psychology major coordinated a tutoring program for Latino girls and dreamed up plans for her own charter school — while maintaining a 3.7 grade-point average. Ms. Lee spent her summers working with at-risk middle-school students.

So after checking the career possibilities at a number of charter schools, inquiring about positions with educational policy groups and attending job fairs sponsored by nonprofit organizations, what are her plans once she graduates next month? After three months of difficult deliberation, Ms. Lee, now 21, decided to take a $5,000 signing bonus from McKinsey & Co. and go to work as a business analyst.

Nonprofits have a hard time competing with private employers for graduating students. And they handicap themselves, according to Lisa B. Tessler, director of the career planning center at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. While business recruiters come to New England campuses earlier each year, she says, nonprofit employers are “just gearing up now.”

That’s too bad, “because there are bright young people entering their senior years who are looking for service,” says Judith A. Auerbach, president of Auerbach Associates Inc., an executive-search firm specializing in nonprofits.

But it’s not just a matter of recruiting tactics. Even for the likeliest prospects, the reality of nonprofits can be discouraging.

“If I went the nonprofit route, I’d be just a body at a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter,” Ms. Lee says. “That’s very worthwhile, but I feel like I’d be wasting my education.” So she intends to spend a few years at McKinsey, learning how business works, and then return to the nonprofit world with skills that will translate into more clout and the potential to have greater impact.

“The truth is, I still plan on going into education reform,” Ms. Lee says, “but right now, I feel like all I have is passion and no resources.”

Building up her resources before returning to the nonprofit world should also mean a higher salary when she gets there. Newly minted graduates are generally offered just $22,000 to $25,000 a year, according to Irma R. Tryon, director of recruiting for the career services office at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass. That compares with the more than $50,000 that McKinsey will pay Ms. Lee.

“The difference in salaries is incredible,” Ms. Tryon says.

That difference, and a mountain of student loans, make the job decision straightforward for some seniors. “Students often have a real conflict, because they graduate with a great deal of debt, and of course the prospect of a few years with high pay is very attractive,” says Joanne Murray, director of career services at Wellesley. Like Ms. Lee, they often have the idea of then returning to their nonprofit roots.

Money was one reason Bradford J. Mak, who will graduate from Brown University in Providence, R.I., this May, accepted a $42,000 offer from a San Francisco Internet start-up that has a stock-option plan. Having spent one summer in Costa Rica and Peru, digging latrines and teaching villagers about hygiene and sanitation, and the next conducting a field-research project out of a hospital in Bangladesh, he seemed like a lock for the nonprofits.

“I used to be, like, `I’m going to live in refugee camps,’” says Mr. Mak, who majored in human biology.

But by last fall, with corporate recruiters hitting the campus regularly, Mr. Mak was weighing the pros and cons of the corporate life. He had suddenly been hit, he says, by the reality of supporting himself. And his latest close look at a nonprofit had been disillusioning: The “inefficiencies, corruption, bad management and miscommunications” among the members of the project’s management team had left him wondering just how much he wanted to work for one after all.

In Ms. Lee’s case, the career choice was in keeping with the wishes of her parents. Korean immigrants in Youngstown, Ohio, Chun Shik and Young Mee Lee often brag about their daughter’s activism, but are happy she chose McKinsey.

“I’ve been very proud of her for having such large dreams, and for being so fearless in pursuing them,” says Ms. Lee’s mother, but “we overwhelmingly wanted her to go into business, either as an end in itself or as a stepping stone to education reform.”

The younger Ms. Lee’s interest in education began at 17, when she read how poorly the U.S. educational system compared with other industrialized nations’.

“I became really outraged, because it seemed absurd to me that America — which had so many resources — would have such a horrible education system,” Ms. Lee says. One reason her parents had moved here, she says, was to give her and her sister a better education than they would have received in Korea.

Soon after, Ms. Lee volunteered for the local school board. In her senior year, she raised funds for a new school building and helped start a drug-prevention program and a peer-tutoring program. “It consumed me,” she says.

