Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

This week was quieter in terms of events and programming at Zora’s House, which gave me space to focus on presenting and planning. One highlight was presenting the Library Project to the ZH staff. It felt rewarding to share the categorization system I’ve been developing and explain how it can make the collection more accessible and meaningful for members. The staff was receptive, and it was exciting to see the project come full circle.

I also met with the Program Manager to share feedback and suggestions for key ZH initiatives: Wealth Builders, Leadership Fellows, and WoCo Market. Drawing from surveys, interviews, and my own observations, I offered recommendations that could help strengthen participant experience and impact.

Building on that, I created a Strategic Impact Assessment Timeline for both the Wealth Builders and Leadership Fellows programs. The timeline outlines key moments for data collection, evaluation, and reporting designed to help Zora’s House assess how these programs are meeting their goals over time.

Toward the end of the week, I had a meeting with my supervisor to reflect on what I’ve accomplished during my internship. It was a meaningful conversation about growth, contribution, and what’s next. As I begin transitioning out of the intern role and into becoming an active member of Zora’s House, I feel proud of the work I’ve done and excited about staying involved with a community that continues to inspire me.

Until next week,

Asia

Good afternoon Fellows,

While I do acknowledge that this posting is now two days delayed, I wanted to give my recent update on how I am doing at Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Central Ohio. This past week was casual yet fulfilling as always. I completed close to forty quality assurance match cases on MatchForce, something that I’ve never done before. Typically, my supervisor will have me complete roughly five or eleven at most. But, he allowed me to take on this task as it is typical that a member from the impact team that is quality assurance for one case for each match support specialists every month. My supervisor asked me to do this past month quality assurance assessment for the match support specialist. I’m not going to lie to you, it was challenging and very time-consuming. With just getting over a stomach virus a couple of days prior and a bit of food poisoning, I tried to focus as much as I could on getting these cases done before the hard deadline. My supervisor was very lenient and flexible with me during this time of recovery. He even assisted me in the end by formulating. All quality assurance reports into the newly developed AI template made for QA and submitted all of the cases into MatchForce for me. Nevertheless, while there was flexibility, given, I did learn a very hard lesson that both my colleague and my supervisor taught me. That while there is grace, I must remembered to still do my job. In the real world outside of this internship, once I enter into my actual career, that I have to be responsible and be held accountable when something isn’t done at the right time. Even as I’m writing this post and knowing that it has been delayed for two days, I need to be held accountable and acknowledge that I must submit things at the hard deadline that they’re due. Why? because life isn’t so nice and you you’re not gonna always have a nice supervisor. So, we must ensure that as adults, we have to take responsibility, and if we are leading a team one day, we want to uphold the same standards to our team as much as to ourselves. Next on the agenda that was completed this past week was that all staff submitted the responses for for they getting to know you survey that I will be implementing for this month learning session’s game activity, which will be a mixture of family feud and are you smarter than a fifth grader. I was very surprised to see all the responses and all their commonalities. With a total of over twenty responses, I was able to structure the game to the best dynamic that compliments, Big Brothers, Big Sisters as well. Additionally, I ensure to add some trivial questions regarding the organizations, history, organizational culture, and some every day items that you would expect to see on a specialist desk. Now, of course I couldn’t have done all of this without the special support I got from my team. They have been so helpful throughout my entire experience here at this organization, and without them, I would honestly say that I wouldn’t be the intern that I am today. While my time here has been short, there have been so many things that have impacted me more than I feel like that I’ve brought to the table. My team would say otherwise, but truly this is not my humility speaking, it is my humanity saying that everyone always needs a helping hand and it’s okay to ask and receive support from someone else. One thing that stuck out to me about this valued service lesson the most was during this week when our cohort received the privilege to hear from Dr. Tracy Nájera during our regularly scheduled personal development sessions with The Columbus Foundation. One of the things she spoke on was being grateful, stating that it doesn’t take much to say thank you and express that to people, kindness goes a long way. When she made the statement, it reminded me of all the times that I received help from my team and all of the gratefulness that filled my heart that even words could not describe. Nevertheless, I knew that my thank you would go a long way. Actually, it was very nice to see her again as I have worked with her in the past during my graduate program. She spoke to my group and I while we were working on a project for her regarding child-focused governance. Dr. Nájera reminded us that every issue is a child issue. As working with big Brothers and Big Sisters of Central Ohio, this notion goes a long way with all organizations that are here to service children. We see a need, we see an issue, and we as adults believe that the issue can be solved by our own solutions, but that is not true. We have to recognize that when it affects one, it affects all of us, including our little ones. Therefore, I am grateful for her having the privilege to see her again and remembering those words. Another word or piece of advice that I will always keep dear with me is what she actually learned from one of her previous supervisors. That when doing good work, money will follow. Being on purpose, and having a servant, heart, doing good work work work is needed, you will begin to see opportunities, align themselves and present themselves in many forms, including funding for the services. Lastly, be on time, and be respectful of your time and others. Well guys, here we all are about to begin our final week at our host site. If it is one thing that I can leave you all with is that you must finish strong. I once heard this story about this father and son who were racing one another. They both started at the same starting line, prepared and ready to go. The father then yelled, “On your mark… get set.. Go!”. The young boy immediately took off and ran as fast as he could, while the father ran much slower. Once the young boy got to the finish line, he turned to his father and began to express how he was faster than his dad and that he beat him. But, the father turned to the son and said “Son, let me tell one valuable lesson”. He stated, “ it doesn’t matter if you’re the first in line, the last in line, or in between, but as long as you have said… I have finished.” Therefore fellows, it doesn’t matter if you were the best at your organization, or if you were the last one to complete the blog posting for this week… Just as long as you have said I have completed the course and I have finished my fellowship well is all that matters. Finish strong everyone and I can’t wait to see all of you on Friday! Upward and onward to the best of them… Let’s finish strong with week 10!! 

