Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

We are at the halfway mark of our fellowship, which is unbelievable. Time really does fly by! As I continue to meet more of Zora’s House’s ambassadors (who are the organization’s essential volunteers) and work on the employee and operations manuals, I have been thinking more about what it means to work in an environment where your humanity and uniqueness is recognized. This has also made me think about what it means to serve a community, and what it might look like in practice. This week’s Learning Session on Collaboration and Partnerships further showed how important it is to begin thinking about people as humans, by recognizing people’s vulnerabilities, strengths and resilience at the individual and communal levels. Although this approach can be deemed “radical” because it is counter to the American individualism we are socialized into, at Zora’s House it seems to be more of the norm than the exception. 

At the Ambassador Dinner held Thursday night, I was able to see how this people-centered approach drives Zora’s House practices and events. We started the dinner with a check in, and people discussing their highs and lows since the last dinner was held. As people began to speak, I saw how many felt comfortable enough to be vulnerable in front of their friends and peers. Although the dinner was mostly to discuss the ambassador program and introduce the new ambassadors, the dinner was also a time to just be yourself and talk about things that mattered to you. The great part was that the check in didn’t feel forced, but rather it felt like people actually cared. I felt comfortable enough to talk to the group as well about what was on my mind, and it felt great to hear and feel the care from others in the room. It made me reflect on how I have felt in other workplaces, and how good it is to be in an environment where you’re not just an employee, but you’re a person. I think this is something that needs to be carried into how we serve others as well. We want people to feel like their needs are being met not just because they are in need, but because they are human (if that makes sense). We also want people to feel like they have the agency to decide their own destiny, and figure out what works best for them and their community. 

Nonprofits have the opportunity to not only deliver services that are needed for people to survive, but they can also help cultivate an environment that allows people to thrive and build on their collective and individual power as people.

Whoever came up with the default iPhone alarm sound, we’ve gotta talk.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, we can talk about what we’re really here to talk about. Much like any other week, work started on Tuesday for me. Said alarm noise sounds off and I’m up. Into the shower, get dressed, bowl of cereal and I’m out the door to start my day. I roll into the center at 9:45 (if you’re on time you’re late). Walk in, say my hellos to all my co-workers as I pass their offices heading to mine. Set my stuff down, and get ready to unlock the front doors and take the flag out.

The meat of my week has been spent working on various forms for the center. First, I was tasked with creating a survey to send out to employees asking about meeting effectiveness. Things like level of preparation, materials provided, adequate time, effective use of time. That was interesting to put together because I found myself thinking “Hmm what would I want to be asked if I was the one filling the survey out, how could I make sure my voice was heard?” The next thing i was tasked with doing was creating a survey to send out to all of the attendees at our latest event, our Kickoff to Summer Celebration. Much like the other survey I wanted to make sure that the questions in the survey were engaging and allowed for the feedback and reviews we received to be useful and honest.

Wednesday rolls around next and thus my favorite part of the week: The OSU Aphasia group comes in for their hour and a half of volunteering. I roll into the center at 9:45 and head straight to the events room to get the round tables and chairs set up for everyone. This week I gave them tasks that included cutting out “wings” made of traced hands and coloring popsicle sticks so that any kids that come into the center can make their own butterflies. Man, let me tell you. You put a task in front of these people and they just grind. Within a few minutes we already had over 30 popsicle sticks colored and were onto getting wings cut out. Considering not all of them have full function in their hands, they were doing an absolutely awesome job at tracing their hands and then grabbing scissors and cutting them out.

Thursday I only worked a half day because I had to attend a funeral service so it was a quick day for me. I handled all of our data for the days between June 16th and 30th, put them all into sperate excel sheets (color coordinated because OCD told me I had to). That took up most of my day and then I was out of there.