It continued after she arrived at Amherst in 1996. During her first summer vacation, she taught math, German and journalism to sixth graders in Cincinnati for Summerbridge, a program for at-risk students. “It was really incredible,” she says. “It was the first time that — no matter how tired I was — as soon as I stepped into the classroom, I felt totally revived.”

The following summer, she worked for Summerbridge again, this time in San Francisco. Then 20, she chaired the program’s foreign-language department — and started to make long-term career plans, brainstorming about the charter school she hoped to open after college.

“And after that charter school was successful, I planned to work with one particular city and help the city reform its entire educational structure,” she says.

Last fall, Ms. Lee began visiting charter schools; she also attended teaching and nonprofit job fairs. But only low-paying, low-impact jobs were presented to her, and she grew anxious that she would graduate jobless. So when big companies arrived on campus, she applied to three consulting firms — though she says she didn’t expect they would even choose to interview her.

But all three did. Ms. Lee says she “totally bombed” in the first two: “When they asked me why I wanted to be a consultant, I really didn’t have a good answer for them because I didn’t really want to be a consultant. I didn’t necessarily look down on it for other people, but I did for myself.”

In mid-December, she went to her third interview — this time with McKinsey. “I told them the truth,” she says: “that I didn’t really want to be a consultant, but I wanted to gain business experience so that I could go into nonprofit work and help the nonprofits where I think they really need help, which is in efficiency.”

Much to her surprise, the truth proved successful. She advanced in McKinsey’s interviewing process and before the month was out had a job offer. Though she kept going to nonprofit career fairs, in March she decided to accept it.

Despite the American public’s consistently low voter turnout, young college graduates continue to flock to Washington, D.C., every year in hopes of launching a career in politics.

Getting the foot in democracy’s door isn’t always easy. If you want to work in politics, you have to understand the process, make contacts, be able to spin your qualifications and run a personal campaign that gains the trust of key decision makers.

One Student’s Personal Campaign

Josh Rubenstein, a political-science major at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., is a long way from Washington, D.C., and the Beltway political action which is his career goal when he graduates this spring. So when the Commission on Presidential Debates chose his school as a site for a debate, he wasted no time planning his job-search campaign.

Planning a Strategy

Opportunities on Capitol Hill

Other Career Routes in Politics

Schmoozing at the event was a cornerstone of his game plan. He gained entrance by volunteering as a VIP escort. He introduced himself to the political elite as he shuttled them from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel a few miles away to the debate site on campus.

“I think the debate [was] an excellent opportunity, not to distribute resumes, because that’s really not what the people [were] here for, but to at least meet them, express some interest and maybe get some names of people to follow up with,” he says.

Planning a Strategy

Knowing he would be meeting some of the country’s fastest movers and talkers, the savvy 22-year-old from Middlesex, Mass., prepared a quick pitch introducing himself and letting them know he has an interest in politics. It was something like: “I’m Josh Rubenstein. I’m a senior at Washington University, and I’m planning to pursue a career in politics when I graduate this spring.”

His research kept the conversation going. “I follow politics pretty closely, so I [knew] something about the people and their backgrounds and [could] engage them in a meaningful and memorable conversation,” he says. “If you can show an interest in what they do and what they’re trying to accomplish, you’ll stand out from [students] who just want to hand them a resume and say, ‘Hire me.’ ”

In case this crash networking session doesn’t produce a solid offer, he’s also planning to a trip to Washington, D.C., in the spring to follow up. “I’ll be going up, making phone calls and trying to get my foot in the door somewhere that way,” Rubenstein says. He’s also applying for a summer position as a White House intern.

Temperament and Timing Are Key

To break into the political field, it helps to have a thick skin and competitive personality. Jim Larrew, a senior studying political science at University of Missouri in St. Louis, found this out firsthand recently, when he ended up literally toe-to-toe with U.S. Congressional candidate Bill Federer of St. Louis.

