I believe that this past week has been the most conducive for my learning so far about the fundraising aspect of nonprofit functioning, which is incredibly important in almost every nonprofit. I have been working diligently on several of my ongoing projects at Ohio Humanities regarding donor stewardship and fundraising including the phone calls I have been making to donors and the touchpoint project I have been privately progressing. However, this week I also had the opportunity to learn more about the feats of fundraising from someone at the philanthropy group that is helping out Ohio Humanities with advancement as we are in acquisition mode, as well as from the wife of Dr. Lomax, Ruth Lomax. At the Fellows’ Learning Session on Wednesday, we got to hear from an experienced leader in the nonprofit industry about the significant impact of fundraising on a nonprofit’s capacity, how to approach prospective donors and what to do if anything goes wrong, and how to claim your own power in a way that is lucrative to your career and the strength of your nonprofit. I highly value what I learned from Ruth Lomax and Dr. Lomax and strongly believe that their guidance will help me in my future career in the nonprofit industry.

The office has been very quiet this week as several people from the already small Ohio Humanities staff are out for different reasons. However, this next coming week is going to be very busy in the best way possible as we will be in full force for getting ready for the Over-the-Rhine Film Festival, which is one week from today! We also are not working on Monday for the Fourth of July which will just make the last four weekdays more hectic. I am extremely excited for the opportunity to help with planning and attend this event in Cincinnati; it’s not something that I expected to be doing prior to the start of this Fellowship, which makes it that much more special.