Idealist.org, a nonprofit organization that connects people with volunteer opportunities and jobs to seek social change, closed its downtown Portland office this week and laid off two-dozen people who work there.

Idealist's headquarters are in New York City but the company's engineering was in Portland, where it had opened a satellite office in 2005 after two key employees moved here. The organization's founder, Ami Dar, notified Portland employees of the office closure in person on Wednesday afternoon, telling them it had become too difficult to run an organization split between offices on opposite coasts.

"We're a small organization. It was a mistake for us to expand geographically so early," he said. "We coped with it for years, but it was suboptimal, as the engineers say."

Idealist told laid-off employees they can keep their laptops. Workers will receive between three and six months of wages and health benefits, depending on how long they've been with the organization. Workers who have been with Idealist for more than three years receive the longest severance.

Idealist says it provides job and volunteer connections for more than 1 million people a year. The organization reported $6.9 million in revenue during 2014, the most recent year for which its nonprofit tax forms are available, and expenses of $5.4 million.

Oregon's tech economy grew at its fastest rate in a decade last year and remains generally strong, despite ongoing cutbacks at Intel's offices in Washington County.

Since Oregon has no large tech companies of its own, though, it's reliant on out-of-state employers. When organizations reduce their workforce, they may be more likely to make the cuts in outposts like Idealist's rather than at their headquarters.

-- Mike Rogoway

mrogoway@oregonian.com

503-294-7699

@rogoway