This Page is Only for OPT Interns

Our Mission

We are already making the world a better place. More and more of us are showing our love by making a meaningful charitable donation in a friend's name instead of buying yet more "stuff." Imagine how much good we could do with the $450 billion Americans spend each year on birthday, wedding, and holiday presents. Our nonprofit site makes it easy and rewarding.

A Very Efficient Nonprofit

Changing The Present is very cost-efficient. As a virtual nonprofit, we do not have to pay for office space, we have no paid staff, and we do not distribute any profits.

Expenses so We Can Serve You and Those in Need

However, we do have to pay for extensive software licenses, hosting costs, insurance, accounting costs, and other expenses in order to operate, to make a difference, and to provide you and your peers an internship and stop your OPT unemployment clock.

Interns are Helping
We were therefore delighted when a number of our recent interns made $250 donations when they got a job and ended their internship. As one wrote,

"You totally saved me! If I had not found Changing The Present, I would have had to pay a fortune to some staffing company (some charge a $1k to $3k upfront fee plus 20-30% of my salary for one to three years). Otherwise, I would have had to leave the country when I ran out of unemployment days. Even if I found a job in time, unemployment days during first-year OPT are deducted from allowable unemployment days during the STEM extension. The $250 donation is just about one day's pay at my new job, so I am happy to help a nonprofit that helped me so much!"

Asking Other OPT Interns for Support

He said that all our OPT interns would likely be glad to do the same. The challenge is that a few interns (not you!) are irresponsible and just drift away, so we cannot count on them to contribute.

We asked a couple dozen of our OPT interns (we hire huge numbers--almost certainly more than any other nonprofit) for their thoughts. We adopted their unanimous suggestion:

We now require OPT interns to make a $50 monthly contribution. They make the first payment when we accept them, and then each month after that on tehh anniversary of their offer letter, as long as they are here. That comes out to about $1.65 per day, which our interns all explained that even someone on a tight budget will find very reasonable. In fact, we have not had any applicants suggest that it was unreasonable or anything less than a great bargain. We hope you agree.

Tax-Deductible?

BTW, we do not know whether you will be able to claim this as a tax-deductible donation. We leave that for you to determine with whoever helps you file your income tax return.

Your donation will help ChangingThePresent.org generate more funding for more nonprofits and schools, as well as cover our expenses so we can offer you and your peers the internships you need.

We Made it Easy

Just click the button labeled, "Add to Cart," and checkout. Then return to contribute on the anniversary date of your offer letter each month you are here.

Thank you!