Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

It’s hard to believe that this is the penultimate week of the fellowship! So much has happened in the past two months and I am proud with how much I have grown and completed during the past nine weeks. Now I know the organization and can speak about it confidently at outreach events and beyond.

This week was jam-packed with events, meetings and trainings. Monday marked the official end of the Regatta event for City Year. I was fortunate enough to attend the Columbus Kiwanis Club Regatta meeting at the Athletic Club of Columbus and hear more about what Kiwanis does in Columbus and all of the other participants for the event. Attending this event was both professionally satisfying and personally exciting. In the professional sense, this proved a marker of how much knowledge I gained about the organization since I was able to hold my own when asked questions about where City Year is located and other logistics of our programs. As I mentioned previously, I have not been able to explore or see much of Columbus since I moved here in August 2019. So, it was a treat to go to a place like the Athletic Club and see what the downtown area of Columbus has to offer.

Though City Year Columbus did not win the Regatta, I had a blast with this project. The boat and social media campaigning was my baby project this whole summer and I am proud of how much I was able to bring in to the organization.

Another win this week at City Year was the beginning of the Basic Training Academy (BTA) for the incoming cohort of AmeriCorps Members. It was exciting to see the office packed with new faces and to learn a lot about the incoming Corps members, who will be doing crucial work at eight schools throughout Columbus.

Today, the Development team will get to directly interact with members and share what we do for the organization. That’s where I’m headed right now and hope to bring back more exciting news next week for our final post!

• This week I sent my emails to congressional members. It was so fun to see my work sent out to congressional members. I spent a good amount of time creating outreach materials, all summer, to send out. The finalization of it all was rewarding seeing all the hard work pay off.
• I finished up all the follow-ups for congressional members. I wrote emails and personalized them for each congressional member. 
• I was able to finish my curriculum project. I took a deep look through the curriculum and added suggestions for content. I looked at the language of each session, the topics, and the resources used for the program. I was able to identify areas that I thought could have more material. I also found a couple of television programs that ROX could use for examples as part of their curriculum. I reached out to the other intern to meet and compare the material we each found. 
• I also was able to connect with an education lawyer. She is a former board member of ROX. I am excited to hear about her journey as a lawyer and her experiences.
• I was able to connect with the other fellows at the Crew game. It was nice to share and to hear about their experiences with their non-profits

This week was the mark of our last full week of summer camp with the kids. We usually do morning and afternoon classes and this will be the last week of doing that. The theme of the week was Crafty Critters. All of the projects that we did were related to some type of animal. I would say that there was a big focus on sculpting this week. They created ceramic owl figurines as well as somewhat of a jungle scene in a glass jar. In addition to these things, we made animal masks and giant cardboard animal standees. All of the kids seemed to be very excited about this theme because it gave them the opportunity to walk the line between fiction and reality. They did not have to create artwork of real animals, we had unicorns as well as other made up monsters. It was nice seeing them being able to have fun expressing themselves! 

As for me, I started the week off with helping with prep work as well as being in  the classrooms helping the teachers through their lessons. Later in the week, while Phyllis was not there I took over her role of overseeing everything as well as preparing to make the art show videos. This week was made slightly stressful because on Wednesday I didn’t feel very good which through me off for the rest of the week. But the show had to go on and I did what I needed to do to get through the rest of camp! 

Week 8 was filled with learning about leadership styles, what leadership means for nonprofits (or, “social profit”) organizations. It was interesting to see that the theme of leadership styles and definitions of leadership also came up during my weekly meeting with the development team. Since we officially have a full team for Development, our senior leaders took time to talk about what their leadership style looks like and how that affects their own expectations and interactions with the rest of the team. The new members (the new Development Manager and myself) now are tasked with taking a leadership strengths test to find out our own individual leadership styles. This will help us gauge how to best work with each other and where we all will need to work to make this team stronger moving forward.

On Wednesday, our Learning Session discussion with Elizabeth Martinez (Big Brothers Big Sisters) and Nick Jones (Nationwide Children’s Hospital) also tackled the topic of leadership and succession planning. Plenty of aspects of this conversation remained with me throughout the rest of the week. For one, this idea from Elizabeth Martinez that nonprofits are actually “social profit” organizations stood out since it is a different perspective to have about the work that organizations like City Year and more bring to the community and society at-large. As Dr. Lomax pointed out, it pushes against certain capitalistic ideals of what constitutes profit and instead brings the idea that working for larger societal benefits is also another version of “profit”.

