Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

• I have been doing a lot of reflecting this week and there are so many things I have learned in the four weeks I have been at ROX. One of the key things I have learned is the importance of relationships and networking. The relationships you make with other leaders and partners is super important because each party will be essential in each other’s success. A name for this is networking. I have never realized how important networking is, but it is a game changer. The partners and funders ROX have are because of the authentic relationships each of the members have made with other parties. Another lesson I learned is to be opened to change. In nonprofits things are constantly changing. You must be flexible and be able to face challenges with a positive attitude. Seeing the way, the women at ROX adapt to change and be open-minded to new things really allows their organization to thrive the way it does.
• I was able to meet with two other key members of ROX. A big take away I took from both meetings is that it is all about the process. The journeys they both took after college were very different. It was through new opportunities, obstacles, and challenges that they were able to get the opportunity to do what they loved. Additionally, the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone. Stepping out of your comfort zone is the only way to do what you love. It was because these women stepped out of their comfort zone with new job opportunities that their journeys led them to ROX.
• I was able to sit in on a meeting with a social worker from the ACLU and I have to say it was extremely touching. So many struggles she discussed that girls face resonated with me. It was touching to hear someone explain all the different things I experienced as a black girl growing up. She went into detail about her many careers, and it was an inspiration to see black women who accomplished so much. The passion she had for social justice increased my motivation to be an advocate for change whenever possible. 

This week, at Equitas Health, I got the opportunity to be involved in a whole-day meeting of the development team as we planned and presented what we have accomplished the last year. It was really interesting to me to see all the different facets that go into nonprofit work. As my primary focus has been events, I had not fully realized the scope of our department. We talked through everything from the budget for the next fiscal year, to website redevelopment, to the events at both the Columbus and Dayton locations, to how to best thank donors. The part of the meeting that discussed how to best thank donors was interesting to think about; I had not considered the work involved in deciding how to send handwritten thank-you notes, at what rate, and for what seasons in depth before. It was also nice to hear from the Dayton events team, with RED and Masquerage both major events there, I benefited from hearing about the unity between the two cities in our organization.

I also have gotten to spend some time with the Equitas Health Institute this past week, as I have worked on sending out their incentives and rewards for participating in their programs. The Institute is the education wing of the organization, which works to reduce healthcare disparities in the LGBTQ+ Community through cultural competency and cultural humility training. While I work in development, the diversity of facets of nonprofit work was insightful; all of these areas help us to best serve the community.

Also, this week, I got an office plant! I have a small tree I am currently growing in the corner of my cubicle. Currently, the tree is only about 10 inches tall and perfectly fits, but it is supposed to get to 8-10 feet, so I’m excited to see it start to grow throughout the summer as I continue my work.

This week, I had the opportunity to help run the Netcare Foundation’s Golf Fundraiser. It was an eye opening and exciting experience. In addition to the immense planning involved with fundraisers, I learned how many moving parts and pieces must be in order to ensure that the event runs smoothly. Not only do event planners need to ensure the guests enjoy their day, but they also have to make sure that the volunteers understand their role and are performing said role correctly. It was a very tiring–but rewarding–day. 

After Monday’s golf event, we immediately began working this week to prepare for the fall fundraiser: Netcare Foundation’s 3rd Annual Community Awards and Recognition Dinner. This week to prepare, I planned social media posts for the event, sent letters out to donors, and notified local news centers of the upcoming fall event. 

This week we also had a fellows learning session about marketing. Though we talked about marketing, we also talked about what makes a good leader. It was amazing to see how all of the fellows’ mindsets about leadership and empowerment changed in such a short period of time. Initially, we thought of power as finite. However, by the end, we realized how power is infinite and how simply being human is powerful in its own right. 

I appreciate learning from all of these fellows and seeing all the unique perspectives they bring to the table. 

