Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

If you are living in the Midwest United States, you probably talked about the weather a lot this week. Yes, it was very hot. Think about the ways that you were able to manage the heat. Did you stay indoors more? Was your air conditioning on in the house? And the car? Did you put a few more ice cubes into your water bottle? What if you did not have access to an air-conditioned home or car? Heck, what if you did not even have access to a structured shelter?

How would you have managed the heat then?

Due to being a part of an organization whose mission is based on ending homelessness, I now notice every person experiencing homelessness. One day this week, I was driving west on 5th Ave. While I was stopped at a light, I saw a man sitting in his underwear with a bag full of necessities and two-gallon jugs of water. He was sitting in direct sun and looked exhausted. Since I study urban planning, I also noticed many anti-homeless design elements at play. There was no public space with shade, no offset between the sidewalk and the street. This is how many streets in Columbus are designed to deter people from “loitering.” How has society reached the point of criminalizing being outside? A hunger for money is a drive, but how far can this capitalistic ideal go?

The day after reflecting on what it would be like to be homeless in a heat wave, I discussed my thoughts with a coworker. She agreed that working for an organization focused on housing has made her more aware of the people who are homeless in our community. She told me that during the warm months, she always keeps a cooler with water in her car to give out as she drives. It is a simple gesture that can really make an impact. This conversation spiraled into her educating me about a pending case in the Supreme Court: Johnson v. Grant Pass.

The city of Grants Pass in southern Oregon has a population of people experiencing homelessness that is greater than the number of available shelter beds. This causes people to have to sleep outdoors. Over time, the City of Grant Pass implemented municipal codes prohibiting sleeping, sitting, or lying outside. This gave the police the ability to fine people living on the land. Unpaid fines or multiple violations have led to jail time. This case was first brought against the Grant Pass, stating that its regulations violate the 8th Amendment. The case has been driven up the judicial ranks by Grant Pass because the courts ruled that the city is violating the 8th Amendment. The Supreme Court has heard the arguments and will decide by June 30, 2024.

The pending Supreme Court case, Johnson v. Grant Pass, holds significant implications for the criminalization of homelessness. This is a matter of great concern, particularly as many individuals are living paycheck to paycheck, teetering on the edge of homelessness. The potential for us to be criminalized due to the unlivable wages of most jobs is a disheartening reality. I can only hope that the Supreme Court will make the right decision.

This week will be my last week working with my wonderful interim executive director, shoutout Terri Gehr. Next week will be heavy with events as we will be busy welcoming our new executive director to the organization. However, this week I would say was more calm than my first two weeks (probably because we didn’t work Wednesday).

The week started with more planning for our 50th Anniversary Celebration. I was grateful to sit in our 50th Anniversary Committee meeting on Monday. It was really cool and interesting to see the behind the scenes and the details of what goes into preparing for an event of this magnitude. All these details that tend to be overlooked but can be crucial to the efficiency of the celebration. I am now leading a project relating to our 50th Anniversary that I am excited about. The first step of the project being outreach to see if it was something people would be interested in. I’ll save those details of the project for another week.

Along with that work, I also spent a lot of time working in our constituent database cleaning things up. We were so grateful to find out that a former Signature Program Grad gathered contact information and updated work information for every Signature Program Grad from 1974-2015. I don’t think words can stress how important and crucial this was for us to get this information. Most of our database, being our 50th year, does not updated information in regard to emails or work status. This makes it extremely difficult to contact former participants and try to reengage them. My work consisted of going through each year to see if we already had a profile for these people and if not we would need to make one so we can properly update their information.

I was also grateful enough to sit in on our Nonprofit Board Governance Training Program day. It was helpful for me to see so many familiar faces from Week 1 who were participating. Most of them I had met my first week at Signature Program Graduation. The idea behind this training is to educate people of what a nonprofit board does, what roles come into play, and how they should be acting while on the board. Most people who were in the training had no previous experience on a board but wanted to learn so they could be the most prepared to join a board. I took a lot out of my experience there, mostly because I didn’t know much about board governance in general. I am pleased to have met board members of Leadership Columbus in these 3 weeks, but I didn’t actually know much about what they do on our board. It was beneficial information for me to learn because know I can interact with our board members while knowing what their roles are and what they are trying to accomplish while serving on our board. I hope to use my experience from this day later in the future if I find myself wanting to get involved on a nonprofit board as well.

