Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

I am currently sitting at my desk, in between editing multiple video projects, and I had a sort of “awakening”.  It is just now dawning on me that I am finally a working professional. I know, I know, that sounds slightly unusual to say out loud, but it’s true.

At the beginning of this Fellowship (NOT INTERNSHIP) I felt as though I was just another college student who was putting on a tie in the morning and simply acting like I was a grown up.  Even when you are twenty-one years old you still have moments where you feel much younger than you really are.  I mean just yesterday it feels like I was in high school and still wondering what college I would be attending.

But here I am.  I am sitting at a desk with a cup of coffee, a list of emails to respond to, and coworkers surrounding me that rely on me to do my best work day in and day out.  At this time last summer I was sitting at a desk much like this one I am in now, yet it could not have been more different.  Last Summer I was in the shadows, watching, observing, and quietly obeying.  I did not have responsibilities or even daily tasks.  I was a mere existence at a company that was so big that I was simply a number and a paycheck.

The Columbus Foundation has done something with this Summer Fellowship program that many people do not realize is so important: they actually value college students.  They look at this group of young adults and see more clearly then just potential, they see a person that is prepared to change the world today.  At my age, the only question I get asked by adults is “What do you want to do after college?”… AFTER college? What about right now?  Why do I have to have three degrees in hand and be older than my parents to finally be able to make a difference in the world?  The Columbus Foundation is so proactive with everything that they do on a day to day basis that they may not realize how incredible this opportunity is that they are giving us.  We are now working professionals.  We are now leaders in our field.  We are now changing the world.  In the world of non-profits there is no time to wait and plan for tomorrow to be the day something gets done.  So here we are, thanks to The Columbus Foundation, with an opportunity and responsibility to make the world a better place. TODAY.

Over the past seven weeks, I have had the opportunity to experience the internal workings of a nonprofit childcare center and have made considerable strides in developing a volunteer program for the organization. During the past week, I have been able to witness the Columbus Early Learning Centers from a slightly different angle by attending the CELC’s monthly development committee meeting and board meeting. The focus during the development committee meeting was primarily on fundraising, and how to ensure that the organization meets its fundraising goals by the end of the year. However, since a major component of development is volunteering, we spent about fifteen minutes diving into the work that I have been doing with the program. It was great to hear their feedback, both positive and constructive, about the work that I have been doing. Although the flow of the full board was much faster paced, I still had the opportunity to share the work that I have been doing and receive feedback from the full board.

Reflecting upon these meetings, I believe I have had two big takeaways. First, my thought process up to this point as I have been developing the program was centered on how volunteers can help the day-to-day operations of the facility run more efficiently. However, attending the board meeting has allowed me to step back and consider how the work that I am doing could better align with the overall, long-term goals of the organization. For example, since the meeting, I have been considering ways in which volunteers could help the organization meet its fundraising goals. As a result, I am working on ways to target corporations and groups within the community, in addition to the college students and individuals that I have been targeting all along. By shifting this focus, I am hoping that additional fundraising channels will open, and that I will help enable the development committee to be able to achieve its fundraising goals by the year.

My second takeaway was an increased understanding of how a professional, nonprofit board operates. Although I am involved in the leadership of several organizations on campus, the atmosphere of the room was considerably different at the CELC meetings. Particularly, there were differences in how the board members communicated as far as assigning action items, maintaining respectful communication, and handling dissent. I am hoping that I can apply some of what I learned at these meetings in those leadership organizations in which I participate. Therefore, in the end, my participation in these board meetings has allowed me to reflect upon my work both inside and outside the organization.

In order to best serve people, requisite knowledge and understanding of that people must first be obtained. Much like a doctor cannot best treat and aid a patient without knowing his or her health record and status, an immigration attorney cannot reach their maximum potential for serving clients without first gaining an understanding of their condition. In this vein, my supervisor has furnished my cubicle with two books in hopes of cultivating this necessary sense of understanding. Each of these has proven to be one of, if not the most didactic aspects of my fellowship thus far this summer.

