Between volunteer shifts, a learning session, and some real progress on my research, week four covered a lot of ground. After weeks of research, I’m close to having a fill rate proposal ready to present to my supervisors, and it’s genuinely exciting to think that some of this thinking could help Besa engage more volunteers across Columbus and, in turn, amplify the good already being done in this city.

On the ground, it was another full week of volunteering. I helped out at the Jazz Lab Summer Experience, where A Tribe for Jazz brought together youth camps, educational partners, nonprofit organizations, and dozens of STEAM professionals to serve nearly 800 historically underserved youth across Central Ohio. The experience included immersive labs ranging from virtual reality music making and conga drumming to AI world building and music coding. It was one of the more creative and high energy volunteer experiences I’ve been a part of. I also got to connect with Iddrisu Seidu, founder of Makerspace Central, and I’m looking forward to continuing that conversation about nonprofit leadership and the future of youth programming in Columbus. Later in the week, I helped Nationwide employees assemble 300 hygiene kits and write encouragement cards, which will go toward United Way’s Success by Third Grade Movement, supporting social workers in Groveport Madison Schools and the Greater Groveport Food Pantry. I also helped kick off the NBC4 Summer of Giving with a cleanup at Glen Echo Park alongside Columbus Recreation and Parks.

The Columbus Foundation learning session this week was another standout. We heard from Ruth-Marie Lomax, Executive Director of City Year Columbus, who spoke about her personal journey, what effective fundraising and leadership look like in practice, and what she’d want us to carry into our own careers in service. A few things she said I haven’t been able to shake. One is that Central Ohio doesn’t need more nonprofits. What it needs is more collaboration between the ones that already exist, organizations moving in the same direction, building each other up rather than competing. We framed this around the idea of collective individualism and how genuine community requires unity, not just proximity. On the fundraising side, her point was clear: the relationship with your donor and the clarity of your organization’s “why” will do the fundraising itself. That connected directly back to last session’s conversation about purpose, and I’ve been thinking about how clearly Besa embodies that. The intentionality in their culture, the way their leadership approaches team building and organizational values, reflects exactly what these sessions keep pointing back to.

It was a week full of good conversations with interesting people, and I’m leaving it motivated to keep building. One last idea from the learning session that’s been sitting with me is the danger of a purpose vacuum, and what it costs an organization, or a person, when purpose is absent or unclear. The flip side of that, which feels just as important, is that understanding your “why” is only the first step. The real work is translating it outward into something bigger than yourself. That’s a thought I’m still sitting with, and one I imagine I’ll keep returning to long after this summer wraps up.