Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

Being four weeks into my fellowship, i’ve finally settled into the routine fully. Wake up, shower, eat, out the door. Having spent the last year doing everything through Zoom, it was really easy to fall out of morning routines because you were able to roll out of bed, grab your laptop, throw on a shirt and a hat, and be “ready” for the day. At first, i was dreading having to set an alarm and get up every morning, but like anything with practice comes perfection.

Every morning i walk into the building through the side door that is way too hard to pull open, then i turn around and yank it shut behind me, push open the door to the kitchen that makes an ungodly sound when you push it, throw my lunch in the fridge, and sit down to check emails.

This week one of my tasks was updating all of the events we are hosting here at the center for the month of July. I first had to log into our ticketure account and pull all the events for July out of there and onto the Audubon Center website, then from there i had to upload them onto our website that handles tickets and sales.

I also have been doing a lot of data sheets tracking numbers of attendees for events, daily visitors, and online traffic. It’s been interesting to learn more about how important it is to non-profits for them to go positive in terms of the amount of tickets they sell to events.

Just like past weeks i’ve also been able to be fortunate enough to spend time with the OSU Aphasia group on Wednesday. That truthfully is the highlight of my work week. Seeing them all show up with smile on their faces and knowing that what i’m doing, even something as simple as sitting down and cutting out birds, is making their day and helping them slowly regain basic motor skills.

My theme for this week is gratitude. Grateful that I am where i am. Grateful that there is something i can do every week to help others get better. Grateful for a lot.

This week was a change of speed and atmosphere. Instead of working with youths 11-17 years old. I worked with 11-17-year-old girls and college students. It was the best week I’ve had all summer. We got to learn about fun things like skincare, body positivity, art, and baking.

This group is known as “Proyecto Mariposas” and is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. An organization meant to serve and empower young Latina girls in the Columbus area. It was an honor being an honoree member. Most of these girls have been in the program for years or previously been Mariposas and now are college students.

I did spend less time at my desk since my help was needed at the camp. I did manage to post 3 times on Instagram, complete my data analysis from the previous week and increased our Instagram following.

As a Latinx women who grew up in Columbus, I wonder how my life would have differed if I had participated in Proyecto Mariposas. The program also focuses on the bond that mothers and daughters have with each other. All the girls knew each other or at least were comfortable with each other. It was an amazing thing to be part of this magic, even if it was for this week.

After I am gone and living in another city (soon) I hope to keep the connection with the local latinx women I met at the camp. All but one were college students and will work as professionals. Something really important about this Fellowship for me is connecting with local latinx people and grow my network of Latinx professionals <3.

I will miss the Mariposas for the following weeks of the camp.

*Bonus*

In the midst of this all, we snuck in a visit to the Columbus Museum of Art, self-defense classes and a lip-syncing battle.

This week at Muslim Family Services of Ohio has been filled with a mix of experiences. I began the week continuing my tutoring for the civics course. What was once a daunting event has now become the day I look forward to most during the week. I learned a slew of new Arabic phrases that I began employing during my lessons. I then created a new graphic for the course in both Arabic and English (Credit goes to Google translate and one of our clients for proofreading my wording).

Our produce day this week was also extremely successful. I helped to package bags of Cheryls cookies, raspberries, zuccini, bell peppers and more. We served dozens of families with these bags.

In some of our more individual cases this week I have worked to help clients get familiar with social media and navigating their phones. I have done some detective work with Nicol on the status of a missing minor. I have also secured a few new contacts for mental health resources.

Overall, this week was very productive. As alluded to in the title, I did extensive work on Canva building the social marketing campaign I began four weeks ago. I have utilized the content planner in order to schedule out all of my posts, and the results of this campaign will improve user engagement with the MFS social media and mission.

We’re approaching the halfway mark of our Summer Fellowship! That is hard to believe since I have only completed one large project so far. However, I think the second half of the Fellowship will go more smoothly and quickly since the learning curve is (mostly) out of the way. If you are searching for a position where you’ll do the same tasks every day, nonprofits may not be the place for you! I was so used to the structure, deadlines, and rigidness of school that it took me a while to adjust to the freedom I’ve been given at FLOW. Flexible hours, creative freedom, and being on my own all day is great almost every day. I say almost because I’ve found that it is very hard to stick to your own deadlines! On the bright side, I will definitely walk away from this Fellowship with stronger time management and organization skills.

One of my projects that I finished up this week was updating FLOW’s policies and procedures. After reviewing the policies they have in place, I made a report with possible changes they could make. Also, I made a few recommendations for policies they could add to enhance the transparency and trustworthiness of FLOW. For example, I drafted a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policy and a Whistleblower Policy that could be adopted. Now that my deliverable report has been shared with my supervisor, the document will be reviewed by the Board to see if they can make any changes based on my recommendations.