See you next week,

Austin

As I continue creating content for our summer program, I’m excited to be picking up new skills such as photo editing and color grading videos to fit the scene of the event I’m filming. However, I want to think of different ideas of the content that I could make and share. I’ve noticed that if similar content gets posted repeatedly, people will start to lose interest and engage less with the post. One goal that I want to accomplish during my fellowship is to apply storytelling to my stories. I graduated from OSU with a journalism degree so I learned so many ways to tell stories. I want to use that knowledge to share the many impactful stories that I see and hear about at Bridgeway.

Pictured are some photos I’ve been able to post on Bridgeway’s social media platforms so far.

One idea that I have is a photojournalism project that shows the relationship between students and staff. From working at Bridgeway so far, I notice that the staff have a deep love for the students and that love is shown in different ways. Not only do I want to capture moments of joy that students and staff experience, I also want to capture the more difficult moments that are able to be managed because of the support and love that students and staff have for one another.

Lastly, I had a chance to work on one of the fundraising campaigns the advancement team was working on. Bridgeway is one of the organizations selected by Governor Sherrod Brown’s office to potentially receive funding from the federal government to renovate the building. The project now has to be approved by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. This week, I helped in creating a one page overview of our project to be presented to a legislative aid. I created a draft for my mentor to go in and edit. I also helped to design it so that our organisation stands out to the subcommittee. I was proud that I was able to help on a campaign that would potentially provide the organisation with a large amount of funding needed to complete the project. Though my writing could be tweaked and improved upon, I was grateful to be able to help with it and want to be able to work on similar projects in the future.

This past week at City Year Columbus, I had the opportunity to meet with several staff at City Year to better understand the organizational structure, get a feel for my role, and prepare for the upcoming staff retreat. 

On Monday I met with Zandra Casto who acts as Impact Director. As impact director Zandra works directly with AmeriCorps members in ensuring they get all the necessary training required to become student success coaches and work as near-peer mentors to underserved students. Zandra explained the tools they use to measure student growth such as Iready tests for academics and a Holistic Student Assessment (HSA) used for social/emotional skills. 

Later I met with Tiffani Gottlieb who is Managing Director of Impact. Tiffani’s role includes interpreting all the data collected on students’ growth from schools and transforming that into an Annual Impact Report, one-pagers for fundraising events, statistics for prospective donors, etc. She shared with me areas for improvement to progress towards goals. Some of these include strengthening the partnership with the school district and AmeriCorps members as well as having more consistency with data sharing between the school and City Year Columbus. 

However, the most impactful event I attended during the week was our annual staff retreat. This year it was hosted at the Worthington Hills Country Club. Besides the delectable poke bowl I had for lunch, there was a lot of new information to digest. The workshop topic this year was microaggressions. As a woman of color, I have faced microaggressions my entire life but was unaware of my unintentional bias or possible slights against others. The workshop called for us to reevaluate some of the common phrases or terms we use in our daily lives to be more sensitive to the affected communities. 

One tactic I am planning on using in my daily life is calling in/out. Oftentimes when I am being disrespected I tend to disengage from the conversation. Calling in requires the offender to reflect on their actions and the deeper implications. While more passive this can create room for challenging conversations which can hopefully educate people on their ignorance. On the other hand, calling out is when the offender needs to know their behavior will not be tolerated. 

There is a time and place for each response and in certain contexts one might be favorable over the others but it’s up to you to make the best judgment to promote equity and further professional development. 

Hi everyone! This week, the projects we are working on progressed forward! I’ve noticed that to get one thing done, there needs to be some response from someone else to move forward on the next steps. This process has made me more patient and pay attention to detail. I’m used to a fast-paced work environment that has rigorous deadlines. A more relaxed work pace allows me to pre-plan for the future. When we get responses, we can immediately implement some of the plans we have thought about.