Steward it well ladies, 

Courtney Moore

This week, I did a lot of researching for Overwatch. The first thing I did was research places in Columbus that we could get a custom poster board and poster stand from. I found that Staples and Office Depot had easy processes that weren’t super expensive. They also had poster stand add-ons. The delivery fees varied based on how quickly you wanted the poster board to get delivered, but none of them took very long. Amazon also had some quality poster board stands that we could buy. I created a list that included all of the prices and relevant information. 

Next, I was tasked with researching how a nonprofit can create a Venmo account. Overwatch currently has a Paypal account that they use to collect money, and Eric wants to add Venmo because a lot of people use it. It is also very easy to use and setup. The instructions said that a Paypal business account was required to setup a nonprofit Venmo account, so it is good that Overwatch already has that. I then looked for the best and least costly point of sale systems for OWP to use. I narrowed it down to Paypal and Square card readers/terminals. I listed the prices, donation and transaction fees for each of them and sent that to Eric as well. 

Other than what Eric has had me working on, I’ve started creating my presentation that I will share at our closing luncheon next Friday. I am nervous to present in front of everyone but I am also very excited to detail what I’ve been doing all summer. Despite being a huge extrovert, public speaking is still hard for me. I will do my best!

Until next time, 

Kindall Benjamin

Hello everyone,

Happy August!

This week has been the beginning of the end of the fellowship as I work to wrap up all my projects and responsibilities and prepare for my presentation at the end of next week.

On Monday, we had a work from home day, so I dedicated my time to working on my final presentation. I was very happy to have so many experiences to draw from to create my slides. From festivals, outings, programming, projects, and learning sessions, my summer has been filled with action and growth. I have so many things to be grateful for, and even though I will be sad to eventually leave this fellowship behind, I am excited for what the future holds for me in nonprofit.

On Tuesday (and also on Thursday), I continued to work on the Collections Management Policy research that I started last week. I read through examples of different museums policies, took notes, and then complied a document of best practices, recommendations, and considerations from those notes. It was very interesting for me to do this research because I have never before considered the specifics behind the management and stewardship of museum collections; however, for museums, this kind of policy can be huge. On this day, I also had my last nonprofit chat with our Executive Director and fellow intern from another program. We talked about an upcoming flute convention and the details behind an event like that, we talked about endowments, boards, and strategic plans. I was specifically interested in the board part of the conversation, since serving on a board seems to be an important aspect of working in the nonprofit sector, especially if you consider how the boards of nonprofit organizations are actually over the Executive Directors and hold entire organizations accountable.

On Wednesday, I started my day off at The Columbus Foundation for our second to last Fellows Learning Session. For this week’s meeting, we had guests from UNICEF come and talk to us about Child Rights in the US. This was an interesting topic to learn about and workshop as I feel that Child Rights is a less popular topic of conversation. Later on in the day, I had a meeting with the MAC’s Executive Director to discuss an event proposal that I had written for the MAC. We went over the most important parts of creating an event, specifically focusing on the why and purpose behind the event. I am happy to say that some of my ideas will be utilized in the future.