My theme for this week is resilience. I had to attend a funeral service for the mother of one of the kids that I coach at Olentangy High School. She lost her battle to cancer last week. I am choosing the theme of resilience this week because this week reminded me in many ways that life is tough. But it’s never about how hard life hits you, it’s all about how you choose to let those hits effect you. I went to the funeral service expecting to see a 16 year old kid at his worst, but instead he was standing up tall, smiling, thanking everyone for coming. You could see a shine in his eyes, i think because he was proud of how many people’s lives his mother had touched. She was an elementary school teacher at a Columbus city school and it was very apparent that she was loved by a lot of people. The same can be said about the strength that the people in the Aphasia group show, not letting life’s punches knock them down and staying down. No matter how many times life may swing at these people, they always get back up. I think that is very admirable considering the world we live in right now and all the effects the pandemic has had on us. I can speak to that certainly, as someone who deals with anxiety being in isolation for all those months weighed on me. I also suffered the loss of two people due to suicides during the year of 2021. Life hits hard when you least expect it, but you gotta just take a breath, brush yourself off, and keep going.

If you see this and you happened to be on the receiving end of one of life’s punches’ recently, take a second, catch your breath, and then pick yourself up and keep going. It’s worth it.

This week, I was really struck by The Columbus Foundation learning session discussion about systems. Racking my brain for systems that actually work, everything I kept coming back to involved holistic solutions to big problems. Housing has been a passion of mine for the past three years, and “Housing First” is an approach that permanent affordable housing providers practice every day. Historically, people experiencing homelessness were forced to address their “problems” (i.e., addiction, joblessness, money management), either through completing workshops, or by transitioning between steps of various programs before they could access permanent housing. The Housing First approach takes into account Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – emphasizing that basic needs must be met before more complex needs can be addressed. It seems like common sense to me – if you’re worrying about where your family is going to sleep that night, but you’re being forced to complete a budgeting workshop – how much of that can you really absorb? 

I am reminded of the work Nationwide Children’s Hospital is doing in Columbus – they are treating the entire neighborhood surrounding the hospital as “the patient”, recognizing that there are social determinants of health that play a huge role in the outcomes of medical interventions. By focusing on things like housing, employing residents from the community, and job & leadership training, the vacancy rate of homes in the area decreased, the graduation rate increased, and the homicide rate decreased. The hospital is hopeful that these changes also lead to improvements in childhood asthma, child abuse reports, crime reports, and neighborhood displacements. 

Central Community House just GETS this concept, and truly takes a holistic approach to addressing seemingly any of the needs that the community might face. While CCH offers many programs to reach different groups of people, and those programs all have their own goals, the Family Stabilization arm of the organization supports all of them. One of my favorite programs at CCH is ACE (The Academy for Community Entrepreneurs). The goal of ACE is to help members of the community start and/or expand small businesses. The statistics are pretty convincing – increasing entrepreneurship by just 1% results in a 2% decline in the poverty rate. While ACE does a great job at providing culturally competent programming, access to capital, and addressing the “Trust Gap” faced by African American entrepreneurs, perhaps one of the most important things the ACE program provides is additional support through connections with the Family Stabilization program. By providing wraparound services (e.g., rent, utilities, food assistance, covering costs of car repairs, access to childcare & after school programs, etc.) ACE helps budding entrepreneurs focus on growing their businesses and accomplishing their goals, while getting support with the basic needs. 

I hope that we are all able to take out of this fellowship the importance of upholding the systems that work, and tearing down those that don’t! For me, personally, I know that I love working towards causes that take a holistic approach to serve the whole person, meeting all of the needs that they may have for long-term success.

This week started with a day off! With it being July 5th, the museum was closed which means that no one had to come in for work. It felt very odd waking up without an alarm going off and not having to go in. When we went back on Tuesday, I realized that we didn’t have camp this week. It was another prep week. At the museum they do something called art boxes. These boxes contain all of the material needed to complete about 4-5 different art projects. These projects coincide with what we will be doing for that specific themed week of camp. I was able to start putting the boxes together on Tuesday and we finished them on Wednesday. These are for the kids who want to come to camp but are still conscious of COVID so they can participate from home. The art boxes from our previous weeks had been extremely easy to put together because there had not been much prep needed to make them. This was not the case for these ones. I had to drill holes into almost 600 seashells, one at a time. If I never touched a drill again in my life it would still be too soon! 

