This week at the Women’s Fund, things started ramping up. We have an event next week, so the team is mobilizing to get things ready. I finalized my interview questions and materials needed for my interview booth at the party, and I also went through about 15 binders chock-full of old material that needed to be either thrown away or shredded. Going through these binders was actually a very educational experience — I saw through all of the materials from the old Keyholder events, old brand standards, strategic plans, and grant applications. I was able to get an idea of the history and work of the Women’s Fund that I couldn’t get as easily browsing the shared drive or website.

Taking that into consideration, you could say this week’s theme is history. In tandem with going through old binders, I also sorted through news clippings and pictures from the Women’s Fund’s events in its early years. Morgan and I went through and scanned these for use in a social media campaign celebrating the 25th anniversary. Today, I started to put together a carousel template for it. I also dove into much older history working on the collaborative project with The Columbus Foundation.

On Monday, I solidified my thesis and main ideas. I pitched my plan and thesis to the team on Tuesday, met with Arielle and Jenna to clarify it, and then had a meeting with the Foundation a couple hours later. While the timeline for the project will stretch on past my time at the Women’s Fund, I will still get to play a part in it, and I am very grateful for the opportunity. The tentative plan for the project is conducting interviews, using those interviews for a video social media series, and then creating a long form article out of it. I am planning on brainstorming interviewees with the team and coming up with interview questions soon. I have been exploring Columbus Dispatch archives and looking at mentions of women’s philanthropy dating back to the 1870s for my own sense of context and have found some very interesting tidbits of information. I also just received more materials for project on The Columbus Foundation’s side, and I am enjoying digging into that as well.

Apart from my historical adventures, I also read through the new annual report and left feedback on it, sat in and participated in several meetings talking about strategy, drafted a donor message for the thank you cards I designed, and worked on outreach to more organizations to feature in the Women for Women Wednesday social media series.

See you next week!

Eva