Today, my supervisor took me out to a “working lunch” at Black Creek Bistro, located in Olde Towne East. During our conversation, I commented on how business-like I realized non-profits ran since starting my fellowship at Central Community House (CCH). “We sell making you feel good about your community,” my supervisor joked at a working lunch at Black Creek Bistro located in Olde Towne East. “We ‘sell’ resources, keeping children off the street, making neighborhoods safer. Imagine telling the Columbus Foundation that”, she laughed. I laughed, too. It was funny. People often think of non-profit organizations and for-profit corporations as existing in a strict binary when they actually behave very similarly, yet have different end goals.

Although witty, her words possessed truth. My fellowship site, Central Community House (CCH), is largely funded by grants which requires a business mode of thinking when competing for money and when strategizing the most impactful way to spend it. My fellowship this summer is the first time I have ever been on the developmental (business) side of non-profits and it is fascinating.

For the most part, because our fundraising and grant writing centers on strengthening and expanding our community programs, I have no apprehensions about the work I do. However, at other times in my work, I have realized how careful I must be as a person working in the non-profit industry to not compromise the organization’s values for funding.

This is apparent in the fundraising event I am planning for July. Without revealing too much information about the event, the goal is to mostly engage (and of course receive donations from) the “newer” Olde Towne East residents. The aim is to persuade them to invest in CCH because it is an investment in their community.

It is important that we reach out to these residents through our fundraising because of the vast resources they have. At the same time, we are very cognizant of the delicate fact that the influx of some of these newer residents perpetuates the very issues of poverty that the community we serve faces. These richer and often White families move into this poor, Black neighborhood and property taxes go up, houses are bought out, police are called on more frequently, expensive historic preservation regulations are put into place, and so on and so forth.

In fact, I had not realized until recently how my own life had been affected by this gentrification. When I was very young, my mother and I lived in a house in Olde Towne East on Franklin Avenue and 22nd. Around the age of 4, I remember us moving to another part of the city, but I never knew why we moved until I had a recent conversation with my mom about what CCH was witnessing in Olde Towne East. When I was a toddler, way back in 1998, our landlord sold our home (while we were still living in it!) to a White and more wealthy family. After learning this, I actually had flashbacks of White strangers coming into our home and surveying it. So, engaging with this same population of residents, twenty years later, about how they can better invest in Olde Towne East and their less wealthy neighbors, truly brings things full circle for me.

My goal through this fundraiser is to not just earn money for CCH, but create a genuine and sustainable relationship with the newer Olde Towne East residents where they can continue to use their different privileges to promote the well-being of their neighbors. How I am going to do that? I have not completely sorted that out yet. But, I have about a month to do so!

By the way, my name is Victoria Efetevbia. I am a recent graduate of Georgetown University where I graduated with a degree in sociology and African American studies. I was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio and am thrilled to work at Central Community House this summer and share my experiences with you all!