Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

Hi everyone, 

I truly cannot believe that with this short week we’re already halfway through the summer. It has flown by! I spent most of this week away from my laptop, physically sorting through the storage room at ETSS. I took inventory and catalogued items like printers, basketballs, kids’ water bottles, reading kits, and more, which will allow us to use them in our programs and distribute resources to our clients. I even found a clunky ‘90s computer that had been missing a screen for a couple decades! I hope that by labeling and organizing everything, it will allow ETSS to more efficiently use that space in the future. 

I’ve had success regarding donations for the Youth Summit this week. Seeds of Caring kindly offered to donate some 525 “welcome kits” for new immigrant and refugee children. Tulip Cafe, a local Turkish restaurant who catered my grad party, is contributing rice for the event. Costco agreed to send us gift cards to buy bottled water for the kids. 

I’ve learned so much about fundraising and event logistics in the first half of my internship. It’s no longer scary asking people to contribute to the event, and I’ve memorized my pitch.  I’m also grateful for my previous office experience, which has helped me in this job with simple things such as writing professional cold emails to potential donors and inviting coworkers to meet with me on Teams. 

On Thursday we held our Collaborative Board Meeting for the Youth Summit, which brought together over 60 people from different community organizations who are involved with the event. My supervisor Sarah had received a suggestion from one of the children to do a program-wide art project, where each kid from each site would contribute something—a petal or feather—and we would display the final project, a flower or bird. I always find it fascinating watching a group brainstorm and bounce ideas off each other. 

See you next week, 

Sanay 

Hi again! I’ve now wrapped up Week 5 of my fellowship, and this one was all about visibility, outreach, and laying the groundwork for public engagement as we continue settling into our new home at The Fort.

First and foremost, we’ve officially finalized the moving process. While there are still a few finishing touches to be made in the space, the energy is already shifting! I took some time this week to explore the South High Street area and capture photos of the neighborhood, the studio, and our new beginnings. These images will serve as part of our storytelling strategy to let the community know: we’ve moved, and we’re ready.

To support that awareness push, I reached out to The Fort’s official Instagram account to propose a joint post, and they agreed. I’ll be posting that collaboration on Monday. This will help us cross-promote to their audience and drive attention from people already engaged with The Fort’s broader community. It’s a great opportunity to build local momentum and make sure people in the area know where we are and what we offer.

This week was also a bridge between strategy and production. I’ve been finalizing the details of our season ticket packages, working to ensure that the pricing, structure, and messaging are clear, engaging, and accessible to both new and returning patrons. This part of the project required a lot of back and forth between design logic and audience needs, what will make sense to someone purchasing a package for the first time? What small language shifts might make the benefits feel more compelling?

With those pieces nearly ready to go, I’ve now started working on the season brochure. This will be the physical and digital piece that introduces our upcoming performances to the public. I’ve been brainstorming design direction, formatting ideas, and the overall voice we want to use across the brochure. Should I focus on the storytelling behind each production? Or highlight the unique experience of being in the space with us? These are the questions I’m exploring as I begin laying out content and page flow.

Overall, this week was a turning point, it marked a shift from internal transition to outward-facing promotion. As we continue to get the space ready, I’m excited to bring even more visibility to OYO and make sure people across Columbus (and especially on the South Side) know that something fresh and creative is happening here!

This week was much calmer than the past couple weeks due to our major golf outing being over. I focused on finishing up all the website corrections for our mentors and mentees using the Excel tracking sheet. While I already have experience using Excel, I have enjoyed getting to use the software so that I can learn even more! Excel is definitely something that I will need to keep using in the future for both school and my career. Microsoft Teams is another software that my nonprofit uses mainly. I actually was not the biggest fan of using Teams before this fellowship, and that was mainly because I did not know how to correctly use it. Now, I know how to RSVP to events, how to schedule video calls, how to create folders, add files, and more! I like using it much more now that I have an understanding of how it functions. 

Currently, I am focused on getting feedback from mentors and mentees. I created an Excel sheet that will track all of their names and answers to each question. I am really excited to hear from actual mentors and mentees who are currently utilizing the mentorship program! I am also curious about OWP’s process of applying feedback that they receive, so I am anticipating that as well. Other than that, I have continued to research grants that OWP can apply to. I now understand how hard it is for small nonprofits to get funding. A lot of grants are either invite-only or they have very specific requirements in order to be eligible. It is definitely a little discouraging, but it hasn’t stopped me from searching! I currently have 11 grant opportunities listed on a word doc I created, and I am determined to reach 20 before the end of my time with OWP! 