Larrew, a 22-year-old intern with House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt’s (D., Mo.) campaign, was conducting what’s euphemistically called “opposition research.” He was videotaping Federer as the candidate campaigned at a parade in St. Louis. The candidate confronted him. The tussle that ensued, all caught on tape, was broadcast on local television stations.

His father, Joseph Larrew, a St. Louis attorney, says it was an educational experience for his son. “I think Mr. Federer embarrassed himself and the political process by what he did. And that’s probably a good learning experience for my son in terms of finding out that people in politics sometimes act in an unpredictable way,” he says. Jim Larrew and his attorney couldn’t be reached for comment.

Conduct can make or break a rookie staffer’s career, says Jeff Smith, deputy political director for former Sen. Bill Bradley (D., N.J.) during his recent presidential bid. “Temperament is an issue,” he says. “I wouldn’t characterize what happened on [Gephardt's] campaign as normal, or something that one should expect. On the other hand, campaign workers probably get yelled at a hell of a lot more than somebody working in accounting.”

But in a fast-paced, demanding atmosphere, advancement opportunities can break at anytime. When Smith accompanied Bradley to the Iowa caucuses in January, he was tied for low man on the staff totem pole. “A month later, I was suddenly the No. 3 guy out of about 30 or 40 people,” he says.

For most minor leaguers, the climb to big-league politics is a tough one. After advancing from intern to staff assistant to legislative assistant to, for example, press secretary, staffers can find themselves earning only $30,000 a year at age 29. Many decide to leave the public sector and move to such professions as public relations and lobbying, which often pay annual salaries of $85,000 or more.

Where the Entry-Level Jobs Are

Election seasons present numerous opportunities to break into politics by working on a political campaign. Of course, you’ll likely have to start by volunteering your time, and job security will be a gamble considering your candidate may not be elected.

As in the private sector, many of the most viable opportunities focus on information technology. “If you’re Web-proficient, that will be enormously helpful to you as candidates are moving their campaigns to the Internet,” says Smith. “Many of us who are involved in campaigns don’t know how to put up Web sites but look at the Internet as a new dynamic for politics.”

Research is another avenue with numerous options. “The first thing a candidate does when he enters a race, ideally, is to hire someone to do research: first on himself and then on the opposition. You have to know everything that you’ve ever said, publicly, and everything that’s out there on you as a candidate, so you’re inoculated against any attacks if they come your way,” says Smith.

As Jim Larrew discovered, a research role might not be as dry as one might think. Opposition research can combine the intrigue of a soap opera with the shock and excitement of tabloid television.

For the more faint of heart, there’s also a need for pollsters, who conduct market research. Moreover, says Smith, “There’s also a lot of grunt work to be done, which isn’t nearly as glamorous as it may be portrayed in ‘West Wing’ ” a television drama.

Opportunities on Capitol Hill

If you’re looking for a slightly slower pace and job security, you may want to consider working for a sitting congressman or senator. However, the opportunities are more competitive and timing is everything. “Even though the jobs don’t pay well, there’s always a horde of recent college graduates going to try and find these jobs…There are never enough jobs to go around,” says Smith.

To secure a job on Capitol Hill, you’ll need to go there during the December transition when members of Congress are going through orientation. “That’s when they’re staffing up,” says Smith.

The best contact to approach is the congressman’s or senator’s administrative assistant or chief of staff. Rather than relying on a resume pitch and a prayer, attend a Capitol Hill job fair where incoming congressmen are looking to hire experienced staffers, Smith advises. “You need to find a way to get your face in front of them,” he says. “You need to either give [a resume] to them personally, and have five minutes to try and sell yourself, or know someone. I don’t think sending a resume would be a good use of your time unless you’re a Harvard Law graduate at the top of your class.”

Paul Wright, a graduate of Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City, landed his spot as an intern with Sen. Robert Bennett (R., Utah) through the university’s Washington, D.C., seminar program, which gives about 30 students a chance to intern in the nation’s capital each semester. “I got in through the school…It wasn’t personal contacts or anything like that,” he says. Later, he worked in the office of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah).

