Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

With just one week remaining in my fellowship at the HSC, I’ve started reflecting on how much I’ve learned over the past few months. Because I was out of town for part of the week, things were a little slower than usual, but it also allowed me to begin preparing for my final week and look back on everything my team and I have accomplished this summer.

We kicked off the week with our all-team meeting, where we discussed several upcoming HSC professional services, including next week’s Nonprofit Sector Snapshot at the Main Library Auditorium and wellness programming such as Be Kind to Your Mind and Joy is an Act of Resistance. One of the things I’ve appreciated most about HSC is how intentionally the organization balances advocacy and capacity building with a genuine commitment to the well-being of the nonprofit workforce.

This week I also had the opportunity to collaborate with our Marketing Specialist on a social media campaign recognizing HSC member organizations whose leaders were named to Columbus Business First’s 2026 Women of Influence list. We celebrated Kamilah Twymon of The Center for Family Safety and Healing, Ann Bischoff of Star House, Toni Cunningham of Godman Guild Association, Lisa Hinkelman of Ruling Our eXperiences (ROX), and Rachel Lustig of Lutheran Social Services. It was exciting to highlight these leaders and recognize and learn more about the organizations they lead in the process.

Looking back over the summer, one area where I’ve seen tremendous personal growth is digital communication and marketing. When I first started, I was still learning the nuances of Canva, organizational branding, and designing content that was both engaging and consistent with HSC’s identity. Over the past several months, I’ve become much more confident using color, imagery, and layout to create professional materials that reflect our organization’s voice. It’s rewarding to recognize skills that once felt unfamiliar now feel like second nature.

I also continued refining HSC’s national thought leaders database, making edits to improve its formatting and overall accessibility. As the database has grown, I’ve realized that creating a useful resource isn’t just about collecting information—it’s about presenting it in a way that allows others to quickly find, understand, and apply it.

Finally, I began preparing for next week’s closing presentation by revisiting my weekly blog posts, organizing photos from throughout the summer, and reflecting on the projects that have defined my fellowship experience. As I prepare to share these experiences with my cohort, I’m grateful for the opportunity to have spent my summer with an incredible organization.

This week brought many new experiences and opportunities at CHA!

I kicked off this week by finishing the testimonial project I had mentioned in a previous blog post. While organizing the testimonials, I found myself learning more about the various programs we provide. I also sat in on an orientation going into more detail about each of our programs. In addition, I had a wonderful conversation with our Nutrition Education specialist and talked of the new curriculum they have been piloting with the children in our program. As someone who is very interested in the advocacy CHA does, this was exciting as legislation has been introduced in the statehouse to include nutritional standards in Ohio. We are currently the only state without them. 

Anne Marie and I have been working diligently about grouping items for the auction and uploading them to GiveSmart. It has been fun to group together different items, especially since they are continuing to come in. We have been writing the auction blurbs, including a hook to bring in bidders, descriptions of the items, and a call to action to BID! Tomorrow is officially the start of event month.

With a new logo comes new responsibility. We also sorted new t-shirts for our staff this week and got to wear our new swag. To end the week, we hosted Crowe at our warehouse as volunteers. It was neat to have a full staff of volunteers, ready to help in whatever way they could. The Americorp VISTA Julia and I brainstormed different ways we can improve the volunteer experience. We want to add music, a TV when giving our volunteer overview presentation, and even provide snacks for the volunteers. 

Although nervous for next week, I can’t wait to update everyone on what I have been up to this summer, and hear from all of you!

It’s crazy that we’re wrapping up our second to last week of the fellowship! This summer at CMA has truly flown by. This week, I began wrapping up my projects and prepping for the final presentation for next week’s closing luncheon. I also spent a good amount of time with my fellow fellows in and outside of our professional development sessions! 

Since we are beginning official prep for College Night, I spent a lot of time confirming logistical details this week. I confirmed the photobooth rental, DJ service by OSU’s DJ Club, mocktail outdoor bar with our Special Events department, and social media content plan to promote the event. This week, I met with Meghan (Advancement Operations Manager) and Rachel (Museum Store Assistant Manager) for 1-on-1 chats. Meghan was able to connect me with several individuals in development at OSU to learn more about fundraising at a higher education institution. Rachel gave me a tour of the museum store, which brings in an average $45,000 a month. It was fascinating to learn about shopping trends and how merchandise relates to CMA’s special exhibitions and permanent collection. Additionally, I met with Kristin again (Associate Director of Institutional Relations) to do a walk-through of grant applications. Amongst many other grants, she was able to show me what CMA application to the Columbus Foundation for the Summer Fellowship grant, which was wildly interesting to see! And thanks to my connections in CMA’s Advancement department, I was able to connect with two individuals from the Columbus Symphony Orchestra! On Monday, I met Nat (Marketing Manager) and Katie (Production Assistant and DMA flute student at OSU), both of whom were able to connect me with even more individuals at CSO and the McConnell Arts Center. 