Thank you for reading,

Kindall Benjamin 

Hi All,

I am wrapping up my fifth week with Huckleberry House! This week I dived into part one of the big project I mentioned I will be working on for the rest of the summer (i.e., updating and expanding Huck House’s Safe Place program). So, this week I got started on the updating part by assessing what needs to be revamped in the training manual and reaching out to the over 130 business and organizations in Central Ohio that partner with Huck House to provide youth ages 12-17 with safe places they can go, from which Huck House will arrange for them to safely get to the Crisis Shelter.

The latter involved lots, and I do mean lots, of phone calls (and even some emails) to our current partners to asses wether they had all the proper Safe Place signage and materials or not and wether they would like additional training or not. Now that I have reached out to all but a few current partners, I plan to order and start distributing Safe Place signage and materials to partner sites that need them next week. Then, later, once the training manual is updated, I’ll connect the partners that requested additional training with Melanie, the Director who does all the Safe Place partner trainings

Lastly, in between all these phone calls (and emails), I got about halfway through a side project Carol gave me — she is the Director of Advancement and my Supervisor. Specifically, she wanted me to update Huck House’s Case for Support, which, for those who don’t know, is a document crucial to grantwriting and fundraising as it outlines why a donor should support a particular nonprofit or project. While I must admit it was rather depressing to look up recent data on youth homelessness at the local, state, and national levels, I am glad to be using the research skills have I developed over the last six years in higher ed to convey just how needed Huck House’s programming is for youth in crisis.

Till next week,
Emoni

P.S. Happy 4th of July!

Good evening, Fellows – and Happy 4th of July!

I hope you’re all enjoying a joyful day with friends, family, and loved ones. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what’s been a meaningful – and somewhat surreal – week with Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS).

Despite a few challenges stemming from a medical emergency, my team has shown incredible flexibility and support, ensuring I could continue contributing to my internship. This week, I had a virtual meeting with BBBS’s Enrollment Team to begin training on the inquiry call process. This involves contacting individuals interested in becoming a volunteer, or “Big,” and supporting them through MatchForce. Starting next week, I’ll begin shadowing live inquiry calls – and I couldn’t be more excited. I also completed eleven quality assurance spot checks in MatchForce using a CoPilot-generated template inspired by my supervisor. While I mentioned this project in last week’s update, the exciting development is that my supervisor asked me to revise the work using my original material – the very content I created when I first began. Learning that my early work had such value was deeply affirming and boosted my confidence in my role.

Additionally, I proposed a draft training module for the upcoming Big Affinity Event – a space designed to support mentors through tailored resources. My proposed topics include conflict resolution, supporting mentees with autism, and promoting mental health awareness. My supervisor’s feedback was incredibly constructive, suggesting enhancements like an overview of BBBS’s ecosystem, jigsaw group activities, and even community-led focus groups on autism support. I’m looking forward to evolving this presentation in the weeks to come. Thank you all for reading, and here’s to wrapping up week five with gratitude and growth.

Well, that was quick…. Hello there, week six! 

Hello everyone!

It is week 5! I am now halfway through the fellowship, and I cannot believe it!

This week, I had the opportunity to continue to work on the project I started last week in regards to writing up performance descriptions and biographies for the performance group that has struggled to bring in MAC patrons to see their shows. In order for me to be able to write these performance descriptions and biographies, I have had to do some research on both Carnatic Music and Bharatanatyam dance, both Southern Indian art-forms. I enjoyed the opportunity to get to learn more about the styles of music and dance and also to learn more about the performers themselves, who in most cases have had exceptional careers and who have come from rich music traditions. This project has helped me grow my skills in writing about and for the arts, which I can see being an important skill moving forward.

Another project I worked on this week was connected to the MAC’s volunteers. All new or returning volunteers at the MAC have to fill out an interest form. My job was to take these recently filled out interest forms, scan them, and then input the personal information and volunteering related information into an excel sheet. Volunteers are important for any organization and their overall operations, so I was happy to contribute and to learn a little more about the MAC’s volunteer process.

