Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

This week, I had the opportunity to work with the ETSS Advancement team on a few key topics of focus. Primarily, I worked a great deal with the team on soliciting Evening of Promise donations from various businesses. For our auction in October, we have been focusing on gathering donations for 10 key categories: food, coffee, breweries/distilleries, entertainment, sports, self-care/relaxation, jewelry/accessories, collector’s art, home goods, and miscellaneous.

For the biggest part of my journey thus far, on Tuesday, I joined my colleague Destiny in venturing to Easton to request in-kind donations for our auction. We went everywhere, from Cheesecake Factory to Red Giraffe Designs to LEGOLAND Discovery Center. While most places weren’t able to give right then and there, as oftentimes donations must go through the corporate office, many took our contact information to get back to us as soon as they could. It was heartwarming to see how many places want to give back to the community in any way they can!

Along with in person donation inquiries, I have also focused a great deal on online donation requests. These often work better for larger companies, such as the Columbus Zoo, the Cincinnati Reds, Jet Blue Airlines, and Cameron Mitchell Restaurants. Because these companies are so grand in size, it often takes a while to receive a response. However, we are excited to have received our first two donations from Pass the Glass & the Columbus Zoo already!

Finally, I have been given the responsibility of setting up various local fundraisers to raise money in order to make our Evening of Promise a phenomenal event. I’m delighted to be meeting with the Events & Marketing Coordinator of North High Brewing next week at their taproom in order to see the space and best capture all of our ideas! Just today, I’m thankful to have talked with the Events Coordinator of Seventh Son Brewing Co. While we still have to make sure this date works for everyone here at ETSS, I’m so excited for our first fundraiser to (hopefully) take place on June 29!

The first week of my fellowship was a joyous occasion due to the celebrations and introductions. The second week can be summed up as diving in, referring to the work I will be doing for social media for the remainder of my time. The COO Mr. Mack gave me a thorough overview of all the programs conducted by Boys&Girls Clubs Central Ohio (BGCCO). A big emphasis on my social media plan will be People, Programs, and Places. He gave me a calendar of notable events in which he would like me to be present for content collection and exposure for social media.

I met with our Director of Site Leaders, Dr. Jermaine. He helped me distill misconceptions I had about the organization and how to positively portray our content to different audiences. He said, “Our programming is great for our children, my children, and all children.” That resonated with me, and I hope to portray BGCCO in a holistic light. I met with the previous individual responsible for social media Hailey. Hailey helped me log into the respective accounts, encouraged my creative brain, and gave me best practices and lessons learned to produce the best work possible for the organization. She was very positive and believes highly in my ability to leave a lasting impact on the organization.

I had a great learning session at the Columbus foundation this week. I found out one of the other fellows, Aaron is working in the neighborhood of Milo Grogan, I hope to collaborate with them in the future. I am super excited for future excursions with other fellows. This week I planned meetings on social media strategies with Amy at Boys & Girls Club of Boone County, Amanda at Boys & Girls Club of Newark, and Kyle from YOYCENOW Foundation. It was a pleasure speaking with these passionate and knowledgeable individuals. The highlight of my week is creating my first social media post for BGCCO. I was a little nervous yet happy to start. Please check our Instagram post on the Community Celebration.

The Simply Living Sustainable Business Directory project is in full swing this week.  I began adding around twenty businesses daily to the directory and it now holds just under 200 locally-owned businesses within the database. Data entry is not always the most exciting activity to do on a daily basis. However, this week’s fellows meeting at the Columbus Foundation about purpose and a phone call with a local business owner made me remember the importance of entering business information into the Sustainable Business Directory.

On Tuesday, Chuck (Simply Living founder) and I had a phone call to discuss the businesses that did not have sufficient information available online. One of those businesses was Kombucha Bob’s Kombu-Tea. Chuck arranged a phone call with Bob and he gave us the missing information. We also discussed both the importance and struggles of being a local small business. What resonated with me after our conversation was Bob acknowledging the difficulty of marketing his product. That part of the conversation reminded me of the importance of constantly adding information to the Sustainable Business Directory. Although the actual task of data entry may be tedious, it is crucial to the purpose of Simply Living.

It comes as no surprise that Kombucha Bob’s product faces difficulty competing with global kombucha brands. Bob said it himself that he is having a hard time with marketing. Once the Sustainable Business Directory is launched, it will act as a resource for people in Central Ohio looking for kombucha and related products. Furthermore, the purpose of the directory reverts back to the mission of Simply Living: to connect people with learning opportunities that promote sustainability, environmental justice, and the local economy. I was unaware of Bob’s product before this summer. Simply Living gave me the opportunity to learn about Bob’s product and help spread the word which has a positive impact on our local economy.