Earlier this week, I had the chance to visit four of FLOW’s high-priority pollinator garden sites. As a project for Science Committee, I will be visiting several of these sites throughout the remainder of the summer to cut invasives, apply herbicides, and check the overall state of the garden. I enjoyed seeing the beautiful native flowers in bloom during our visits! I’ve found that this hands-on work is much more enjoyable for me and makes the time go faster.

Lastly, I had a meeting with my supervisor this week to go over how to make a Storymap on ArcGIS online. This interactive webpage would be an awesome deliverable to create for FLOW. This seems to be the project they are most excited about, so I’m planning on focusing most of my energy on that in the coming weeks! Talk to you next week! -Shelly

As with many nonprofits across Columbus and beyond, this week marked the end of the fiscal year at City Year. Though I did not have many intense tasks to take on for the organization, I did have to keep track of some donations and I attended a very intense meeting with the development team on Wednesday. (It was 4 hours long!)

I choose to focus on this part of the week because it highlighted the importance of fiscal responsibility and planning to organizations. Obviously, being on budget is so important for everything–be it on an individual basis or on a corporation level. However, I had never considered how crucial it is for non-profits to know where their money will come from, which grants serve what purpose, and how they gauge (and guestimate) engagement from donors for the upcoming year, and constantly seeking out new potential donors. This last part is really where my specific role for the summer lies: helping accumulate prospective donor profiles for companies in the area.

From what I learned in the Development meeting on Wednesday, engaging corporations and smaller companies also impacts our budget projections for the upcoming fiscal year. My role in building profiles for prospective donors and seeking out grants helps in gauging who and what kind of companies City Year would like the steward in volunteering and, eventually, donating to the organization. This whole process is called “Donor cultivation” or “stewardship”, as City year refers to it and is a process that can be found at other places and explained/visualized in the image below:

All of this was super useful to me in thinking about the importance of the development team at nonprofits.

In other news for this week, I also had some fun finishing up the decorations for our submission to the Kiwanis of Columbus Regatta! Folks around the office helped out and even gave me some ideas as to how to decorate it. Not only was this a creative and entertaining project, but it also allowed me to build connections with other staff members at City Year. Check out our boat below and if you would like to donate/vote for us or just check out all the other boats, click on this link.

One of the main things about nonprofit work that draws me to it is that no two days are ever the same. I think this speaks to the tremendous flexibility of the people who serve in these positions. One moment I am writing a grant – and the next I am creating a registration form for a program, or even working on the website! I think this is what happens when everyone is aligned around a common mission – whatever it takes to get the job done. 

This week I got the opportunity to review a grant, rather than write one; create a new donor “thank you” letter; draft a new fundraising letter; create event registrations & marketing materials; and add events to the website. I was also able to work on several grants that I hope will bring funds to this awesome organization. 

I had the privilege of working on a grant for an exciting program at Central called “Black Girls Glow”. It is led by the TRANSIT ARTS team, and is aimed at helping girls in the community envision positive futures for themselves through artistic expression and leadership development. In writing this grant, I learned that Black Girls experience “adultification” far more often than white girls. This implicit bias essentially means that adults think Black Girls as young as **five years old** need less nurturing and protection than their white peers. As a result, Black Girls are more likely to be held to higher standards, and receive harsher punishments in schools (and in the criminal justice system), and are more likely to take on more adult-like responsibilities at a younger age than their white peers. This was amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic, and many of the girls in Central’s neighborhoods had to take on childcare responsibilities or work outside the home to help support their families. Black Girls Glow is a Saturday program that gives the girls in the community a much-needed BREAK and a chance to share with each other their unique experiences. It helps the girls to articulate how they view themselves, how they think others view them, and the goals they envision for themselves in the future. They focus on mental wellness and self-care, expose the girls to different art mediums that speak to their individual interests, show them how to care for different natural hair types, and take professional portraits of the girls that they can then take home to remind them of the experience, and help to build their confidence. They also focus on giving the girls an opportunity to mentor younger girls in subsequent programs. The main goal of this program is to help Black Girls in the community develop coping and stress reduction skills, while hopefully reducing the effects of the adultification they face. Powerful stuff!

I guess failure is a very harsh word, because making a mistake or something not going the way you expect it should not be labeled failure, but these events could still feel like failure.

All the weeks I have been here I have felt like the crème of the crop, everyone made me feel special and expectations of perfection were quickly established (at least in my head). This week was the first time I felt that feeling of failure.

