Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

Recently, I’ve found it difficult to go into work in the mornings. This is no doubt mostly due to the fact that my daily bus commute has been quite rainy as of late, but it was more than that. Since turning in the Women’s Fund Letter of Intent a few weeks back, I’ve mainly been working on one major project that is both extremely promising but also very mentally taxing. To date, I’ve combed through every grant folder that ECDI has ever applied for and collated all the information available into a spreadsheet for later analysis. Oftentimes, the information I need is hidden in folders upon folders in unrelated sections of the drive. Sometimes, after hunting for a piece of information for over an hour, I just have to give up and accept that I won’t be able to find it. I don’t like the idea of analyzing incomplete data, it is going to make it difficult to draw any sort of useful conclusion at end of my project.
However, I’m still finding interesting trends the information that I can find. For example, unsolicited bank asks, which is when someone from an organization simply writes a letter to a bank asking for money out of the blue, is a fairly common and surprisingly effective practice in the non-profit sector. Most of the time, we don’t even get a response from the bank, and when they do provide funding, it’s almost never for the full amount that was requested. Scrolling through the multitudes of bank asks we’ve sent in over the years, most of which never even garnered a response, it looks like a colossal exercise in futility. However, given even the limited data I’m working with, it seems that I had underestimated the impact of this asks. Even though banks rarely will give the full amount requested, most will give you a small portion of what you ask for. In the past, we’ve gotten only about a third of the amount we’ve requested, but when you realize that this third amounted to well over half a million dollars, you realize that what seemed at first to be an exercise in futility is actually a calculated bet against reasonable odds. Given the way I’ve been feeling about my current data project, it was nice to find that sometimes even though you don’t get exactly what you want, you usually at least get something. And sometimes that something just happens to be half a million dollars.

This past week, Vineyard hosted an international conference that garnered attendees from all across the United States, as well as from dozens of countries around the globe. In all, over 2500 individuals attended the week long event, hailing from as close as across the street and as far as Chile and Kenya. Our typically quiet, spacious work place was overrun by excited conference-goers, conversing in a variety of languages, and shuffling in and out of didactic, uplifting sessions. The conference has been one of the coolest aspects of working at Vineyard this summer; not just because of the intrinsic “coolness” of a legitimate international conference, but also because I was able to witness much of the work behind the scenes that made the event possible. Everything from the planning of the sessions, to the organizing of host homes for the international commuters, to the reservation of food trucks and picnic benches for the lunch breaks was all meticulously planned by my co-workers who I share a work space with. That in itself, was inspiring.

Vineyard came alive last week. The center was ostensibly bursting at the seams, full of vivaciousness and anticipation, and it was infectious. There was a sort of electricity in the air, charging every task, no matter how menial or salient it formerly was, with a particular enthusiasm that undoubtedly augmented the work being done throughout the week. The conference is done, but it serves as another reason why I am so grateful to have been matched at Vineyard this summer.

I finished my Theme Parks, Etc. analysis and drew some possible conclusions as to why cash expenses increased in 2015.  I believe it can be attributed to wishes to go to major sporting events in the past year, such as the Superbowl and National Championship game.  Tickets are very expensive and we usually buy those outright.  I think aside from being able to explain financial changes from FY 14-15, it was very helpful for my future goal of creating instructions on how to analyze costs going forward.  I found a few ways we could restructure the way Wish Coordinator’s describe expenses in the notes section going forward that would help with cost analysis.

Last Friday, I took a break from my normal routine and helped to roll up some flyers.  We need to warn people living in the area of our walking path for Walk for Wishes that we’ll be making noise in their neighborhood for a few hours.  It was fun to hang out with the interns and Development Officers.  I was the Development Intern last year so we laughed about memories from last year.  For example, after my internship I received an email from my former boss with the subject line “We’re Thinking about Using this for our Facebook Banner”.  I opened it to find a picture of me standing around, munching on a doughnut, instead of an action shot of me volunteering, thanks photographers! Our Walk is coming up on and I encourage everyone to sign up! It’s fun AND you get to be a part of helping us to grant wishes.  I’ll be walking with a team and any of you are welcome to join it.

Last but not least, I was interview by my hometown newspaper! I’ll include the link below.  I took my time crafting my answers and passed them along to marketing to review. I was really flattered when they replied back that I “have done a great job of conveying our mission and what we try to accomplish, through your own words and viewpoint.  You have eloquently answered all the questions and I don’t really have anything concrete to add or change”.  It’s the first time I’ve ever been interviewed by a newspaper and I was so happy I was able to articulately talk about my fellowship and convey our mission well.

http://hfchronicle.com/article/2015/jul/04/kalin-o%E2%80%99connor%E2%80%99s-numbers-can-make-wishes-come-true-sick-kids

There has been so much rain, I can’t believe it! However, no amount of rain or mud is going to stop me from getting outside and exploring the land… although the mosquitoes can be a bit much to handle. I never leave the barn without my bug spray!