On Thursday, the development team from The Wexner Center for the Arts came over to the MAC to get a tour and to meet with our Executive Director. I was able to come into the discussion portion of the meeting and get to learn about all the backgrounds of each team member and how they made it to where they are now. It was lovely to meet everyone because they have had amazing careers and they have so much knowledge and advice to share, as I have found so many nonprofit professionals to have. One thing that stood out to me is that in many instances in pursuing a nonprofit career the path is not linear and you get to wear a lot of hats. Something else that I learned was that if you work in development for a larger organization your role tends to be more specialized but if you work in development for a smaller organization your role tends to be more fluid with other rules. One of my other tasks on this day was to fill our new sponsorship folders with materials for future sponsor meetings.

On Friday, I worked on correcting the last of signs with old logos around the MAC. It was nice to see how I have gradually helped to make sure that the entire building is unified in message with the new logo. I also worked on collecting numerical data for the MAC’s Annual Report that will come out for the fiscal year 2025.

Overall, I feel my time at the MAC coming to the end, but looking back over my experiences this summer, I have nothing but good memories and appreciation for what I have gotten to experience.

Until next week,

Graci

Hi All,

With only one week left, this was a rather busy week for me as I began to finalize my last research project and create a transition plan for the parts of my big project that will need to be completed after my fellowship ends.

Regarding the former, I gathered the rest of the internal and external data I needed to conduct a cost-benefit analysis comparing youth who utilize services like those provided by Huck House against those who enter the foster care or juvenile justice systems. Though it was a lot of math for someone who is not really a math girly, I was pleased to find that the comparatively inexpensive costs of providing services at Huck House do lead to more positive long-term personal and social impacts.

Regarding the latter, after I finished updating all the training materials, I put together the 30 signage and/or material packets we needed to ensure that at least all of Huck House’s current partners have everything they need to continue serving as Safe Places. Also, on Friday, I was able to enjoy the nice weather while delivering materials to our library partners who requested them.

Lastly, in honor of National Intern Day, I wrote a post for the Huck House blog detailing the work I’ve been doing and some of what I’ve learned over the past eight weeks—something you all have heard about firsthand every week. Nonetheless, if you’re interested, you can check it out here.  

Until next week (for the last time),

Emoni

Hi everyone! Week 9 is officially done, which means that we have only one more week of the fellowship. I am sad to be leaving Netcare, but am so grateful to have learned so much from this experience. This week was an extremely fun week consisting of an insightful presentation from UNICEF at The Columbus Foundation, as well as Netcare’s filming day and all the excitement that came with it!

Our learning session with UNICEF at The Columbus Foundation was such an incredible experience to learn about child rights. We participated in multiple activities and even were able to give our opinion on certain matters that the organization needed help with. It was a great opportunity to learn about some amazing things while also making an impact in our community.

This week at Netcare was super eventful with it being our filming week! Every year, our marketing department films content for our social media, usually consisting of client testimonials and footage of our facilities. However this year in addition to our normal content, we decided to film some of our board members and employees!

Our client testimonials are when we bring in former clients and ask them a series of questions about Netcare and their experience with our organization. It is a great way for prospective clients to feel safe and ready to reach out to help, while also showing supporters the difference their help makes. Additionally, we record shots of our buildings to show what staying in our residential facilities might look like.

Our new content focusing on staff and board members is supposed to encourage donations and support, and help recruit. We brought in staff from all of our programs (including administrative staff) and asked them a series of questions like what made them proud to work at Netcare, their favorite memories here, and more. We also asked the board members similar questions to hear the impact their support has on Netcare and again, encourage others to do the same!

It was such a great experience to be a part of these filming days and hear first-hand the impact that Netcare has made on so many people. Just being a part of this process made me feel proud to be at Netcare and I hope to work at an organization like this in the future. Although I am sad this is all coming to an end, I can’t wait to see what my last week holds.

Best,

Anaika

Happy August!! This week with the Center for Disability Empowerment was slow and relaxing for me. I finally got feedback on the thank you email drafts I wrote for our sponsors, volunteers, and attendees of the event a few weeks ago, so I was able to send all of those out this week. That means everything with the event is officially wrapped up! Other than that, this week I have been working on updating and cleaning up the CDE’s contact lists. All of the CDE’s contact information for elected officials had not been fully updated for the last election cycle, so I researched and updated all of that. This was definitely not the most exciting thing I’ve done in my internship so far, but will hopefully be helpful for the CDE in the future. 