This week, I also got to sit in on another meeting with the Executive Director and Development Coordinator. During this meeting, we had a discussion surrounding the who, what, when, etc. of this new fiscal year’s member events. We also had a discussion surrounding last years grant budget and started working on a new list of corporations and foundations to reach out to for financial support. Within this, I have been asked to do some research on the corporations and foundations we chose, and their available grants, and to collect all this information on an excel sheet to aid our grant application process. I have found this research to be very interesting because my knowledge of corporation and foundation giving is minimal, but as I have seen, these gifts can be a significant resource. We also talked about starting to work on another Final Report for a grant that we were given last fiscal year, and we created a new list of top donors, connected to our organization, that we want to reach out too and ask for bigger donations. Overall, we had a very productive meeting, and I loved getting a chance to expand my knowledge surrounding development within a nonprofit.

Towards the middle to end of the week, I was able to do some marketing focused work. Our Director of Marketing and Communications asked me, and the MAC’s Event Coordinator, to put some information together about the MAC for an upcoming performance review on Columbus and Central Ohio arts organizations to be done through CityScene. For this performance review, I have once again been able to exercise my skill in writing for and about the arts, and specifically for this project, exercising my ability to sort through and highlight pertinent information. Earlier on in the fellowship, I was asked to go around the MAC and find old logos and make a list of where these old logos were located so that we could update them. This week, I walked through the building with the Director of Marketing and Communications to finalize this list and got the process started on updating these logos and replacing them throughout the building. The MAC will be attending the Columbus Book Festival the weekend of July 12 and 13, and will be hosting a booth. So, we both also made a list of all the things that we would need in order to stock the marketing cart to host the booth, and we physically started collecting and getting materials ready. This will be the third festival I have done this summer with the MAC. The first was the Columbus Arts Festival, then the Worthington Arts Festival, and now the Columbus Book Festival. I am really happy that these festivals have been a part of my fellow experience, for not only have they exposed me to the festival scene in Columbus, but they have also helped me grow when it comes to marketing and outreach. I look forward to hosting our booth and selling some of our artist’s art and our MAC merchandise at the festival!

Happy 4th!!

Graci

Hi everyone! Week 5 is officially done and it is crazy to think that we are already at the halfway point! My weeks at Netcare and The Columbus Foundation have been incredible and filled with lots of learning experiences. This week I was able to speak with some staff to learn about their roles and worked on more content.

I had the opportunity to speak to two staff members. I spoke to an outpatient therapist, as well as the director of all the phone and chat services. Speaking to the outpatient therapist was extremely reassuring in hearing her thoughts on the struggles of this career. As someone debating going into therapy/counseling, one of my reservations has been the weight of taking my clients’ stories with me. The staff member I talked to explained that since becoming a therapist, she has been able to manage boundaries while also maintaining self care to help her not hold that weight.

When speaking with the director of crisis hotlines, I had an increased appreciation for what they do. Netcare has many phone based services including the crisis phone line, 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, homeless hotline, chats and more. These responders stay on the line with individuals who are struggling and talk them through safety plans as well as anything they are struggling with. It is a quick way for individuals to get the help they need. The director of these services showed me what these conversations look like from her end, as well as explained everything that her role entails. It was such an enlightening conversation and is definitely going to be a career I might explore as well.

This week I also continued to work on our large campaign and other important content. We are in the process of releasing our quarterly newsletter, and it has been my responsibility to include a portion of all the client testimonials I have been working on. This week I worked on making an engaging section including all quotes. 

Overall, this has been such a fun project to work on and I can’t wait to keep progressing!

Best,

Anaika

Hi everyone! I am wrapping up my fifth week with the Center for Disability Empowerment, and we are now halfway through the Summer Fellowship! These past five weeks have gone by so quickly, but have been filled with valuable learning experiences and personal and professional growth. I have become much more confident in my own skills and voice at work, and have gained a much better understanding of the inner workings of the nonprofit world. I am looking forward to continuing to grow and develop, both personally and professionally, during the second half of the Fellowship!

In CDE news, we are now just one week out from the 35th Anniversary Celebration of the ADA that I have been helping plan for the last five weeks. I feel really good about the work we’ve done so far and I am excited to see everything come together next Friday. I think the Celebration event will be a great way to come together as a community and focus on something positive. With all the uncertainty, hate, and divisiveness in the world and in our communities right now, it is important to remember to not take for granted how far we’ve come and to continue to fight to protect what we have now. 

