It’s hard to believe that my summer internship with Equitas Health is nearly halfway over! The summer is starting to pick up the pace, as the artwork submission deadline is less than a week away. We already have around 70 submissions, with a goal of getting to around 100-120 works juried into the show. The work is starting to arrive in and I’ve been moving $13,000 paintings around, which is fun and stressful, to say the least.

This week, I got to tag along with the development team to the Columbus Museum of Art. We met with a bunch of different people, from museum administration to our lighting and production company. It’s still fascinating to me to see how much work really goes into planning an event successfully. The things that just seem to be set up: the lighting on the doorway, the location of the bar, the guest arrival times, etc., is all intentionally planned and considered to best help our donors have an excellent night, purchase more artwork, and donate. We are also planning to check with the local galleries all around Columbus to ensure that no artists slip through the cracks and miss a chance to donate. While their art is donated, it also hangs in a show for several weeks at the Columbus Museum of Art, which many of the artists are very excited about. The community really values our organization’s mission and has been so helpful to come to our events and donate their artwork, time, and actual money to our fundraisers.

Going into these last five weeks of the summer, then, I am super excited to keep learning about the non-profit world and development. I’ve already learned so much, and can’t wait to keep working with artists and this community.