Monday

After being so busy last week, this day was like a breath of fresh air! It was a prep day! On these days we just clean and put everything away that we used previously to prep for the upcoming week. We received a large donation and I was able to go through everything to put it away. While she was doing this Phyllis let me take home whatever I thought looked cool. It was extremely nice of her and I ended up taking a lot of yarn to crochet with, and for my cat to play with. 

Tuesday

Today was the first day of our teen camp, it was extremely different from last week’s camp with the younger kids. They were at a skill level where you did not have to walk them through every step of the project multiple times. They did not need much help at all. This left me with helping Phyllis prepare more for next week as well as getting some of my own work done. I do video editing for our weekly camps so I have to take lots of pictures as well. 

Thursday and Friday

Teen camp came to a close and this week compared to last was a lot more relaxed. There was no time crunching and no feelings of stress what so ever. It was moslty prep work! I look forward to have the kids back next week though. I kinda miss the caos. 

Being an intern at ECDI brings different things every day. Right now, we are focusing our efforts in the Women’s Business Center to support businesses affected by COVID-19 and creating partnerships to better reach the Hispanic demographic.

Last week I was invited to go to the Guadalupe Center with Edgar from the Women’s Business center to meet Ramona and learn about the center and the services they provide to the community. They primarily support the Latinx community on the west side, with services such as social workers, an immigration lawyer, and a food pantry. They are interested in partnering with SBA and ECDI in order to bring in house business classes. A partnership would be very beneficial to better reach the Latinx community, a goal ECDI currently has.

We also went to visit a client in her bakery, Le Vieux Lyon French Bakery Café, to see firsthand her success and talk about what else she might need. She served us macaroons, tarts, and cupcakes! Her bakery is lovely, and her treats were delicious.

I love experiencing firsthand how much the Women’s Business Center truly cares about the success of their clients. ECDI may not be globally known or a household name for the work they do but they are constantly trying to figure out how to better support the community. I thought about this during our learning session this week, marketing is an important aspect of any company; but in the Women’s Business Center it is evident that they are more focused and passionate about marketing their clients’ businesses.

The rest of my week has been focusing on the community garden. Monday, I spent the entire day outside building garden beds, handling soil delivery, and planting fifty different veggies into our new beds. The most exciting part was that we had some members of the community stop by and tell us they loved the new garden beds! I have gained a lot of knowledge about marketing this week through the garden too! I met two people who work in marketing, and they taught me specifically about ECDI marketing. I have been religiously studying the branding guides to assure that the flyers, event emails, and garden signs fit the standards!

Overall, I cannot believe how much I am working on and how much I am learning. I am so grateful to all the staff that have been so essential to my experience thus far.

Heading into my third week of the Columbus Foundation Fellowship, I expected to primarily be working on Hope Hollow’s website. However, life, especially with technology, is full of setbacks. 

For those who are unfamiliar with Hope Hollow, it is primarily run by a retired couple, Kevin and Jane. The two run the day-to-day operations and provide emotional support, to cancer patients and their loved ones, from their home utilizing one laptop. Early this week, the laptop, which is the lifeline of Hope Hollow’s operation, crashed. Immediately, Kevin, Jane, myself, and numerous others began exploring options to ensure Hope Hollow’s ability to provide crucial services to cancer patients and their loved ones. 

Our focus, which was almost exclusively on the website, pivoted to figuring out why the laptop crashed, whether or not to get a new one, and most importantly how to continue serving Hope Hollow’s community. Fortunately, thanks to smartphones, Kevin and Jane were able to continue fulfilling all referrals that they received. 

While the technology setback was troubling at first, I believe it ended up being a positive experience. Under pressure, Hope Hollow proved that its steadfast focus on providing basic necessities to cancer patients and their families will always prevail. Additionally, it prevented our website team from burning out. Dedicating so much time and energy towards Hope Hollow’s website was beginning to become exhausting, so separation was much appreciated. Instead of website work, I researched and drafted potential grants for Hope Hollow, attended a new committee meeting, and had conversations with members of Hope Hollow’s community.