Wright credits his success to a strong resume and cover letter, which was focused and thoroughly critiqued prior to submission. If your aim is simply to land an internship spot regardless of the area you’ll be working in, do some research first to find out what’s most needed, says Wright. “Try to find out what the office is looking for. If it’s press, you can stress your interest in journalism,” he says.

Many in D.C. Pursue Grad School

Now Wright is following a path common to many recent graduates who have worked in Washington, D.C. He’s a first-year law student at Washington University. While he has an interest in constitutional law, he hasn’t settled on a long-term career goal. He has no plans to seek political office, but after graduating from law school, hopes to become involved in political issues and campaigns wherever he settles down.

Rubenstein also eventually plans to pursue a law degree or a master’s degree in public policy regardless of the success of his short-term job search. “From people I’ve talked to in government, most of them go back and get a graduate degree after getting a couple of year’s experience in Washington,” he says.

Other Career Routes in Politics

There are many facets of politics and many more ways to shape public policy than these. Consider Michelle Purdy, student-union president at Washington University. She’s heavily involved in campus politics but after graduation in May, the 22-year-old plans a break from elective office.

“I’m interested in doing something unity- or public-policy oriented, such as Teach for America, the Americorps program or pursuing a fellowship,” she says.

Whatever cause she decides to take on, Ms. Purdy, thanks to her involvement in student politics, will have plenty of marketable experience and contacts. During the four-day debate extravaganza at Washington University, she conducted media interviews, helped welcome the national television audience and collected business cards from influential decision-makers.

Demonstrate Diplomacy

But political involvement can be a touchy issue for many employers. Adam Eidinger knows this slippery slope well. He began his career as a congressional intern, then moved to Rabinowitz Media Strategies, a public-relations firm in Washington, D.C. But his job there hit a dead end when he became involved in protests against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and a newspaper ran a photo of him at an event.

“I lost my job because of my political beliefs,” he says. His boss saw the photo and asked him to stop working on the issue. “He said, ‘I don’t like the issue, and I wouldn’t take them as a client,’ ” says Eidinger. He’s now with Mintwood Media, a Washington, D.C., public-relations firm that specializes in nonprofit and social-action causes.

If you’re looking for the nation’s best job in terms of low stress, high compensation, lots of autonomy and tremendous demand for your skills, look no further than financial planner. Everyone from new retirees to aging Baby Boomers to young dot-com executives needs their expert guidance — today and in the future.

On the other hand, as the top-selling novel and movie “The Perfect Storm” illustrates so well, the life of a commercial fisherman couldn’t be much rougher in terms of work instability, poor pay and pure danger, making it the nation’s worst job by a wide margin.

Those are the results of the latest ranking of best and worst jobs nationally, based on data gathered during the second half of last year and recently published in “Jobs Rated Almanac” by Les Krantz (St. Martin’s Griffin,). Using six key criteria, the Almanac determined the most and least appealing career opportunities. The criteria include environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands, security and stress.

The results from the rankings can be eye opening. If avoiding stress is a career goal, you might consider becoming a medical records technician, janitor or forklift operator, among three of the nation’s least-stressful jobs. Or, if finding a stable, healthy environment that doesn’t require long hours is your most critical issue, consider opportunities as a statistician, mathematician or computer systems analyst.

The following are lists of the 10 best and worst jobs overall, as well as the best three jobs in each of eight different industries, according to the “Jobs Rated Almanac.”