On Thursday, I was able to meet the old director of the museum, Betty. She was very lovely and we had a great conversation about what I wanted to do with my future. I was able to help her clear some of the rooms for the museum and pack stuff up. Other than this, the week was filled with me prepping everything for the following week of camp.

    After a very hectic week 4, I was glad to ease into week 5. The beginning of the week started with some development planning. In the coming weeks I aim to have some video footage edited to stream at Family Mentor Foundation. On Wednesday we had another learning session hosted by the Columbus Foundation. This learning session was by far my favorite. The topic was collaboration, and the speakers were well versed in the subject area. What really stuck with me was the idea of “systems” and how imperfect they are. Collaborating is not always easy, but necessary to continue to create impact. 

    Later on Wednesday afternoon I sat in on a programming meeting for FMF. We discussed our pilot program further, and how close the school year is. It is exciting to see this pilot come to fruition soon, and extend our services to more children.

    Thursday was spent working on more programming, and organizing boxes to go out to camps/community centers. All our deliveries are made possible by our reliable volunteers, so it is always great to see them. Later in the day I started  working on the annual impact report we send to donors and other partners. I really enjoy this project because I have the opportunity to be creative, and really spread the message of FMF

It seems like just yesterday I was starting at FMF. It almost seems surreal that I’ve been here for over a month now. I feel like I’ve learned so much in such a short amount of time. I know the next five weeks will fly by as well, and am definitely trying to soak in each moment. 

• This week I really have focused on my project. The first thing I did was draft two different email templates. The first one I created was targeted towards congressional members. The second one I created was targeted towards organizational leaders. It was quite challenging create these templates because I was so focused on making it perfect on my first try. I definitely had writer’s block and have a lot of trouble coming up with anything to write. After a while I simply just wrote what came to mind, knowing it would have to be edited later. It was smooth sailing from there. I was able to share my rough drafts with some of the women at ROX and get suggestions.
• Afterwards, I did a lot of researching to find statistics about girls. I researched the biggest obstacles girls face, the resources they lacked most, and the biggest challenges they encountered. I found numerous information about girls’ struggles with their mental health, body image, academics, social life, and so much more. I made charts with this information about the studies I found and ordered them by date. With this information I will insert statistics into the email template depending on who I am reaching out to. I also intend on using statistics from ROX to show how much the ROX program helps girls. 
• One challenge that I have run into is reaching out to congressional members. Many of them are on vacation or not in office during the summer months. It will be challenging to find new ways to reach congressional members’ offices. Additionally, I do not believe empowering girls is a political topic, but depending on some congressional members’ political stance ROX may not be something they are interested in. As I send out emails and receive feedback, I can determine how I can pivot the way I am communicating with certain congressional members to show how life changing ROX can be to girls.

It’s hard to believe that my summer internship with Equitas Health is nearly halfway over! The summer is starting to pick up the pace, as the artwork submission deadline is less than a week away. We already have around 70 submissions, with a goal of getting to around 100-120 works juried into the show. The work is starting to arrive in and I’ve been moving $13,000 paintings around, which is fun and stressful, to say the least.

This week, I got to tag along with the development team to the Columbus Museum of Art. We met with a bunch of different people, from museum administration to our lighting and production company. It’s still fascinating to me to see how much work really goes into planning an event successfully. The things that just seem to be set up: the lighting on the doorway, the location of the bar, the guest arrival times, etc., is all intentionally planned and considered to best help our donors have an excellent night, purchase more artwork, and donate. We are also planning to check with the local galleries all around Columbus to ensure that no artists slip through the cracks and miss a chance to donate. While their art is donated, it also hangs in a show for several weeks at the Columbus Museum of Art, which many of the artists are very excited about. The community really values our organization’s mission and has been so helpful to come to our events and donate their artwork, time, and actual money to our fundraisers.

Going into these last five weeks of the summer, then, I am super excited to keep learning about the non-profit world and development. I’ve already learned so much, and can’t wait to keep working with artists and this community.