This week I had the pleasure of exploring nature by the side of Dan Boone, a retired arbologist and current botanist. He works for MAD Scientists, and knows so much about plants! I was in awe the whole time that we were out walking! For every plant that we came across, he had something to share about it. For example, there are many different species of clovers at Shephrd’s Corner, such as white clover, and red clover. Dan told me about the time that the saw Buffalo Clover and Running buffalo clover (an endangered specie of clover in the U.S.) in the same place at the same time. This is a really big deal because there is such a small window where these two clovers bloom at the same time, and there is an even smaller chance of seeing them in the same area in bloom at the same time! I am sharing this because Dan reminded me about the importance of looking carefully at my surroundings. It might be inconvenient at times to spend the five extra minutes looking at a patch of grass, but that spot may hold valuable information about the conditions of that land. Since the Running buffalo clover is endangered, Dan’s find reveals a spot that it is thriving, and could continue to thrive with the proper care. And this all goes back to caring for the Earth. We now know where this endangered species is, and we can take efforts to preserve that land and keep the clover in existence because it is connected with the existence of other forms of life.

There is one plant, inparticular, at Shepherd’s Corner that is facing threats of being wiped out. It is the Ash tree. The Emerald Ash Borer is a pest, native to Eastern Asia, that is threatening the further existence of the Ash Trees all across Ohio. It is a green jewel beetle that burrows into the tree trunks, taking away the tree’s nutrients and weakening its internal structure. Eventually the tree becomes too weak to support itself and it falls over and dies. It is sad to see so many trees dying, but on my walk with Dan we came across a patch of baby Ash trees deep in the mature woods! This was an instance where taking the time to look around revealed a patch of new life that can bring hope to the Ash tree! Shepherd’s Corner is all about caring for the earth, and with constant surveillance there might be a chance for these trees to be protected and surviving!

This past week with the Fellowship has been full of great fun! Monday started at the Columbus Nonprofit Foundation, which was awesome. All of the Columbus Nonprofit Fellows met at the foundation for lunch. This was not just any regularly catered lunch though! We were joined at noon by our fellowship partners from The Ohio State University. We were not able to chat too much with our fellow partners because we were in training for lunch. This was a special training, an etiquette training! There were approximately thirty fellows and advisors who all got to enjoy a four-course lunch and learned how to properly eat a meal!

Obviously Monday was a great start to the week, but the programmed kids time for the week was very exciting! The first program was done on Tuesday at the Gahanna YMCA. The theme was Beach Day. A typical beach is hot and sandy with the water hitting your feet! Well that was not exactly how our beach day went! We had a lot of rain or cold weather, so we brought the beach inside! The first activity that we did was making giant popsicle masks- isn’t that the first thing a kid wants when it’s hot anyway? They were a huge hit among our kids at Gahanna. We then made homemade ice cream. This was an adventure for sure, but so simple! All we did was use ice, salt, half-and-half, sugar and vanilla extract. The kids had to shake the bags for about 10 minutes and ice cream formed! It was the perfect snack to go along with our beach day. We then played a basic water game with our kids indoors. I was very pleased with the results at Gahanna! At the North Branch YMCA, we did all of the same activities. Unfortunately, the Ohio weather struck again! Thus, we were inside. Surprisingly, the activities did not go as well with the kids. Every week I take data ratings from the kids to see what activities are good to repeat. What I have noticed over the past 6 weeks is that the Gahanna Branch kids love crafts and playing indoor games. The North Branch loves to play outside and athletic activities!

Stay tuned for next week as we “Bring the Farm to the City”!

Living Beautifully,

Erika Nigh

Week 5 was a full week and a big one for Make A Wish. We had been pushing for the budget to be passed for Ohio because it includes a wish granting fund. I helped do a little lobbying on behalf of MAW. It was so out of my usual routine that I was kind of giddy doing it. It was fun to leave passionate phone calls about a mission I care about and I almost felt like I was playing a different person because I’m usually allergic to politicking. It was suspenseful to wait for the results. It passed the house and the senate, leaving it all up to Kasich. MAW made one finally push and it paid off. The budget was successfully passed and the fund will help wish granting organizations in Ohio grant many more wishes to children with life threatening and debilitating diseases. I’m impressed by MAW for branching into advocating on behalf of the cause. So any non profits that are service based and c3’s are afraid of advocacy work, but it’s so necessary.