Our Columbus Foundation professional development session on Wednesday was another highlight of the week! We were engaged in a fascinating conversation with Toshia Safford, President and CEO of Center for Healthy Families. I enjoyed the conversational style of her session and felt her genuine desire to connect with us! Also on Wednesday was our alumni fellow dinner and Jeni’s trip. It was so nice to connect with each other in a more casual environment and I look forward to spending more time outside of work with my peers! (pink heart emoji)

Looking forward to our final week! It’s been a wonderful summer 🙂

-Muji

This week I continued to work under the Resource Development department at Homeport. In particular, I scanned and organized more documents for the Accounting department, attended meetings with donors, attended a Homeport huddle, as well as a Voice and Vision coordination meeting. In the donor meeting, I learned about how Homeport cooperates with and updates their donors on recent events. In the Voice and Vision meeting, I observed how Homeport thematically organizes their videos to portray the overall message of Voice and Vision. Furthermore, in a shorter meeting about Voice and Vision, I learned about B-roll. Specifically, I observed how Homeport takes their outlined Voice and Vision ideas and transform them into real videos.

In addition to the tasks and meetings I completed, I made further progress on my senior independent project (SIP). I finished my literature review and scheduled three additional interviews, two of which I conducted today. I have one more interview planned for Monday and hope to schedule three more interviews and reach my project goal of 10 Homeport resident narratives. My next steps include writing my methods section, transcribing interviews, and analyzing and coding resident narratives.

Lastly I attended a lovely Clippers game with Homeport this past Tuesday. It was super fun getting to hang out with everybody outside of work and enjoy the beautiful weather.

This is my last full week at the fair and I cannot believe how fast these past 10 weeks have gone by! Fair week was by far the busiest and most chaotic week yet. Yet, throughout those 6 days I learned so much!

 Each day brought new challenges/obstacles that my team had to navigate. Watching leadership take control of these difficult situations, while remaining calm, respectful and community oriented was so fascinating to watch. 

From an outside perspective, the fair is all about agriculture, horse shows, rides and delicious food, but it’s really so much more than that. The fair is a place that welcomes all to experience everything the fair world has to offer. 4-H is a community where children ranging from 5-19 are able to learn life skills that not only will help them excel in the educational world, it also provides a safe community where they form lifelong friends. The fair also has a senior day where individuals over 65+ who were provided with breakfast, lunch, and all day entertainment. Despite the heavy rains and stormy weather, the feedback from senior day was extremely positive!  There was also an entire day of cultural dances that allowed everyone at the fair to experience a taste of latin, middle eastern and Irish culture. This event was so fun and I was even given a camera to take pictures of the performances for our social media!

Each of these separate events came together to create a wonderful experience 30,000 people were able to enjoy. There was something here for everyone and each event offered a completely different experience. It was truly a privilege to be a part of something so great! I am so glad my internship was with the Franklin County Agricultural Society. Not only was I able to experience so many new things, I was also able to form new connections with my amazing coworkers!

Until next week!

~Elena

Already the last day??? Wow! I can’t believe it’s been 9 full weeks since summer camps at the PAST Foundation began.  The administration of pre and post surveys will be no longer! It’s bittersweet.  I’m both excited and haunted by the thought of completing the end of summer data analysis.  We have about 300 surveys to analyze and see how we can improve summer camp programming here at PAST. 

This week has been a bit out of the ordinary.  As I mentioned last week, the research team conducts “Interviews” on the instructors and support staff to get their perspective on how the summer went.  It is important that we are the ones running these sessions as there is no conflict of interest with us.  We are in no positions of power over those being interviewed, so the participants can freely express any joys or grievances they may have without backlash.  I had my first experience with this on Tuesday.  While I didn’t facilitate the discussion, I was a note taker.  I made sure to document what each person said and capture the tone in which they said them too as tone can express more than words sometimes.  It was cool to be a part of this because we heard lots of useful feedback we will be able to share with the entire PAST team.  I hope this leads to even better programming and improvements in how people feel about being a part of PAST.  

Additionally, the PAST program has been hosting Highschool student interns.  Throughout the summer, they’ve been working hard and earning a multitude of certificates in a variety of fields.  On Thursday, the foundation held a graduation for all of the students! While I didn’t interact with them much (as my focus is primarily on elementary and middle school students) I thought it was important that I attend and see what all they had been up to.  This is a side of PAST that I didn’t really get to experience this summer, and I am so shocked by just how much the students accomplished.  I’m glad I got to go and I love seeing the real life impact programs for students have on their lives

I can’t wait to see what the next few weeks have in store!

See you next week,

Danyelle Bumpus

I can’t believe it’s already Week Nine! This summer has flown by, and this was definitely one of my favorite weeks of the fellowship.

The highlight of the week was finally seeing our Showcase come to life. It was incredibly rewarding to witness the growth each entrepreneur made throughout their time in the SEA Change program. Watching them confidently present their businesses and share how far they have come was inspiring. One of my favorite parts of the event was networking during the reception. I had the opportunity to connect with professionals working in several career fields that interest me, and I’m excited to follow up and continue building those relationships.