Best Jobs Overall

• Financial planner
• Website manager
• Computer systems analyst
• Actuary
• Computer programmer
• Software engineer
• Meteorologist
• Biologist
• Astronomer
• Paralegal assistant

Worst Jobs Overall

• Commercial fisherman
• Roustabout
• Lumberjack
• Cowboy
• Ironworker
• Garbage collector
• Construction laborer
• Taxi driver
• Stevedore
• Welder

Best Jobs by Selected Industry

The Arts

1. Motion picture editor

2. Architectural drafter

3. Antique dealer

Business/Finance

1. Financial planner

2. Paralegal assistant

3. Bank officer

Communications

1. Technical writer

2. Editor

3. Broadcast technician

Healthcare/Medicine

1. Hospital administrator

2. Dietician

3. Audiologist

Math/Science

1. Actuary

2. Meteorologist

3. Biologist

Production/Manufacturing

1. Industrial designer

2. Aerospace engineer

3. Electrical engineer

Public Sector

1. Judge (federal)

2. Parole officer

3. Postal inspector

Social Sciences

1. Historian

2. Archeologist

3. Sociologist

Technical/Online

1. Website manager

2. Computer systems analyst

3. Computer programmer

A George Washington University student presides over the reading group. Off to one side, an important guest proudly looks on. He is Vincent Pan, executive director in a social-services program he co-founded called Heads Up, which arranged the reading session. If there were a book named “Vincent: A Visiting Dog’s Story,” it might begin by relating this:

Once upon a time, but not too long ago, Mr. Pan was an Ivy League economics major, aspiring to a Wall Street career. But like thousands of other young people these days, he decided instead to start his own business, straight out of college.

Yet starkly unlike most of his peers, Mr. Pan created a nonprofit corporation that, after four years in operation, still pays him an annual salary of less than $30,000 and grants him no stock or options. Heads Up has issued no shares — and never will.

In other words, money isn’t the goal. By mobilizing students from six universities, Heads Up so far has created tutoring programs at six inner-city schools, serving more than 400 young children and teenagers. The current efforts cost about $1.6 million a year, and Mr. Pan oversees nine other people on the full-time staff.

“Our mission is to provide low-income children and families with the learning opportunities they need to succeed, while fostering a new generation of leaders committed to strengthening their communities,” wrote Mr. Pan, now 27 years old, in one grant application last year.

In choosing the nonprofit lane, Mr. Pan is keenly aware that he is swimming outside the mainstream of his generation. After all, so many other young entrepreneurs are trying — and in many cases succeeding — to become fabulously rich by age 30. “It’s kind of sad that there are so few of us young people who are willing to work for a lot less money, for something that has greater social rewards,” he says.

‘I Was Different’

At least three of Mr. Pan’s friends have formed high-tech companies, and he has met dozens of other young entrepreneurs, even attending a meeting at a Georgetown bar of a group of them called the Brat Pack. “It was clear that I was different from them, but I could be the same if I wanted,” he says. “But I want to make them more like me, not become more like them.”

One of his best friends, Michael Weinbach, a 26-year-old M.B.A. candidate at Harvard, has already raised $1 million for an Internet start-up. “If my business plan is successful, I’ll earn in equity several million dollars within a few years,” Mr. Weinbach predicts. He would love to hire Mr. Pan — “If he wants, he can have a job anytime” — but knows that his friend has altruistic priorities. “Vin would almost feel guilty if he were doing something solely for himself,” Mr. Weinbach says. “I’ve seen very few people like that.”

All the same, Mr. Pan, a trim, athletic man with a low-key manner, is an ambitious and skillful entrepreneur. “Tenacity and drive are things he has very much in common with the people who are starting technology-based companies,” says Charles W. Stein, a former technology-company chief who now serves on the boards of five for-profit companies — and Heads Up.

“There’s a lot in common between the corporate invention of those who start nonprofits and the corporate invention of those who do start-ups in the for-profit world,” agrees Harris Wofford, chief executive of the federal Corporation for National Service. The former senator, whose agency spurs a broad range of community-service projects, adds that Mr. Pan “is an extraordinary guy — I’m very impressed. He does all the things any good business entrepreneur would do.”

In fact, not unlike many Internet start-ups, Heads Up readily burns through all the cash it gets and is constantly hungry for more. Nevertheless, Heads Up makes no pretense that it will ever be profitable — not in a monetary sense, anyway.