Each book focuses on one major immigrant community in the United States, including Columbus, and their collective struggle: the domestic pressures that catalyzed the mass exodus from their native countries. Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream by Sam Quinones illustrates the plight of the rural Mexicanos, the scintillating draw of migration to the United States, legal or otherwise, and the effects of the mass emigration, both direct and collateral, on Mexico and its people.

What is the What by Dave Eggers highlights the excruciating journey of one Sudanese boy from his home, to menacing refugee camps, and ultimately to a hostile home in the fabled land of America. These books are entrenched in real stories, directly from primary sources, and paint painfully lucid pictures of immigrants and their circumstances in the US. The land of opportunity, seen as a reprieve from their home countries by immigrants, a sort of paradise on Earth, is riddled with obstacles and unseen difficulties for migrators. Language is a natural barrier, rampant racism and hate crimes are not; unfortunately, most immigrants are subjected to these ugly realities, and they ultimately serve as catapulting stones that shatter the mystical view of sublimity many immigrants construct of the United States before their arrival.

Empathy is intrinsic to virtually every nonprofit organization; but empathy is not enough to appropriately serve others, to truly help ameliorate their adverse condition. Extensive knowledge of the community in need is imperative. Gaining this knowledge and subsequent understanding takes time and effort, but similar to the work a doctor invests in learning about his patients, those serving others must invest in educating themselves on their targeted communities. Sometimes, it is as simple as reading the right books.

I had a fantastic week.  Wednesday was so much fun.  I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and learning about the CEO of the Columbus Foundation, along with the presentation on brand. I think I could have listened to the CEO talk about himself for hours. The conversation on brand was interesting for me because I found the questions easy to answer – what do you do? how do you do it? why does it matter?  MAW has one goal we all work towards. I think we would all answer those questions the same. It will be interesting, going forward, to work at a different non-profit and see if I can answer those questions easily.

ECDI was so cool.  The building had an amazing vibe and everyone there was so friendly.  I’m so impressed by the work that they do. It was fun to meet the other fellows supervisors. My boss was unable to intend so I brought along my boss from last year, John. The food truck food was delicious so I tried to sell him on the idea of getting a food truck to our office.

When I got back, I saw our MAW CEO and asked him a quick question about our relationship with other wish granting organizations, only to end up chatting with him in his office for half an hour.  We talked about the 5 year plan and he showed me how he talks to donors by having me act as one.

Also, I completed my first draft of a guide to analyzing costs.  I created it to standardize the way costs are looked at going forward. Currently, I’m having an intern use it to create a cost analysis comparison between June of this year and June of last.  I have already analyzed June, so I’m able to compare her results to mine to see what I need to tweak on the guide.  It took me easily three weeks to really feel like I had the hang of what I was doing so I can’t imagine it’s very easy for her right now. I’m very grateful for her help.  I went to check-in and ask how it was going.  I hope to have a final draft by the end of the week.

The revisiting of the Ask The Land survey is going great! Since my time here at Shepherd’s Corner we have had the following people do resurveying:

1. Allison Shaw, Colleen Sharkey, and Stephanie West surveyed birds, and they are all with the Metroparks

2. Jim McCormac, and avian expert for the Ohio Division of Wildlife, also conducted a bird survey

3. Mark Dilley, founder of MAD Scientists, surveyed plants

4. Jenny Adkins, who works for MAD Scientists, also did an extensive plant survey

5. Aaron Laver, employee of MAD Scientists, and Hunter Ardvey, intern for MAD Scientists, surveyed amphibians, fish, and invertebrates

6. Dan Boone, a retired arbologist and current botanist, surveyed plants

7. Jeff Bates, instructor at Columbus State, did soil analysis throughout the different patches of land

The turn out so far has been really impressive, and it is great to see how willing people are to lending their time to help with this survey. It takes a team of experts to put this together, so I say thank you to all of those that have, and will be surveying! This week I will be doing a fungus survey with Jim Davidson, a wildlife and fungus expert. There are so many different fungus that have sprouted up over the last couple of weeks because of all the rain. So while the rain is a nuisance for many humans, it is a gift to many plants! Just walking around on my own I have come across at least 10 different kinds of fungus, and that is only on one of the three paths that I can take. I have identified one type as Turkey tail (pictured on right), and another kind called Coral fungus. The eyelash fungus was out during camp week, but I think that with everyone walking over it that it has gone away. However, it will be added to the final list of fungus because it was present at one point this summer!

