Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

Although it has only been two weeks at the center, I have been exposed to so many different roles. I have helped facilitate transportation for the youth, worked in administration, and assisted around the center to make sure that the summer program ran smoothly. Unfortunately, this week has been hard on many employees at the center because of the violence in the surrounding areas. There has been violence committed against young adults over the past couple of weeks, that has affected everyone in the center. My Project USA is a pillar in the community that creates a safe haven for young people who are looking for a place to be kids. We see these students throughout the week hoping we can make a difference in their life.

As previously stated, this week was tension-filled due to gun violence in the West side community. Since this happened, I had the opportunity to see community leaders, such as Mrs. Zerqa, the founder of My Project USA, and her partners swiftly act, make statements, and demand change in their community. The leaders knew they had to make a call to action against the crimes committed on the west side of Columbus, Ohio. They also took the opportunity to share their resources, invite the community, and create more partnerships with individuals in the community. After the press conference, I had a wonderful discussion with a colleague, stating that you can move to a different area but still have the same disparities because of a system that is built against certain communities.  As someone who is deeply rooted in their community, I understand the importance of speaking up and reaching out to make a change.

This experience has also helped me understand that a community must work together to make a change. They have to make sacrifices and take action so the next generation sees that their community is worth fighting for. I am inspired by leaders like Zerqa who are willing to be at the forefront to speak on the needs of their community. I know it is a hard task, but I believe the center has the capacity to curate more leaders that will make a difference.

As week two comes to a close, I will share a little more about Cultivate. As I go over some of Cultivate’s history and its mission I will also share what I have done in the past two weeks and what is going on in my mind.

Cultivate originally began as an off-shoot of Veritas Community Church. With my history of trauma involving church menticide, I am always suspicious of churches and religions in general, but so far there have been no conflicts or boundary concerns for me – at least any that get in the way of my work. Cultivate so far seems very non-secular and the Veritas members working in the office don’t bother Cultivate. Interactions have been pleasant. To describe Veritas in a simple way – it is a white church and they’ve been engaged in outreach services in a predominantly black neighborhood. It honestly sounds sketchy to me, but church community services can make a positive impact. Cultivate’s board has also gone through changes to better reflect Milo. The current executive director is also a long-time resident as well. I am optimistic.

One of my projects at Cultivate is to further develop the youth programming and to facilitate it. Cultivate runs on three pillars: Know Neighbors, Foster Local Leadership, and Ensure a Vibrant Neighborhood For All. I can get behind all this. I want my community center to be based around these values! Authentic connections are important for people and communities to grow. We can learn so much from each other because of our unique identities. Leadership is important! Economic disparities need to end and that can’t happen if people don’t take a stand, unite, organize, and persist with their demands. It also looks like going out on your own to talk to or lend a hand to a neighbor. And to sustain all of this, people need to be healthy and thrive where they are living. One of the ways to do that is to offer green space! Parks, gardens, and nutritional food go a long way.      

As part of the leadership programming, I shared my input that although the kids have signed the agreements they were given after applying, to really be leaders, they should create their own agreements with each other and for the next co-hort. I do not like telling people what to do either. I will try my best to teach the kids about accessibility, inclusivity, keeping it real, and with their input, we will all get to make decisions. I think it’s important that the kids be more involved in creating the program they participate in.

A few other things I’ve done this week, which I hope to continue, is work with the new ‘empowerment coach’, attend a civic meeting, attend an area commission meeting, go on a few home visits to help folks living here, and I’ve been compiling and brokering resources. The later of which is a focus of mine as a social work professional and outside of my professional life. I have a history of using welfare programs and frankly, even though many of them are trash, they can sometimes make the difference between living and being dead. It isn’t right to hoard the resources. I am also trying to think of ways to stay engaged with community members and to persuade them to get more involved in Cultivate so Cultivate can be theirs. I am continually learning that getting others involved one of the hardest things about social service. People do not recognize their own power and there is such a fine line between empowering people and teaching them dependence or “learned helplessness.” 

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!