Our technology setback was at times frustrating, but it provided some separation from our website work. I believe this separation will be to our benefit as we begin working on the website once again next week with refreshed perspectives and new ideas.

The thrill (or terror) of sending an email blast to hundreds of Central Community House clients might be the biggest thing that sticks with me this week! As part of the development team at CCH, I am also helping out with marketing when needed. I was able to create materials for an awesome project at Central, called Saturday Adventures. Taking place July-August, CCH families will have the opportunity to travel to different sites around Central Ohio. CCH is providing transportation, tickets, and even lunch on most occasions! It is so exciting to think about families enjoying these excursions together. 

I think marketing for nonprofit organizations is so interesting, because not only are you responsible for spreading the word about the services you provide to the people you serve, but you are also responsible for outreach to donors. In development, we are tasked with conveying the importance of the work we do to donors, and in my first week at CCH, I was able to spend some time speaking to staff members across the organization. I asked people about the paths they took to Central, and I asked if there was anything I should know when trying to appeal to donors for their respective programs. One staff member stressed the importance of respecting the people we serve in our grant proposals, and I loved that she mentioned this. 

I have been interested in this topic for a while now. As I dive deeper into the nonprofit sector, I want to make space for others, and use my privilege to help and honor, not hurt and exploit, the people I serve. This article (https://blueavocado.org/community-and-culture/are-your-nonprofit-organizations-stories-dishonoring-the-families-you-serve/) speaks about the idea of the deserving vs. undeserving poor, the Bootstrap Theory, and the way nonprofits often exploit the people they serve to appease donors. 

I have said it before, but I will say it again: I feel lucky to be at CCH – they have spoken to me about this from the very beginning. The organization is a strong part of the community. The grants we are writing speak about the unique strengths of the Near East neighborhood in Columbus and the awesome people that live there. As I get more comfortable with writing these proposals, I continue to think to myself, “would I want the families we are speaking about in this proposal to read what I am writing?” If the answer is no, then it shouldn’t be written.

As week three comes to an end, an important theme that has come up in the work I am doing at Zora’s House is the importance of meeting people where they are, and finding ways to actually act on this principle. As I was sitting through the Operations, Infrastructure, and Culture Board’s second meeting on revising the organization’s employee handbook, I saw how thinking through the language that an organization uses and understanding what it means is crucial in being able to serve individuals. Something that the co-founder of the organization, LC Johnson, mentioned during the board’s meeting was that Zora’s House acknowledges that people are in different parts of their journeys, and not everyone might have the same understanding or knowledge on certain topics (one example being the importance of pronouns, or what pronouns even are). However, that does not mean they are excluded from the organization. Part of the organization’s responsibility is to meet individuals at whatever place they are in their journey, whether that be their personal or professional journeys. 

This reminded me of our speaker on Wednesday, who talked about being able to cater to multiple audiences, and looking at an organization’s goals and issues through multiple lenses in order to get current and potential donors, community members, etc. to also align with your goals and mission. Natalie Parscher discussed how rhetoric is vital in her work as the VP of Marketing and Communications for the Columbus Foundation. However, I think the work I have done this week with Zora’s House (and the work I will continue doing with their employee handbook) shows how important rhetoric and the use of language is at any organization. We need to remember to be intentional with the language we are using to better serve the people we are working with and for. 

Although, the importance of language should also be paired with the need to be transparent about what the language you’re using actually means. At the Board’s meeting, one of the board members mentioned that, in defining the values early on in the employee handbook in a comprehensive way, we are able to bridge the gap for employees who might come in to the organization without an understanding of the language used at Zora’s House and what it means in this particular context. I think this is a reminder that, in order for an organization to more effectively achieve its goals and serve communities, it is important to create a baseline understanding of their goals, values, and culture and make that clear to its employees, members, and the community at large.