Jackie, Sue and I have been working on tying up any loose ends with event organization. We have finally got in contact with all of our sponsors about attendance, which was a huge relief and something I was struggling to get responses for. I have also been really focusing on volunteer coordination this past week, and I think that we have a thorough good plan and a good team joining us that will help the event run smoothly. We are in a good place right now with the planning, and will just be focusing on making some final touches next week before the event on Friday evening!

Until next week, 

Rachael McCague 

Though this week was shortened due to the holiday, it was still filled with important insights into the inner workings of Zora’s House and how growth happens behind the scenes. I can’t believe I am already halfway through my internship!

I continued my work cataloging and organizing Zora’s House library. This week, I focused on aligning the library with existing resources and possibly connecting it to their existing membership portal. The goal is to create a sustainable system that enhances access to knowledge and supports future use.

During our all-staff meeting, I received a comprehensive overview of July’s upcoming events and the logistics involved in organizing them. I was especially interested in seeing how responsibilities are distributed among the team and how programming decisions are made with intention and community needs in mind. One topic that stood out during this meeting was the importance of training and organizational development. Staff emphasized how continued professional development is essential, not just for individual growth, but for strengthening the entire organization. It reminded me that thriving community spaces are built by well-supported teams.

I also met with the staff member who leads Zora’s House’s membership program. We discussed strategies to sustain existing members while growing the base, balancing personalized engagement with scalable outreach. Membership isn’t just transactional here; it’s relational. The conversation deepened my understanding of how membership models can serve both community building and organizational sustainability.

Another key project this week was drafting a Request for Proposal (RFP) for an upcoming facilitator-led program. While I’ve submitted RFPs in academic settings, this is my first time writing one from the organizational perspective. It’s been a rewarding challenge, learning how to clearly outline expectations, timelines, and compensation, while ensuring the language is inclusive, inviting, and aligned with Zora’s House’s mission. Writing an RFP is more than just a technical task; it’s about setting the tone for the kind of partnership the organization wants to build. I will be presenting my draft to the Managing Director next week for review.

Even in a short week, I’ve seen how intentional planning, care for people, and attention to detail keep this vibrant space moving forward.

Until next week,

Asia

This week has felt like the heart of the Customer Journey project. Conversations are coming to life, insights are surfacing, and next steps are starting to take shape. I began the week by preparing a summary of completed interviews, upcoming schedules, and key findings to share at our strategic planning committee meeting. After weeks of listening, analyzing, and writing playback sheets, it was rewarding to see the project’s progress shared with leadership and board members who care deeply about the organization’s growth.

Throughout the week, I conducted seven interviews, including longtime and newer volunteers, the kitchen team lead, a weekend driver supervisor, and a corporate volunteer from Nationwide. Each story added something new, whether it was a suggestion, a concern, or a moment of impact. As I continue creating playback sheets, I’m noticing recurring themes that will be important to bring forward during the final half-day session we’re planning, where we’ll share findings and brainstorm solutions together with Meals-on-Wheels program staff.

One highlight of the week was attending the strategic planning meeting itself. Listening in on conversations about LifeCare Alliance’s future while contributing updates on the Customer Journey project gave me a unique perspective on how the work I’m doing fits into a larger vision. I also began early work on the Meals-for-Kids customer journey by reviewing past interviews and creating questions that will help us form a clear problem statement.

From a marketing perspective, I continue to gain insight into the importance of communication style and delivery. Several volunteers shared how they’ve used social media and word-of-mouth to spread awareness about Meals-on-Wheels, often inviting family or friends to join them on deliveries. It reminded me how powerful storytelling can be, especially when coming from those directly involved.

One idea sparked this week from multiple interviews: adding branded insulated bags for volunteers to carry meals from their cars to client homes. It’s a small but meaningful improvement that supports the client experience and shows volunteers that their needs are being considered too.

As I move into Week 6, I’m feeling the weight of the calendar. There are still interviews to schedule and voices left to hear so we are considering extending the Calendly link another week to extend our interview timeline. With each day, I’m more aware of the time I have left, and more determined to make it count.

Until next week,
Kat Jolley