Yet another part of this conversation that stayed with me for the week was the idea that succession planning in social profit organizations are often done from a crisis mode as opposed to a proactive and planning mode. Instead of scrambling to ensure that proper or ideal leaders are stepping up when others leave, we should be proactive in thinking about the longer term of the organizations.

As a final note for this week, I did want to talk about self-care. Part of the struggle with Week 8 was that I was sick for three of the five days of the week and was not able to work to the best of my ability. Although I was frustrated on having to miss work and the constant messages I had to send my supervisor that I couldn’t work, I also realize that this has to be part of my own style of leadership. It’s taken me a bit but I do realize that I have to take care of myself and really take care of others, especially since getting sick during a pandemic is more nerve-wracking and could be potentially dangerous for not only myself but others. This is all to say—self-care is important and should be significant part of consideration in all of our leadership styles.

Week 8

Week 8 was spent on with an impromptu trip home, which meant I had to work remote. Monday was spent with a mid day staff meeting, and a lot of time researching different avenues of fundraising. Since everything is steadily becoming more digital, FMF is always looking for different ways to reach people. 

On Tuesday I started to draft and design some copies of our annual impact report. I really enjoy this project because it combines creativity and analytical information. 

Wednesday morning was our final Columbus learning session. I really enjoyed this session and learned a new term, “social profit in replacement of nonprofit. I absolutely prefer this term over nonprofit because it encapsulates what we do. The literal definition of nonprofit is “no profit.” And society has become accustomed to equating nonprofit to automatic good. I think this ideal definitely is a result of our ultra capitalist society, which simultaneously glorifies and villainies money. The rest of Wednesday was spent designing more impact report templates, and adding detail. 

On Thursday I dove into researching more information about break feeding. Break feeding and reaching as many children as possible over the summer is a goal Family Mentor Foundation has had for a while. As we continue to grow, we want to make even more strides to feeding more kids. It sounds simple, but there are a lot of factors at play. 

Lastly on Friday, I drafted some letter for volunteers, and finished up some details on the impact reports. After a week fully remote, I am very excited to get back to the office, and my normal routine 

One thing I have noticed about my Netcare boss throughout the summer is that she keeps THOROUGH records of previous sponsors, grant applications, grants rejections, and grant donors. She has mentioned before how difficult it was for her to begin her job, as her successor did not document much of her work. My boss, instead, keeps excel spreadsheets, binders, online folders, bloomerang entries, and more. She even prepared a binder at the beginning of my fellowship detailed with all my upcoming tasks, their priority levels, due dates, explanations of the company, explanations of each task, and MUCH much more. Though she never explicitly defined all this work as succession planning, I see how all her record keeping, note taking, and directions are already preparing the next Director of Development and Public Relations. As the Summer Fellows discussed how critical succession planning is to social profit work during the Columbus Foundation Learning Session, the future planning my boss constantly completes gave me yet another reason to awe at how amazing my boss is. Though this thorough note-taking is not a requirement of her job, she recognized something lacking during her transitions and works daily to ensure that does not happen during the next transition. She sees how critical record-keeping is to a one-day transition of leadership and thus to the success of Netcare. I respect her tremendously for this (and for many, many other things as well). 

Record-keeping has never been my strong suit. However, after the discussion with the fellows this week and witnessing the benefits of it firsthand, it is definitely a trait I would like to continue to develop. 

In addition to succession planning, we discussed leadership. Elizabeth and Nicholas emphasized the importance of “not exclusively reading the books that you author.” This idea is something I will take with me after the fellowship, and I will try to actively seek credible information that contradicts my beliefs.

The speakers also discussed the importance of taking care of your own mental health first. It made me think of a reminder flight attendants tell their customers every time they fly: if oxygen levels are low, put your mask on first before helping others. Just like on planes, leaders cannot provide for others if they themselves do not have the resources or mental well-being to survive. My life path will undoubtedly hit some rough patches where my mental health hits a low, and I hope I remember this important lesson from Elizabeth and Nicolas when it does. 

Did you know you can use Ancestry.com and expert staff to trace your family tree for free at the library?  

Did you know you can access free legal services offered by Legal Aid Society of Columbus at the library?  

Did you know there are free programs designed for every age, starting from birth on, at the library? 