On Tuesday, I had lunch with the CEO, which was both informative and affirming. She talked to me about the ins and outs of non-profits, her career trajectory, and how minor specificities can create barriers for individuals trying to alleviate social issues. It is so interesting to me how there are so many external forces that prevent individuals from trying to enact change whether it is the Government, political groups, or your peers. For change to be sustained, there must be a collective interest/investment. I asked, “How do you change the mind/behaviors of an individual so that they are motivated to advocate for your organization or cause?”. Doing social justice work, I have encountered people who actively work against the cause I am advocating for, and any form of implementation is met with resistance. She offered methods to combat resistance while continuing to remember the mission I am advocating for. This discussion further informed my week as I was doing some outreach in recruiting for the StoryCorps project.

Storytelling is a powerful method to inform others about experiences different or similar to theirs. Storytelling is how cultures and traditions are sustained through generations, and is a powerful tool to bring attention to something people may not think about. This week I have thought about my own story–what I want to share, how it informed me, and how it can inform others. Listening to others’ stories informs me way more than a textbook could while making me reflect on my sense of self. I am grateful that so many people on the team and other organizations are willing to share their stories. At the end of this week, I raise the question to myself and others “What do you want your story to say?”

See y’all in the next one!

Kennedy Smith

Hello everyone! I hope everybody had a wonderful week. After my second week at Community Shelter Board, I am settling into my role and feel more confident about my ability to make meaningful contributions to my team. This week, I had the privilege of attending CSB’s annual fundraising event: “Under One Roof,” at Columbus State Community College. Seeing our r+r team’s hard work pay off in real time was incredible. Before the event, I attended my first all-staff meeting, where I got to hear all the planning and hard work that went into making this fundraising event happen. We also got into groups and brainstormed ideas for solving homelessness while identifying our team’s strengths and the best ways to collaborate. I am excited for our group to follow up at our scheduled coffee meetup at First Watch on June 27th to discuss further and develop our themes. At Under One Roof, my colleague Jeremih and I were tasked with greeting and guiding guests through registration. I am happy to say our guests and team were proud of the impression we made on our donors; the event was an overall success. This week, I have continued to complete tasks regarding our upcoming Founder’s Awards event and other assignments, such as developing our quarterly data highlights. 

This upcoming week, I am excited to begin my new assignments as I will be collaborating with the R+R team to coordinate logistics surrounding our upcoming 2024 Founder’s Awards. Given our R+R’s success in coordinating our Under One Roof event, I am grateful to have their fresh perspective and ideas when it comes to planning around our venue and other event details. Attached is an e-blast of the “Save the Date” flier I created for this upcoming event! 

After settling in with Legal Aid of Southeastern and Central Ohio in week one, I was excited to move forward to help serve in new projects. This week was especially busy, as it coincided with the first of many post-merger Open Houses that are showing off how each Legal Aid office is impacting its community.

This time, we got to work with the office in Newark, which was a great opportunity to travel to a part of Ohio I have never been to! There was a lot of planning and organization that was put into the event (of which I was able to put some minor help), culminating in a successful showcase of Legal Aid’s work in the community.

Besides the trip to Newark, I also had the opportunity to visit the Athens branch during its Name & Gender Change Clinic, which helped low-income southeastern Ohioans with the legal aspects of gender-affirming care. I was there to get some photos and information for LASCO’s monthly newsletter. It was a great opportunity to contribute and learn about the process.

Finally, this Friday involved beginning the last steps of mailing out LASCO’s annual report to hundreds of donors, supporters, and friends of Legal Aid. This has involved a lot of hard work that started long before I arrived, and I have been grateful for the opportunity to assist in getting these reports out. It is very interesting to see just how important these sorts of methods of communications are to an organization like Legal Aid, and I am very excited to jump into next week to finish it out! I am also looking forward to next Tuesday, where I will be able to attend a reentry assistance clinic, which I am excited for as I am very interested in that sort of work in the future.