This is where it pays to always keep a close eye on the surroundings, and not just when the specific survey times come. Environments are constantly changing, and not necessarily on a large scale, but the small scales… like flooding one day and not the next due to the rain. These changes cause living things to adapt, such as the mushrooms sprouting when it’s wet, and not when it’s dry. Looking at these, sometimes over night changes, are going to be extremely helpful during my final reflection on how the addition of buildings around Shepherd’s Corner is affecting the wildlife. Just over night the trails scenery can change, and I can only imagine how much difference a few years worth of change has made.

I am a big believer in the power of perspective.  The catch to this is not just the power of your perspective, but the understanding in others perspectives.  I will fully admit that this is really hard to do at times, for many reasons.  One reason may be your personality type.  Another could be an overall lack of experience.  Also, your upbringing and the values instilled within you.  Nothing that I am going to be sharing today goes quite that deep.  Rather a different perspective that I experienced this week at my fellowship with the YMCA’s of Central Ohio.

I was sitting at my desk early in the week, and a little girl came into our staff room.  She said “I hurt”.  As you can tell, she was very young, probably no older than five years old.  On top of age, she also had a speech impediment.  Come to find out, her name was Delaney and she is adopted.  She is a pure joy and has a beautiful spirit! This little girl came in and showed me her arm.  She had some sort of allergic reaction all up her arm and it looked painful!  At that moment, the staff was going to start their weekly meeting.  I asked if Delaney could hang out with me until her mom got there.  I was incredibly blessed by that little girl’s presence for almost an hour!  We colored and chatted about her day.  It was awesome!

How does this deal with perspective?  Well obviously, the perspective of the pain the little girl was in would not be fun.  More importantly, I pictured the staff members who work there year round on a regular basis.  They exhibit so much patience and love to children just like Delaney every day!  One of the YMCA’s biggest goals is to delight families.  This is how families are so delighted at the YMCA’s of central Ohio.  Staff members and camp staffers always serve and love on children… even when they don’t feel well!  Needless to say, it was an inside look at the lives of staff members… It provided a different perspective!

I can’t believe the weeks are going by so quickly! On Monday, I started the morning finishing the clinics research project and drafting a photo release letter to share with organizations that we partner with. Several of the schools, summer lunch programs, and organizations that we work with have all of the participants in their programs sign photo release forms. By having staff from other organizations sign our letter acknowledging they have this form on file with their participants and that we can use photo and video that we take at our outreach events. I also had a productive phone conference with the executive director of the Ohio School Nurses Association about exploring partnership possibilities and creating a statewide program to engage nurses with up-to-date oral health education techniques for their students. This program would involve trainings and CE credit for nurses. However, noting limited time, we decided to keep this in the backburner for now.

We had a KidSMILES team meeting at noon and it was great to hear updates from everyone about the work they were doing. After, I had my weekly check-in meeting with Mrs. Zuber to go over my plan of work and determined my tasks for the week. I spent the rest of the day finally completely finishing the clinic research project, creating a survey to use to assess our educational outreach program, and sending out several emails and confirmations for our outreach events.

On Tuesday, I spent the whole day shadowing at Dr. Sakamoto’s office. Dr. Sakamoto is a periodontist, a dental specialist, out in Blacklick near Gahanna. He had a great practice, with very friendly staff. Observing was fantastic because I saw procedures that I’ve never observed before and I had a fun time hanging out with Dr. Sakamoto and learning about his path and experiences through dentistry. The procedures I saw included several implant patients, where each of them were in different stages of getting implants. The process for getting implants is a lengthy process, because many of the patients have had bone or gum loss, so Dr. Sakamoto would have to extract the tooth and do bone grafts. I also saw my first gum graft, which involved taking tissue from the top of the pallet and grafting it on the bottom gums, as well as several periodontal check-ups and deep cleanings. Many of his patients have suffered from gum loss and are required to come to cleanings four times a year for deep cleaning in order to prevent further gum loss, which would lead to all of their teeth falling out in a worst case scenario. Dr. Sakamoto had a great demeanor and sense of humor with his patients, especially because many of his patients could lose their teeth if they didn’t follow his care and recommendations.

