As with many nonprofits across Columbus and beyond, this week marked the end of the fiscal year at City Year. Though I did not have many intense tasks to take on for the organization, I did have to keep track of some donations and I attended a very intense meeting with the development team on Wednesday. (It was 4 hours long!)

I choose to focus on this part of the week because it highlighted the importance of fiscal responsibility and planning to organizations. Obviously, being on budget is so important for everything–be it on an individual basis or on a corporation level. However, I had never considered how crucial it is for non-profits to know where their money will come from, which grants serve what purpose, and how they gauge (and guestimate) engagement from donors for the upcoming year, and constantly seeking out new potential donors. This last part is really where my specific role for the summer lies: helping accumulate prospective donor profiles for companies in the area.

From what I learned in the Development meeting on Wednesday, engaging corporations and smaller companies also impacts our budget projections for the upcoming fiscal year. My role in building profiles for prospective donors and seeking out grants helps in gauging who and what kind of companies City Year would like the steward in volunteering and, eventually, donating to the organization. This whole process is called “Donor cultivation” or “stewardship”, as City year refers to it and is a process that can be found at other places and explained/visualized in the image below:

All of this was super useful to me in thinking about the importance of the development team at nonprofits.

In other news for this week, I also had some fun finishing up the decorations for our submission to the Kiwanis of Columbus Regatta! Folks around the office helped out and even gave me some ideas as to how to decorate it. Not only was this a creative and entertaining project, but it also allowed me to build connections with other staff members at City Year. Check out our boat below and if you would like to donate/vote for us or just check out all the other boats, click on this link.