Last week, I came up with a list of search terms commonly used in reports by the Siemer Institute and other social service organizations. This week, I began the preliminary work for my best practices research using those terms. I started this project by jumping straight into the literature; which was a mistake. It was immediately overwhelming, as I had no sense of direction. I was just reading through paper after paper without a clue as to what I was actually searching for. Thankfully, all it took was a quick meeting with my supervisor to reorient myself. Having conducted numerous studies in the past, she explained her method of gathering data for these reports. Through this discussion, I realized my mistake and was able to formulate a plan to guide myself through the process. My mistake was that I had not done any “pre-research research”. Before looking for best practices that help low-income families avoid homelessness, first I needed to investigate what constitutes “best practices”. Rather than attempting to reinvent the wheel, I should have used reliable organizations that already identified best practices within the industry and branched out from there.

Subsequently, I have looked through Siemer Institute partners’ websites and identified the practices they currently employ. I’ve organized this into a list to be compared with the best practices identified in the scientific literature by organizations such as Aspen and Urban Institute. My next steps are to research if there is data supporting the effectiveness and longevity of the practices employed by our partner programs. This approach makes my report more relevant to the readers: our partner organizations. When it comes to asking for help or guidance, it can be hard to take that initial step forward. Asking for help early on shifted my approach to this work and improved my productivity and peace of mind.

This week, my project has begun to kick into full gear at Ohio Humanities. I going to be working closely with a couple members of the team, particularly Scarlett, the Development Director, who has been very encouraging and whose instruction has been conducive to my learning. The team has been working on planning for the upcoming Over-the-Rhine film festival in Cincinnati as well as working hard in the early stages of a new advancement strategy, my primary project for the summer. Working on database cleanup and development has been a crucial part of this “Acquisition Mode” in seeing what strategies should be taken to determine what demographics we should be compelling to donate or become stakeholders in the organization. What seems to be the most important is strengthening relations with current supports or new supporters that are committed to the mission of Ohio Humanities – to share stories, spark conversations, and inspire ideas.

On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to work on my first grant review! I used the application from an organization’s grant application to Ohio Humanities to come up with a review of their project in matching Ohio Humanities’ requirements for grant approval to share with my coworkers at an upcoming meeting. Given that grants are a critical part of almost any nonprofit (whether they give or receive grants), learning about the process and requirements for grant approval will certainly help me in a future position at a nonprofit. I hope to do more grant reviews during my summer Fellowship so that I can build upon my knowledge of grant writing or reviewing.

I’m extremely excited for my advancement project this summer as I’ve been given the liberty to look into ways and to perform tasks to connect Ohio Humanities closer with its supporters, which is a significant part of fundraising. Updates to come on this and the Over-the-Rhine Film Festival!

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE This week has been a lot of learning. To get ready for pride, I have spent a lot of time reading about queer history and culture in Columbus which was been really insightful and interesting to learn about. I also watched a panel at Stonewall where several different community leaders discussed public place discrimination. These both expanded my knowledge on issues in Columbus a great amount. This week I also began to learn about and work with the Rapid Response Policy Team. Their role is to get information and resources out within the hour of a major piece of legislation getting passed/proposed, a SCOTUS ruling, or notable executive orders. I have started working on the press release and resources for when Roe is overturned. The work is somber due to the nature of what the topic is, but it is great experience and something I haven’t done before. However, the main theme of this week is PRIDE! I will be working Pride Today and Tomorrow, and I couldn’t be more excited. This is my first ever pride and I am excited to experience it all. I will be helping set up the booth as well as working the booth there getting people signed up and involved in the political process to protect LGBTQ rights. If you don’t have any plans for Saturday, be sure to come to Pride! I didn’t realize how big Columbus pride was, being the second largest in the Midwest and the seventh largest in the nation. Overall, the second week has been great. I feel settled in and have learned so much through the organization both in how to do things and general knowledge of LGBTQ history in Columbus. I am very excited for this weekend! I hope to see you all there!

As my second week is coming to an end, I can definitely say that I have learned so much in a short amount of time. This week I met with other colleagues working in different departments in our administration. I had the pleasure of learning what their role responsibilities are and why they do it. 

One of my colleagues is the Director of Family Experience and reaches out to each of our families individually to see how they are doing among other responsibilities. She cares so much about the well-being of our families here at Marburn which is inspiring. 

