My first week as a Summer Fellow with The Columbus Foundation has been phenomenal! I began the week by attending an orientation where I got to meet the wonderful people in my cohort, along with Dr. Mark Lomax II—the summer fellowship program director. It was amazing being in the room with so many interesting, self-driven, and thoughtful individuals.

After orientation, I made my way to my host site: The Westerville Fund. Here, I was introduced to my office and got to meet the Chair of the Board of Directors—Dennis Blair—and Hilary Stone, the liaison between The Columbus Foundation and The Westerville Fund, in person. We discussed some goals for the next ten weeks, along with some avenues that may be worth exploring during my time with the fund. To wrap up the first day, I had the opportunity to meet the rest of the board members by attending an official meeting. This was an amazing experience not only because the board members were extremely welcoming, but also because I was able to familiarize myself with the grant reviewing process and what reviewers are often looking for when considering donating money to an important cause.

During this first week, Hilary, Dennis, and I have been working on hitting the ground running. Hilary outlined some first-week tasks such as workshopping a new logo, creating informational cards to pass out at events, and drafting social media posts. Workshopping a new logo and designing an informational card has been particularly enjoyable because it has allowed me to familiarize myself with graphic design tools that I had not previously used.

Outside of these projects, I had an opportunity to work well within my comfort zone by recording footage at a nonprofit site that has received significant donations from The Westerville Fund. Through this footage, I will be able to create short-form content to populate our social media accounts, helping spread awareness of the fund’s existence while also driving donor engagement.

Overall, this has been an extremely enjoyable experience so far, and I am excited to see what the rest of this fellowship has in store for me.

Just getting started,

Owen