Even Mr. Pan’s own parents had trouble understanding his career choice, Mr. Pan concedes. “When you combine the high risk with the low earnings potential, you start to raise eyebrows,” he says.

Born in New York City in 1973, Mr. Pan is the son of immigrants from Taiwan. His father, once a busboy in Manhattan’s Chinatown, became a maritime lawyer and piloted the family into the upper-middle class in comfortable Short Hills, N.J. At high school in nearby Millburn, Vincent captained the track team and raised money for class dances. He also excelled as a student, winning admission to Harvard University.

“At Harvard, the current is flowing toward investment banking and consulting,” he says. “If you want to go in another direction, you have to swim pretty hard to get away from it.”

At first, he went with the flow. Planning a Wall Street career, he spent the summer of 1993 as an intern at Paine Webber Group Inc., a New York securities firm, preparing spreadsheets with data on public companies. “It was challenging and exciting,” he says. Yet his career choice fell into doubt. “At the end of the day, I really didn’t think I had contributed anything that made a difference to society,” he says.

Time to Tutor

Back at school, he got greater satisfaction from volunteer work in nearby Boston, in a tutoring program overseen by Phillips Brooks House Association, a public-service arm of Harvard. Two or three times a week, he would ride the bus to the Mission Hill housing project, in the depressed Roxbury neighborhood. There he would meet the clients — young children and teenagers — at a playground, then walk them to a nearby technical school where he helped with arithmetic, grammar and creative writing. When injuries cut into his time at rugby, a favorite pastime, he stepped up the volunteer work.

On successive trips, as the bus passed from Cambridge to Roxbury, he became increasingly upset at the class differences in American society (a socioeconomic ladder many of his entrepreneurial peers now look forward to sitting atop). “If you’re poor in this country, you’re saddled with less-safe neighborhoods, schools that aren’t as effective and streets that aren’t even paved right,” he says.

Resolving to fight poverty, Mr. Pan became the head of the tutoring program. Later, his peers elected him president of Phillips Brooks, an unpaid post whose one-year term caused him to defer graduation for a semester, until early 1996.

After receiving his Harvard diploma, he sought funds to start his own tutoring organization in Washington, D.C. The Stride Rite Foundation provided $15,000. “I wasn’t sure he could do the job for 15 grand, but that’s all he wanted,” says Arnold Hiatt, chairman of the foundation, based in Boston.

Mr. Pan recruited a partner — Darin McKeever, now age 26 and Heads Up’s communication director. Working initially from a small basement apartment near the Capitol’s DuPont Circle neighborhood, the two young men called on public-school officials, colleges seen as potential sources of tutors, and assorted community leaders, including prospective board members for the venture, at first called University Neighborhood Initiative of Washington, D.C.

By the fall of 1996, they had arranged for about 15 volunteers from American University to tutor children at James G. Birney Elementary School, in the southeast portion of the city. But the $15,000 in initial funding was exhausted, as was $10,000 from other sources. The partners were drawing no pay. For pocket money, Mr. McKeever went to work briefly in a record store near his parents’ home in Westport, Conn. Mr. Pan stayed on the job, mostly seeking financing.

At the beginning of 1997, Mr. Hiatt sent $15,000 more (this time from his personal account), but Mr. Pan and his partner were still hardly flush. “It’s a rite of passage,” Mr. Pan says resignedly. “You have to prove you can make do on next to nothing before you can get any more funding.”

By the end of 1997, Mr. Pan was drawing a modest salary (about $22,000) and had expanded the program to two more public schools, served by tutors from Georgetown University and Howard University. Tapping local foundations, the program also succeeded at raising more money. Then, in a major coup, it won a three-year funding commitment totaling more than $670,000 from the Corporation for National Service’s AmeriCorps program, a sort of Peace Corps for domestic projects.