I have learned that Marburn prioritizes helping families with financial aid and finding scholarships so their children can attend our school and receive the proper educational experience they would likely not have in a public school. Marburn is a need-based independent school, not a private school. 

This week I worked at our Marburn Education Collaborative location in Columbus for a day. Summarizing what I explained in my Week 1 blog post, the purpose of this location is to reach more students who learn differently from different surrounding communities to fulfill our vision of a world where every child may learn. 

We have a partnership with Ohio State University’s special education program to offer reduced-fee tutoring, free early-reading screenings, and educational seminars for parents and teachers at this location. 

I am very excited to help with our upcoming summer school program and meet the students and their families. Follow along to see pictures and updates about the summer school program when it starts on June 27, 2022.

It has been a busy two weeks for me and the Kindness Corps team here at Seeds of Caring.

As I have said previously, the Kindness Corps is a program held during the summer and school year that teaches kids to choose kindness every day, as well as it teaches empathy and about community needs here in Columbus. Our focuses this summer are empathy tools, senior citizens, hospitalized kids, and hunger in the unhoused.

Last week was all about learning the curriculum and how to teach the kids these important lessons. This week was all about implementing those practices. On Monday, we prepped all our supplies for the week, which included what we needed for the kids to make Kindness Bracelets. During our lesson the kids brainstormed brief phrases that will remind them to choose kindness every day. On Monday we also prepped our lessons and practiced them as well.

On Monday evening I attended a meeting with some staff regarding operations. This was very interesting to see the different ideas everyone had, and I also got to add to the conversation with some ideas of my own, as well as some commentary on different social media practices and app uses.  

Tuesday came, and it was time for camp. I was extremely nervous, since I don’t have much experience with kids but as soon as I entered the Rec center and saw the kids and how excited they were, my fears vanished. This week is Week 1 in a 4-week session. Our lesson this week was about empathy tools, and how kids are extremely powerful when it comes to making a difference in our community because of their hearts, hands, and minds.

We introduced Seeds of Caring and what we do in Kindness Corps, and we explain how anyone could have certain community needs at any time. I read the book Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña to the kids, and they really enjoyed it! It showed them how you can learn and choose kindness by doing small things.

After the book, we made the bracelets we previously mentioned which was very fun, and they came up with some great phrases to remember kindness every day, like “K is for Kind”, “Love Others”, “Peace”, “Open Doors”, “Be a Friend”, and many others. They were excited to do this and really put thought into how they wanted to be reminded to choose kindness.

This week was mostly for giving kids a look at what we do at Seeds of Caring and what our mission is, and how they can help the community in Columbus. Overall, I’ve had a really great time this week giving kids the introduction to Seeds of Caring and the Kindness Corps, and I’m excited for camp to continue next week as we start our second lesson about senior citizens living in senior living communities.

The first week at a new job site is often uncomfortable. An employee must quickly learn the culture of an organization in addition to the duties of their role. The second week produces better results. At the point, the employee has a better understanding of their workplace and where their role fits into it.

My second week at Local Matters adhered to this generalization. I entered the organization with a baseline knowledge on how non-profit organizations function and how Local Matters carries out its mission. I spent most of last week gaining more perspective on the operations of my new workplace. Because my task is to write an operations manual, identifying the positives and negatives of current processes and procedures is an essential first step. I began my second week by attending a series of meetings and taking notes. I made sure to take note of anytime there was confusion or inconsistency among team members on procedure. As a recent college graduate, I feel strange seeking out flaws and problems in an established organization run by professionals in the industry, but my team members reassure me that this will only help them in the future. 

As I continued with my week, an important realization fell upon me— I did not understand what an operations manual entails. The concept seems self-explanatory but is more nuanced in reality. I thus spent a day researching what went into such a document. I analyzed templates and advice offered by operations management professionals to help formulate a plan. The Director of Operations at Local Matters recommended that I first create a manual for the Programs team, which is the largest group, and then modify it for other divisions of the organization. In the coming weeks, I will draft a two-part manual: the first part applies to Local Matters at large and the second part lays out policies and procedures of the specific teams. This task forces me to think critically in a new way to solve problems, which excites me.

I finished my week by volunteering at the Veggie Van. The Veggie Van is a cornerstone operation of Local Matters. Each week, the van brings fresh produce to various under-resourced neighborhoods  in Columbus. Getting to see the work of the organization at the grassroots level helped put my work into perspective. As discussed in this week’s Fellows Learning Session, the “why” driving one’s actions is a critical piece of their work. Seeing the impact of food accessibility efforts by Local Matters allowed me to see the importance of their work firsthand.