A personal accomplishment this week was finishing my cost analysis, except for the Theme Parks, Excursions, Activties, etc. expense category. It’s a relatively difficult category to examine because it’s so diverse in the type of expenses it covers. It really could just be labeled as “Fun” because I think that defines it better. I wrote up my conclusions and passed it along to my boss. Our costs are down 9% for the first three quarters from last year. We implemented cost saving strategies in January of this year. My goal was to tease out what decreases were from things we implemented and things beyond our control.  It’s hard to determine exact numbers, but I could determine that our strategies with regards to airfare definitely affected by our strategies. This is important because airfare makes up the majority of our costs. It’s great to be able to confirm that our strategies are working in such an important category. I look forward to getting feedback and questions from our Program Managers and my boss.

I started off Monday morning by continuing to research some dental clinics for our project exploring different models of safety net clinics. I found this project to be a great learning experience because I can see how different organizations accomplish a similar mission through different approaches.

For lunch, I attended a business etiquette learning lunch at the Columbus Foundation with the other Fellows and the Ohio State Advancement Career Exploration (ACE) interns. The ACE interns are undergraduate and graduate students from Ohio State that have been selected to work with different organizations with Ohio State Advancement, which is “a university-wide initiative that integrates alumni relations, communications and marketing and fundraising.” It was cool to meet the ACE interns and learn about the projects and organizations within Ohio State they were working on, such as University Communications, Medical Center, and the university’s Annual Giving Campaign.

Dana Booth, the Assistant Vice President, Constituency Fundraising, at Ohio State led the etiquette session through a fun and humorous approach! It was great to remember the basics about etiquette. I also learned about what to do in some specific situations I had never thought about or experienced before, such as proper etiquette and advice for a lunch interview. I finished up the day with a check in meeting with Laura to go over all of my assigned projects and determine a plan for the rest of the week.

On Tuesday, I looked online for different volunteer recognition programs at other non-profits that we could integrate into our volunteer program. I didn’t find much, but I was surprised that there are a few private, for-profit organizations out there that consult non-profits and other organizations on their volunteer programs. Some sites had quite a few comprehensive resources about all aspects of volunteer, including Energize, Inc. which had a lot of resources. I called a principal from each school district to see if I could set up meetings to discuss our outreach program and possible expansion to their school and school district. Most schools were out of the office until late July or early August, however, a Columbus City Schools high school just down the street from our clinic is still open. Their principal was out of the office, but I will be giving them a call later this week.

We visited a WARM Summer Lunch Program event at Northetown Park in Westerville on Wednesday. It was a very similar site to the other WARM events. We had about 30 kids throughout the day and we played our usual activities with the kids. The kids loved it! It was great seeing the kids have fun and learn a lot. Since the weather was not some kids did not come the day we were there. We also left 40 extra goodie bags at the site for the next few days so the WARM staff at the site would be able to hand out bags to the rest of the kids.

Starting our games and activities with the WARM Summer Lunch Program kids

Brushing Bob the Dragon!

Thursday morning, I prepped for our visit to Pheasant Run, a housing development that Homeport Ohio works with. This was our second visit with Homeport, but we saw a lot more kids this time around! This event was also unique because it was hosted at the housing development’s community center, where Homeport set up a produce market with fresh fruits and vegetables, financial planning and financial counseling workshops, and tables with books the kids could take. We had the children of the families at the event visit our table outside the community center. The Boys and Girls Club also had a summer program hosted at the community center, which many of the children of the families living the housing development attend. In addition to the children at the event, we also got to see all of the children at the Boys and Girls Club event. We had two new volunteers, Ivanna and Cybill, join us, and Eric took pictures and recorded extensive video at this event! I’ve included several of Eric’s pictures in this post! I’m excited that we’ll be able to use these photos for our outreach materials.

Two of our outreach volunteers, Cybill and Ivanna at our Homeport Ohio visit outside the Community Center at Phesant Run housing development in Renyoldsburg, Ohio

Me getting really fired up about those stained eggs

A small portion of the free produce market provided by Homeport Ohio at their event, in addition to the financial literacy workshops

Pheasant Run Community Center

Today, I have been at the clinic all day finishing up some projects I started. For the rest of the day, I’m planning on finalizing the research project and outreach brochure. I’ll be giving a call to the Centennial High School principal this afternoon and also be taking a look at our volunteer and site surveys. It’s been a great week, but it went by way too quickly! Today will be a great day to get the work I’ve been doing since the beginning of the summer done, and then move on to some more projects!

Whew! This has been a busy week to be sure, as we are now in the thick of the summer Junior Docent program and the ball is rolling. I believe it is rolling in the right direction, but we will find out shortly!