They were not even big things, just things that did not work out. It still stung and made my face turn red from the embarrassment of having a bad idea. I have never considered myself a perfectionist just someone who tries really hard, and in school this has always reflected in great grades and GPA’s. But what does it mean to have a fear of failure at work?

I catch myself rereading simple emails for multiple minutes, creating ten design drafts for one request, and lengthy scrambled sounding Teams messages. In career advice panels I have often heard that you must find a separation between your personal life and your work life. But in non-profits, when your personal passions align with your work, where do you stop and draw a line in the sand?

Cancelling the event I helped with was the right call and it is selfish for me to feel disappointed that it did not work out because it is what was best for the organization. Eventually, I will likely forget about it and worry about something else that did not go the way we planned. I could blame my feelings on my anxiety or on my fear of disappointment and failure, but ultimately, I think it is a fear that comes from being a young professional. I do not think there is any quick fix, I think dealing with things like this has to come from practice and years of trial and error.

To finish off on a higher note, I did learn a new Microsoft program this week called Microsoft Power Automate. If you haven’t learned about this, I highly recommend you do, it’s probably the coolest Microsoft app out here. It helps you automate forms, emails, calendars, and makes you feel like a tech wiz (not a paid advertisement I swear but if someone from Microsoft sees this you should sponsor me).

I feel like I have mentioned this too much but honestly, I never get tired of mentioning how lovely this environment is. Even through my moments of doubting my abilities and feeling this sense of failure, my bosses continue to trust me and challenge me, and I see myself growing as a professional and I love it. This opportunity is just everything and more, every day I come into work I cannot believe how lucky I am to have this experience.

p.s. if you would like to volunteer at our community garden please give me call (614-641-0020) or send me an email jmartinez-cortez@ecdi.org. We serve the Devon Triangle community which is a USDA-identified food desert and we would love to get more volunteers!

Wrapping up my fourth week of the Columbus Foundation fellowship, I discovered a new source of enjoyment, grant research and writing. Hope Hollow’s mission is straightforward and impactful, so writing about all Hope Hollow has accomplished is almost effortless.

Prior to my Columbus Foundation fellowship, I had little to no exposure to grants. My lack of knowledge on grant writing led me to believe that grants were relatively uniform. However, I now understand and enjoy the fact that each grant and funder is distinct and requires special attention.

For instance, one of the grants that Hope Hollow applied for this past week was from a foundation in a specific Ohio county. In order to complete this application, I collected data from Hope Hollow’s database about how Hope Hollow has assisted cancer patients from this particular county. In my opinion, collecting and utilizing this data was the most enjoyable part of this particular application process. Hope Hollow would not be the organization that it is without the cancer patients it serves, so it was incredible to have the opportunity to personalize this application and include specifics about the cancer patients Hope Hollow served from this county. 

Arguably the hardest part of the grant writing process has been conciseness. Hope Hollow has impacted thousands of lives throughout the United States, so expressing the significance of Hope Hollow’s work in 250 characters is difficult. Additionally, I have been fortunate enough to hear dozens of testimonials about cancer patients and loved ones that Hope Hollow has served. Choosing which testimonials to utilize in our grant applications is challenging because each story is beautiful and worthy of attention. 

Grant writing has served as an outlet for me to share the incredible work that Hope Hollow has done and will continue to do for the cancer community. It is powerful to think that the grants I have completed, alongside Kevin and Jane, could potentially enable Hope Hollow to continue providing basic necessities to cancer patients, and their loved ones, so that they can pursue potentially life-saving medical treatment.

The beginning of week four started off with a relaxed staff meeting at First Watch. It was great to get out of the office and reconvene on the past week’s activities. Later in the afternoon I did some digital design for the upcoming Charity Regatta put on by the Columbus Kiwanis. I’ve been working on this project for several weeks, so it has been very rewarding seeing the progress I’ve made.

Tuesday was then spent finalizing ideas for the sailboat, then I was finally able to upload the photo of our sailboat to join the online regatta race. After finishing up the regatta design, it was all hands on deck for an evening packing event. We hosted thirty volunteers, and packed over 1,000 buddy boxes during the event. It was great seeing a large group come together for their community. 

The Family Mentor Foundation always stays busy, so on Wednesday we hosted another packing event during the day. Once again, it was great to upbeat spirits and high morale when it came to packing buddy boxes. The rest of Wednesday was pretty mellow, conducting more research for the upcoming pilot program, and organizing information. 

Thursday I was tasked to draft some letters for donor relations, then attended a partnership meeting in the afternoon. At the meeting I learned a lot about funding strategies and different methods. It was great to hear how other nonprofits find funding and build relationships with them.

Lastly, on Friday I helped with some Buddy Box orders for drivers, and more designs for an online fundraising event. This week has definitely been eventful, and I feel like I learn something new each day.