Mainly, the AmeriCorps money would enable Mr. Pan to buy more books and art supplies, and to use AmeriCorps members as volunteer coordinators and tutors. In exchange for a year of service, members of AmeriCorps receive a small living stipend and help in paying for a college education. The three-year commitment gave Mr. Pan a bit of relief from what had been a constant financial crisis.

“For a start-up, cash flow is everything,” he says. “It does no good to have a budget of $1 million if $800,000 comes in during December.” AmeriCorps provided $190,000 the first year, saving the rest for later.

(Today, Heads Up’s annual budget is about $1 million, mostly raised from foundation grants and individual contributions as well as the AmeriCorps money. The remaining $600,000 to run the tutoring program this year comes from outside sources, such as college work-study programs.)

Mr. Pan’s dream of building a nonprofit enterprise was starting to be realized — not least because he was working about as hard as entrepreneurs ever do in the for-profit world. Extending long workdays into the evening, he continued to make contacts in many of the city’s neighborhoods.

“There was no distinction between work time and non-work time,” he says. “There was just my life.” The pace was problematic at times. “I was dating someone,” recalls Mr. Pan, who is unmarried. “We broke up because I had no time to do anything except work.” By this time, he had a small storefront office — and sometimes he stayed overnight there in a sleeping bag when it seemed like too much trouble to go home.

Early in 1999, Mr. Pan rechristened the organization Heads Up, a snappier name aimed at attracting donors. “It’s a stronger brand identity,” he says. “It improves our visibility.” By last October, when he was part of a small group of young social activists invited to a meeting with President Clinton, Mr. Pan was winning recognition as an effective social reformer. Mr. Pan says the president gave him good advice: “to get across the passion without being sanctimonious.”

He tries to do that. Relentlessly even-tempered, he also tries not to get too upset from day to day about social problems. “If you get too emotional about all the injustices, you can lose your sense of purpose,” he says. “The problem is to channel your energies into something constructive.”

Participants have found the program very constructive so far. “It’s a very effective program,” says Yvonne Morse, the principal at Birney elementary school, which is situated near a big housing project called Barry Farms. The proportion of pupils reading below grade level at Birney fell to 26% last year from 39% the year before, Ms. Morse says. She ascribes the improvement partly to Heads Up, which tutors about 70 pupils in the student body of 579. “It’s unusual to find young people who organize something like this and stick to it,” she adds.

Now big enough to post a full-time staff member at each school in the program, Heads Up has moved its headquarters into 1,700 square feet of commercial space, situated in an unfashionable area about one mile southeast of the Capitol. Mr. Pan dreams of having a much larger space — “a community space where people of different backgrounds come together.”

Across Class Lines

Indeed, much as Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeffrey Bezos always insisted that his Internet start-up wasn’t just about books, Mr. Pan says Heads Up isn’t just about tutoring. By bringing together mostly affluent college students and largely poor community members, Heads Up aims to cut across class lines and catalyze social change in still-unfolding ways.

“I don’t think this would be very interesting for me if I just wanted to create tutoring programs,” he says. “We’re trying to find a way to get people out of poverty.”

Nevertheless, he confesses, “Sometimes I wonder if I might have more of an impact if I went out and made a lot of money and then devoted myself to philanthropic efforts afterward. There are folks my age, left and right — and I’m not that different from them — who are making multiples and multiples of what I need to raise for Heads Up.”

If he wanted to, he could do just that, his friends and associates believe. One pal, John Zoltner, a 32-year-old founder of Transparent Technology Inc., an Internet applications service provider based in Washington, D.C., says Mr. Pan “kind of fits the profile of a tech start-up entrepreneur,” and could easily transfer to the for-profit sector if he wished. “He’s highly skilled, and his future is pretty much wide open.”

But Mr. Pan declares: “You become what you do. It’s dangerous to defer community responsibility. What you do in the present is who you are.”

Besides, he thinks he is essential to his organization’s success, while Internet start-ups and other for-profit ventures don’t really need him. “If I didn’t do this now, I don’t think it would get done,” he says. “The other stuff is going to happen with or without me.”