Before I get started into this post, first things first. We have a group picture! Yay!

Me and my JDs!

We hear a great deal in the nonprofit world about the importance of being able to tell our story. It is a line I have heard over and over again this past year of my studies, and I always tended to brush it off thinking “well, sure, I guess…”. I didn’t quite get it, but after this week I am truly understanding the depth needed in an organization’s story and the importance of being able to tell your story effectively. One of a nonprofit’s most important (if not the most important) assets is its story. It’s what makes an organization unique, and this story is what is used to gain buy-in from the community (Literally. We use them all the time when seeking funding). It seems today that everything about stories, especially effective telling of stories is an extremely valuable, but often overlooked skill. Stories are all around us and we encounter stories daily. Take Facebook for example. Your Facebook is your personal narrative. Everything you add becomes part of the story that you tell and present to the world. Storytelling is nothing new to us, but there is an art behind it that takes practice to ensure that this is done well.

Everything, and I truly mean EVERYTHING that I have done this week, whether the storytelling was intentional or unintentional, has been coming back to the concept of the story and how we tell it. On our Family Day this past Sunday, I was interviewed by Channel 6 news about the importance of our Family Days, and I had to explain the short story behind the significance of us offering this free admission day to the Columbus Community (next one is August 2nd in case you’re curious). Tuesday with my Junior Docents was spent creating stories about some of the pieces that we have on display at the Collection. I gave them free reign to come up with their own story about what was happening in a piece or create a story about how or why it might have been created. They loved this exercise! From there, I started preparing them to give their first “mini-tour” of one painting. This is a process that requires looking at the artwork, gathering their own questions, and anticipating questions that tour groups might ask. From there, the JDs use the resources of our artist files and books in our library to gather the information that they will need and then put together a story about the piece to tell their tour group. We literally have stories hanging on our walls here at the Collection. Wednesday, they had a chance to present their stories on their mini-tour of their pieces to their COWIC supervisors. The COWIC team was very helpful and talked with the kids about the importance of presenting information about yourself and being able to talk about yourself and (tell stories) to a group of people, which happens often when interviewing for a job. Additionally, the JDs watched a series of videos that told the story of Ron Pizzuti and the Pizzuti Collection. With this information, they are beginning to create their own versions of the Pizzuti Collection story that they will be able to use when giving their tours.

Additionally, on my personal work load has been crafting a narrative for a grant, working alongside my colleagues to create a written document to present to a foundation to seek funding to support our educational programming. This story has been extremely challenging due to a word limit in the application, so conciseness is key (which I’m sure you can tell is not one of my strongest skills).

And last but not least, my own story that I just recorded for you and have been recording for you here is my narrative of my experience this summer. I will likely use these stories in the future, whether it be for more grant writing with this organization, using the story and my experience on a future job interview, and even when I just call my mom every week and catch her up on what is going on. Stories are all around us, and it is up to us to determine which stories are told. It also takes a good storyteller to make sure that a message is relayed effectively. I cannot stress the importance of storytelling enough.

This week was full of etiquette, design, and collaboration. I’ve been taking a break from my main research on our information management system and been working on some design projects with help from some coworkers.

On Monday, the fellows connected with the Advancement Career Exploration interns for a lunch to learn about proper business etiquette in dining situations. We were some refreshed with some classic tips about which fork to use and learned some new tidbits such as keeping your wrists on the table (wrist check!). Besides the obvious of learning etiquette, it was an afternoon filled with catching up the fellows, networking, and some pretty good food.

Tuesday, I’ve started working on a comprehensive design for a new website for GroundWork group. It’s something that I never really thought I would do, but after crafting a report about ways the site could be improved, I thought I would spend some effort trying to visualize what I writing about. I created a initial layout and design based on other website templates that offered the visual characteristics I was looking for, and am now aiming to create a page organization structure that is intuitive for the visitor. I probably won’t be there for when any website redesign becomes reality, but I hope the template I’m working on will help them when they finally do.

On Wednesday, I met with our website designer to go over my ideas as well as collaborate on new ideas for the website and beyond. I kept working on the website design and did some research for some other projects. In my personal life, my roommate and I are now dogsitting!

Thursday, I met with our Marketing director to talk about the brochure and flyer designs I’ve been working on. I just have some rough drafts right now, but I’m hoping to craft final products that can be used for their outreach efforts.

Friday isn’t over yet, but I’ve been putting the final touches on everything I’ve been working on this week. This week has flown by because I’ve been working on some really engaging things. I love embracing my creative side, especially when it comes to marketing. I’m looking forward to seeing how this last month of the fellowship turns out!

Also, check out this week’s GroundWork group blog post, I’m featured for the work I’ve been doing with them.