Well, if you didn’t, I’m here to tell you that these are just a few of the library offerings I was made aware of this week. I learned all of this through my meetings with specialists in the Young Minds program, Local History and Genealogy department, and partnering organization Legal Aid Society of Columbus. Once again, every person I spoke with expressed so much empathy and commitment to their work. I took copious notes of all the ways in which libraries make information more accessible. What struck me was the trust and community-building that CML has built over the course of nearly 150 years. It makes so much positive community work possible, and enables more people to connect with accurate information through trustworthy resources.  

A key part of each meeting was when I asked the specialists what donor funding helps them accomplish. They all had major aspects of their work that would not be possible without donor funded support through the CML Foundation. As a public institution, there is great responsibility in how the library attains and applies funding to serve our community. These interviews reiterated why fundraising is such an important revenue stream for library operations. It allows for the development of a large assortment of really robust programs, and I was happy to hear these added perspectives on the positive impact of the development team’s work.  

Til next week,

Amy

Wow! The Summer has passed extremely fast. As the camp winds down and the Fellowship starts to end I am preparing to leave enough guidance for the next person who may take over my position in data-keeping. This week’s session on “Leadership and Succession Planning” really was a great way to end our sessions, as we all plan to leave our social profits in varying degrees. I am hopeful that I will have everything done by the time I leave but if that is not the case I need to be prepared to leave a plan of how to handle all the new data that will come even after that I leave.

As the numbers of the camp have increased, we have been switching up things to continue to engage the new campers and for those who have been coming week after week. It is an art to keep coming up with ideas to keep people entertained 9-3:30 pm weekdays for weeks. I was reminded of our session and the ability of the leader to pull off what they proposed in their grant proposal. Ability to fulfil the proposal is key and has shown me that not only is my director an extraordinary person but a phenomenal leader. The data I have been gathering will be used in our report to the City of Columbus which is an amazing feat.

A change of pace happened this Wednesday where instead of going biking/kayaking we went to Ninja City. It was a fun way to interact with the campers and lead after so many weeks. I appreciate getting to know this community and gaining their trust. I am a firm believer in not going into a community and knowing what is best for them. So learning on the job and being able to grow as a leader has been crucial for me as I begin my professional career.

P.S. I was able to see a fellow cohort member over the weekend and that was awesome!

Over the past two months I have walked the mission of Muslim Family Services alongside its social workers. With weekly produce drives, I now know the client’s names by heart and what types of items they prefer. During civics courses and rent requests, I can help lead the conversations and train new workers. I have frequented the restaurants some of our clients own, and have learned the stories of their journey to America.

This week I have finished a grant application for MFS. I found that answering questions about the Comprehensive Family Empowerment program was simple, because I now know the intricacies of the process. While the storytelling component was unproblematic, understanding the more technical procedures for budget crafting and projections was something that I needed to learn more about. I am happy to say that I was able to learn about how to do this and completed the proposal.

In the non-profit world, I have learned that knowledge is most useful if it can be integrated with other skills. I am hoping to utilize the skills I have gained to complete a more independent project I have created for MFS. I will be filling out another grant application to create a database for Muslim Mental Health providers.

A few of the posts I created for MFS’s Instagram during Dhul Hijjah and Eid

This week I did a lot of computer work in the Women’s Business Center focused on fixing errors in our tracking system.

Earlier this week I also learned about a program the WBCs are going to start using with clients called LivePlan. It is a really interesting and interactive webpage that talks the user through the steps to create a business plan. It even helps you with financial planning and connects directly to your financial programs. I think that it is a useful program that’ll really help a lot of our clients.

This week I had a meeting with Edgar who is leaving the WBC soon so that I could learn about his responsibilities and record tutorials for whoever replaces him. I got to learn the ins and outs of our digital connect program which loans out laptops to business owners. I also learned how to get membership details and other data from the back of our website.

Something I have struggled with this week is staying motivated in the workplace. I struggled with my mental health this week and it’s been a good learning point since I’ve always wondered how adults stay motivated even when they do not feel fully there. As much as I wanted to be fully present this week, I found myself not completing my to-do lists or doing work as fast as I wanted/usually do. And then these actions inevitably made me feel worse about myself. I didn’t really figure out the key to staying motivated at work, but I did make it through the week, so I would call it a win.

That’s really all for this week, I absolutely loved our Columbus Foundation session this week and am saddened that the summer is coming to an end, but forever grateful for this experience.

Talk to y’all next week!