For most of the event, I was behind the scenes helping with setup, logistics, and making sure everything ran smoothly. I really enjoyed being part of the team that brought the event together. It gave me a new appreciation for the amount of planning, coordination, and teamwork required to execute a successful large-scale event. My favorite moment, however, was seeing the entrepreneurs’ reactions as the panelists announced the funding awards. It was especially encouraging to see that even those who did not advance to the final round still received in-kind service packages that will provide meaningful support as they continue growing their organizations. I’m excited to see how both the financial investments and professional service packages impact their future success.

I also thoroughly enjoyed this week’s professional development session with Toshia Safford. Our discussion on leadership and career growth challenged me to think differently about my own career journey. It reminded me to remain open-minded to opportunities I may not have previously considered and to embrace the fact that career paths rarely go exactly as planned. Sometimes the unexpected opportunities are the ones that lead to the greatest growth.

Overall, this week left me feeling energized, inspired, and excited to make the most of my final week as a fellow.

This week I worked under the Resource Development department. Here I helped seal letters Homeport is sending out to its residents and scanned and organized financial documents. Additionally, I conducted more interviews for my senior thesis and made more progress on writing my final paper. I have really enjoyed conducting interviews because they allow me to learn about the personal experiences of Homeports residents. Additionally, the interviews have provided me with valuable feedback and practice interviewing different types of individuals. In particular, there have been some cases where I struggle with the interviews. It is these moments that have shown me where I need to improve.

Next week I will not be working under a specific department but rather more generally under Homeport. Additionally, I will be conducting more interviews and making more progress on my final paper.

As usual, this summer has seemingly gone by so fast and been filled with so much. This week was definitely a little slower, which was a nice change of pace after a very busy previous week.

I was able to draft and send emails to a handful of nonprofit partners we work with after having full autonomy over which organizations to contact. I am hoping to meet with them to discuss not only volunteering, how it affects and supports their work, and what Besa can do to better support those efforts, but also to learn more about their missions, how these individuals got to where they are today, and what it means to work in these various nonprofit fields across Columbus. I am looking forward to those conversations as a way to wrap up this great summer experience.

I also got the chance to help out at a Homeport location for the first time this summer, packing produce for seniors. I really enjoyed the interactions I had while I was there, not only with the seniors, but also with the other two women volunteering alongside me. One had her master’s degree in social work, which is what I’m currently in school for, and I loved hearing about her journey and career in Columbus. It was encouraging and made me even more excited to begin making a full-time impact next year. The other volunteer has been consistently serving with Besa for years and is incredibly passionate about the work. I appreciated hearing her perspective on what makes Besa unique, stories from past volunteer experiences, suggestions for improvement, ideas for increasing volunteerism in Columbus, and even some of her life experiences. It reminded me once again that there are so many people deeply dedicated to this community and committed to making it better. More than anything, it reaffirmed how much I enjoy serving alongside and learning from the people involved in this work.

A few other projects I worked on this week included preparing the educational component of a volunteer experience I am helping facilitate next week at Cardinal Health, where interns will assemble meal kits. My goal is to introduce them to thinking about volunteering a little differently and encourage a sustained, personal desire to continue volunteering—even if it’s only a few times each year. The data I analyzed this summer told a lot of stories, and one of the biggest was that many of our volunteers, especially those who come through our business partners, only volunteer with us once. Besa already plays such a meaningful role in Columbus, and our numbers demonstrate that. However, if we could inspire even a portion of those volunteers to return just one or two more times each year, the impact could be enormous.

It actually reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point (I recently finished The Revenge of the Tipping Point) and the idea that once something reaches a certain threshold, change can accelerate rapidly. If we reached a point where volunteering became a more regular habit for enough members of our community, who knows the scale of impact that could have? This could easily become an entire blog post on its own, though, so I’ll leave it there.

I also completed quite a bit of administrative work, assisting wherever I could by creating and posting volunteer shifts on our platform.

Lastly, there were several really fun moments outside of my usual work this week, both with my Besa colleagues and with some of the other summer fellows. Besa and the Human Service Chamber (our work neighbors) spent part of Thursday afternoon at Puttshack to take a break, have some fun, and get to know one another in a different setting. It was a great time, and I did my best not to let my competitive spirit get too bruised after performing much worse than I would’ve liked. Golf and putt-putt are definitely not my strongest sports.

That same day, I attended the Franklin County Fair with a few of the other fellows from this summer program, as Elena is completing her fellowship there. It was so much fun and surprisingly comfortable for all of us to spend time together outside of our usual learning sessions and get to know one another in a different environment. I realized we are all much more like-minded than I initially thought, with a lot of overlap in both our personalities and interests.

Experiences like these make me increasingly optimistic about the future of our community. There are so many genuine, thoughtful, and talented people looking to make a difference and lead others in doing the same. At the fair—which I hadn’t been to in years—we enjoyed plenty of fried food, laughed together, and bravely rode a few rides that weren’t too intense. I even went on my first drop tower ride, thanks to Owen’s encouragement.

I look forward to more opportunities to spend time with the other fellows outside of work, and to making the most of these final two weeks at Besa. I can’t believe it’s almost that time.