This week at the learning session, we heard Tracy Najera from UNICEF USA talk about her career path and children’s rights. It was interesting to hear how her career has taken her in so many directions, and I thought it was cool that throughout all of the different positions she has worked, they all have been focused on helping children and children’s rights. The UN’s list of children’s rights that we looked at was honestly a bit surprising to me. Some items on the list such as the right to rest, relaxation, and creative activities is not something I’ve really thought of as a right before, so this definitely challenged me to actually think more deeply about what I think human and children’s rights are. Human and children’s rights are very central to the mission of nonprofit work, and I think it’s an important framework to keep in mind while working at a nonprofit. Tracy Najera’s presentation definitely emphasized this for me, and I hope to remember it moving forward in my career.

Until next week, 

Rachael McCague 

This week at Green Columbus I continued working on grant proposals and attended several meetings about Columbus’ new Zone-In initiative.

On Tuesday this week, my boss Shelly and I went to a meeting at Keep Columbus Beautiful’s facility. The building stores materials that Green Columbus uses for Earth Month and there is essentially any tool you could ever need and every trash bag size in storage. At the meeting, I met several key staff members at Keep Columbus Beautiful that have implemented successful changes in Columbus like giving individual trash cans to households instead of large dumpsters which reduces waste and the appearance of clutter in neighborhoods. It was awesome to hear from them about their work and plan the Scioto Sweep with them. After the official meeting ended, the staff showed us a costume they had that might be Green Columbus’ new mascot which was fun.

On Thursday and Friday, we met with FLOW and B.R.E.A.D. and both meetings led to a deep dive in the Zone-In initiative in Columbus. I learned quite a bit about zoning laws from these meetings and how they can make or break the development of vulnerable communities and sustainability efforts. The Zone-In policies are doing very little for both vulnerable communities and sustainability and Green Columbus is aiming to advocate for changes to the new zoning codes before they become law. I’m interested now about learning more about zoning laws and possibly taking a class about them in the future because they have a significant impact on healthy development of city residents.

Until next week,

Emma

This week at LifeCare Alliance was full of collaboration, facilitation, and the exciting start of new projects. Much of my time was spent preparing for and executing our Meals-on-Wheels Customer Journey half-day session. I started the week printing and assembling all materials including mock journey maps, empathy map takeaways, participant packets, and sticky tabs for the heat mapping activity. It was rewarding to see everything come together after weeks of research and planning.

On Tuesday, I met with Molly to discuss an upcoming project focused on marketing and outreach for the Savor & Select Meal Program, specifically aiming to capture new clients through Franklin County Senior Options. I also joined Molly and Andrea for our final prep meeting before the half-day session. That afternoon, I helped facilitate the session at Harmon, guiding a small group through activities like empathy mapping, customer journey visualization, and heat mapping. I was responsible for leading discussions and capturing insights on a playback sheet. It was energizing to see how staff engaged with the materials and shared ideas for improving the volunteer experience. After the session, we stayed to clean up and reflect on how it all went.

The following day, I went through all the physical posters and sticky notes to start building a recap presentation that summarizes our key takeaways. I also began diving into marketing materials for Savor & Select, taking notes on messaging strategies that could be reused or refreshed to better connect with seniors and their families.

Later in the week, I met with Anne to discuss two additional projects: creating marketing materials for Winter Gifting Program volunteers and helping to set up the agency’s eBay page. I also joined the fan distribution event, which offered a great opportunity to observe another side of LifeCare’s service efforts. In my weekly meeting with Andrea, I shared early reflections on the half-day session and offered suggestions for improving future workshops, like extending them to two days and removing distractions like phones.

As the end of my time with LifeCare this summer is creeping closer, I’ve started to feel a little melancholy, but also incredibly grateful. Reflecting on this experience, I realize how much I’ve learned and grown over the past several weeks. It has truly been an incredible time, and I’m not quite ready to leave just yet.

Until next week,
Kat Jolley

Hi All,

This week started and ended with some major progress on Safe Place!

First, at the beginning of the week, I started working on part three of my big project, which involves reaching out to potential new partners and updating the Safe Place training materials. While I cannot share whether any of the organizations I spoke with will officially become Safe Place partners just yet, I can say that the conversations I had went very well. So, I am hopeful that I will be able to add around 30 new partners to Huckleberry House’s Safe Place network!

Second, at the end of the week, we finally received the Safe Place signage we ordered for our current partners who need them, as well as for the number of potential new partners I hope to bring on board. As a result, next week, I plan to finish updating all the Safe Place training materials so that I can put together the 60 signage and/or material packets we need, if nothing changes, to ensure all current and new partners are equipped to support the youth of central Ohio as Safe Places. Then, in the following weeks, all I will need to do to finish up my last research project is work with the outreach team to ensure all the packets are distributed before my fellowship ends in August.

All in all, I am so excited to finally feel like everything is coming together to wrap up my big project!

Until next week,
Emoni