This week, I have been given the task to focus more on video editing than anything at the Columbus Craft Museum. During the kids’ classes, I’m a presence in the back tracking their progress. I take videos and pictures as they make their way through their projects. This is our method of allowing their parents to see what they do at art camp. It’s extremely fun to have this interaction because they are always excited to take pictures and show off the accomplishments that they’ve made on their work. At the end of the week, I sit down with everything that I’ve accumulated and separate our morning class from our afternoon class. This allows me to narrow down the students in each video so their parents are able to see them without having to watch a 5 minute video. After separating, I made a slideshow of everything with explanations of what had been done. This week the art was A place at the table, with this on Friday we set up a table with all of their art projects for the week to have a presentation. This will take place instead of the art show the kids used to have before COVID. 

In addition to this, on Thursday morning I taught 2 classes while taking on the role of my supervisor for camp. She doesn’t work on Thursdays and Fridays so it is my job to step up to ensure everything is running smoothly. It is a great responsibility that I am thankful they trust me with!

This week, I got to discover the in-depth world of asking for money from other organizations. To start the week, I spent time looking for companies that I thought would maybe be willing to donate to the upcoming fall fundraiser: Netcare Foundation’s Community Awards and Recognition Dinner. One part of this event’s fundraising is the silent auction. I spent a plethora of time this week looking for companies that would be willing to donate gift cards, merchandise, free stays, and more as auction items. After applying, some companies have already given quick replies to our requests for donations. Though I would love to report back and say that many of these responses were an enthusiastic “Yes, we’d love to donate,” they were not. I have quickly learned the art of rejection. However, in this process, I learned how much more sweet victory feels after being repeatedly rejected. The first acceptance to my donation request was small. However, nonetheless, this small victory felt like I had won a gold medal. 

I also worked this week to research grants that the Netcare Foundation will be eligible to apply to. I was amazed at how fun this research was, and the numerous different types of foundations around that help to support non-profits like Netcare. 

I am sad to say that I also committed my first blunder this week: a typo on one of my social media posts. Oh no! As my mother has always taught me: “make mistakes and learn from them.” And that I will; I can assure I will be triple checking my social media posts from now on! 

As the long weekend approaches, I am really looking forward to next week. I get the exciting opportunity to hear some of the stories of Netcare clients next week, as we create a promotional video to highlight the company.

This week I have mostly focused on rewriting the portions of Zora’s House’s employee handbook that we discussed in detail during last week’s Operations, Infrastructure, and Culture Board meeting. The main takeaway from this particular assignment has been that it is a lot more difficult than it seems to write an employee manual. As I was working on the sections regarding the organization’s employment policies and staff compensation, I found it difficult to figure out how to better word these sections so that the organization’s values and culture were reflected in those policies. For example, when you’re legally obligated to put in a statement about an organization being an equal opportunity employer, how do you contextualize that policy to illustrate how that statement is put into practice? For Zora’s House, not only is being an equal opportunity employer about not discriminating against anyone during the hiring process based on their identities (or at least not outwardly doing so), but it is about respecting individuals’ identities and their ways of being while working at the organization as well. That means celebrating everything that makes a person unique. 

In figuring out how to word the organization’s employment policies, I was also reminded of the concerns brought up in last week’s board meeting about how, even though Zora’s House is a space that attempts to counter white supremacy and systemic oppression in their goals and mission, there are still policies that Zora’s House legally has to abide by within these greater oppressive structures to exist as a recognized organization. Although someone on the board wrote a few sentences on this subject that will be included in the handbook, it’s hard to figure out how to frame this so that the organization’s work in countering oppressive systems isn’t diminished but at the same time acknowledging that they are working within these systems in order to be legally visible. 

I think these issues have pushed me to be more intentional about the language I use more generally, and also have made me think about the issues that organizations grounded in social justice work have to deal with. In looking towards the future, I think these are things all of us will have to wrestle with, especially if we decide to pursue a career in nonprofit work.