On Wednesday, we had another Summer Fellows Learning Session at the Foundation. We heard two great speakers: Mr. Douglas F. Kridler, President and CEO of the Columbus Foundation and Jason Moore, founder of Fulcrum Creatives, a non-profit branding and marketing organization based in Columbus. It was inspiring to hear Mr. Kridler’s path through the non-profit sector and gaining his valuable insight on making connections, staying purposeful, and being good at what you are passionate about. Jason gave us a comprehensive overview of what branding is and why it’s important for non-profits to brand effectively to maximize impact. He went over ‘the basics’ of branding, including defining terminology and describing important components and techniques to brand organizations. That was exactly what I hoped for, because I know very little about branding and marketing, so this was an information and valuable taste of this topic.

After our Learning Session, I headed over to a networking lunch and tour at Economic & Community Development Institute (ECDI), the non-profit Summer Fellow, Bryn, is working at for the summer. ECDI leads several initiatives, such as providing investments and loans to low- and middle-income Ohioans, hosting business training classes, and runs a Women’s Business Center. ECDI also runs the Food Fort, which provides facilities and resources for business owners who want to create their own restaurant or food truck. They have two large kitchen facilities, with cooking areas and storage areas. They also provide power for food trucks to stay for extended periods at the Food Fort. We had lunch from En Place, a food truck (which makes a delicious Buffalo Chicken sandwich) that was powered by the resources at ECDI and the Food Fort. We took a tour of ECDI and finished our tour with popsicles from another venture, J-POPs, which was supported by ECDI. When I got back to the clinic, we had a clinic day scheduled in the afternoon, so I went home to prepare for the week’s outreach visits and prepared the new Outreach Program Survey for tomorrow’s visit.

On Thursday, I started the day with another visit at the WARM Kid’s Lunch Club at New Castle Town Homes in Columbus. We had a solid outreach visit where we played our games and activities with about 40 kids and gave out around 60 goodie bags. I headed back to the clinic and wrapped up the day.

Friday, I spent the morning prepping for our outreach visit at the Bhutanese Nepali Association. Laura and I visited the Association back in Week 4, which I detailed in my Week 4 blog post, so it was cool to see our visit come from initial discussion to finish. We got some really great pictures from the visit! When I got back to the clinic, I finished up a more final draft of the outreach brochure and helped out with some computer/laptop/scanner issues we had. I’m excited for my visit on Saturday at Common Ground Free Store in Delaware!

I have to be honest. As these weeks starting to fly by, it is getting more and more difficult to remember every detail that has happened each week as the whole summer seems like a rainy blur. This blog offers a much needed period of reflection on what I’ve accomplished in a week, but without recounting the events day by day it all turns into somewhat of a weekly jumble.

However, the standout of the week was definitely Wednesday. The fellows started off the morning with are regular learning session and were able to sit down with the Doug Kridler, CEO of The Columbus Foundation, and Jason Moore, founder of Fulcrum Creatives. We learned about their backgrounds and organizations and got advice about the nonprofit world, branding, and some good reads.

Following the learning session, the fellows were invited to visit the fellowship host site Economic Development Community Institute for some (really good!) lunch and a tour of their organization. I was not familiar with ECDI prior to going on the tour, but now I am majorly impressed. Besides helping yummy food trucks, they are one of the leaders in helping individuals start small business and gain education/resources to live a better life. We were joined by our supervisors from our own host sites for the lunch/tour. It was a great experiences learning about ECDI, but also seeing how all of our organizations can collaborate in the future. Thanks again for Bryn and ECDI for having us!

At my own host site, I’ve been busy trying in my attempts to conclude some of the projects I’ve been working on. I was able to present some of my analysis from my research at Prevent Blindness Ohio to my supervisor and my coworkers. I’m still working on going through some secondary research for my final software report. I have wrapped up my work on a website analysis and redesign. I’m continuing to work on a potential client database that will hopefully be a valuable resource. I’m expecting work to be pretty busy as we all race to that August 7th finish line.