John Fish was instrumental in setting up the Princeton Project 55 (now Princeton Alumni Corps) Public Interest Project in 1989.  Recent graduates were (and are) placed in one year fellowships in public interest organizations where they could not only do some good for people and communities that year, but where those experiences would have the potential to change the lives of those young people themselves.

I was a PP55 Fellow in 1993 in Chicago, and was greatly impacted by the experience.

John says (paraphrased): If we can interrupt the typical process for college graduates where they enter the corporate world immediately and get locked in to that system and career path, if we give them a chance to explore another world, some of them get excited about the people they’re working with and the impact they’re making and ultimately the meaning it gives to their lives.

“I wasn’t about just giving a young person a job.  I wanted to get inside their heads.”

Some links to learn more:

• AlumniCorps.org
• The Alumni Network – Learn how to start an alumni-driven public interest initiative like AlumniCorps.  Especially if you’re interested in working on this type of network in Portland or Detroit, please contact me Ted@PurposePodcast.com
• TedSarvata.com