Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

During this second week, I worked remotely on the tasks I was assigned during my organization’s Operations, Infrastructure, and Culture Board meeting that was held last week. The board members and I were tasked with refining and adding on to a list that we created which describes the values and culture of Zora’s House, along with looking through the organization’s employee manual to assess the extent to which their manual aligns and represents their values. As someone who has not been involved previously with Zora’s House, I felt a little weird trying to refine and add to their list of values because I only became involved with the organization through the fellowship. However, in the board meeting and throughout the week, my supervisor and the board members have made me feel like an important part of the organization and that my input also held value. This in itself was a display of the organization’s values and culture, which made it a bit easier to do this particular task. 

In moving towards figuring out to what extent the employee handbook aligned with the organization’s values, I began to see how difficult it is to translate values into a document that will be a representation of the organization to its employees. Some of the values and themes that came up in our board meeting came out of collective and individual experiences, feelings, and emotions that the board members had when thinking about Zora’s House and their involvement as participants. Those emotions and experiences, which are so important in order to understand why Zora’s House is focused on providing a space where women of color can thrive, can’t all be included or expressed in an employee manual. 

Even when thinking about how aligned their current manual is with their values generally, I saw how some values like intentional rest can be expressed relatively easily with certain policies, while values like authenticity and vision might not necessarily translate as well into a document that is mostly about outlining expectations, rules, procedures, etc. that employees need to be aware of. Although some things do get “lost in translation,” I think these tasks are giving me the opportunity to explore better ways of operationalizing something intangible like culture into something concrete that captures something in a more holistic way. I’m excited to continue this process and see how the organization’s employee and operations manuals further evolve to better express Zora’s House’s goals and mission to its workers and members.

As the second week of our fellowship comes to a close, I am feeling grateful to have a position that allows me to spend time outside and with passionate volunteers. Now that my responsibilities and projects are laid out for the summer, I feel like I have a purpose within FLOW and feel confident with my contributions.

Something that was helpful to me this week was getting a tour of the watershed and project locations. Now, when I hear people discussing locations for events or issues, I can connect the name to the project. On the tour, I saw pollinator gardens, in-progress bridges, areas restored with native plants, and more. Although I am excited about my other projects this summer, it would be fun to spend all day out at these sites.

The most exciting part of this week was attending my first clean-up event! Located at Sawmill Wetlands, we focused on pulling invasive species to allow native plants to successfully grow. Specifically, we pulled any Curly Dock, Yellow Sweet Clover, and Butterweed we saw. However, Butterweed is a native plant, but often too aggressive to allow other plants to thrive. After finishing that, we focused on watering the young trees that were planted this spring. Since the weather had been hot and dry, the trees needed water to survive. I was extremely excited to see FLOW in action and doing what they love.

When I wasn’t out at project sites this week, I was working on various projects in the office. In February, FLOW was able to get drone footage of the river and surrounding areas. I reviewed, sorted, and labeled the footage. It was interesting to see the contrast between the nature around the river and the sprawl of the urban areas. This footage could be great for a future project discussing the importance of maintaining the health of the Olentangy River.

Next week, I am looking forward to diving into some bigger projects. I was able to attend an Education and Outreach Committee meeting this week, and I will have a Fundraising Committee meeting this week. I’m excited to meet even more members of FLOW and discuss the organization’s future. Talk to you next week! -Shelly

    My second week of the fellowship consisted of an early morning photo shoot with the Columbus Foundation. It was great to interact with the other fellows, and discuss how our first weeks went. Once back at my nonprofit I was able to attend a partnership meeting with the executive director. The meeting was super interesting, and I learned a lot about building community connections. I also really started to see the value of nonprofits working together to better the community. 

    The second day of the week was spent in a development meeting, and conducting research for a pilot program. At the development meeting I met several committee members and had the chance to draft notes for the meeting. I absolutely loved investigating ways to make the nonprofit more efficient and successful, so researching the pilot program was a great way to spend the rest of the day.

    Mid week I started getting used to the day to day operations of the Family Mentor Foundation. I started the day off checking outgoing orders for the program, then did some development work regarding new donors and partners. To wrap up Wednesday, we had a programming meeting to discuss fall events and the pilot program. It was great to hear the new ideas committee members had to make this program a success. 

    The next two days were jammed packed. On Thursday I worked on programming, and took inventory of our supplies. I also had the chance to meet even more volunteers, who are a vital part of the nonprofit. I then transitioned into making social media posts and designing some stuff for upcoming events.

           Finally on Friday I helped sort and package Buddy boxes for the upcoming delivery. Overall, this week has flown by and I continue to learn more about the nonprofit world each day

I hit the ground running this week after getting oriented last week. My main focus was on writing grants, which is something I have wanted to learn how to do for a long time! Central is funded almost entirely by grants, so this development work is critical to being able to provide the services they offer to the community. It is also a lot of fun, because Central has so many different programs (seniors, youth, family stabilization, art education, etc.) that it seems there are always many different opportunities to apply for funding, and I was able to skip from a senior grant to a youth programming grant, to a grant for their workforce development program. 

I think I mentioned it earlier, but Central does a good job at collecting data about the outcomes of their programming, which is absolutely essential to conveying the value that they bring to the community. The more data you can provide about the outcomes your organization achieves, the more likely it is that donors will want to fund the work that you do. I was able to attend a fundraising 101 webinar this week, and she essentially said that people do not donate money to organizations, they donate money to impact social change – so emphasizing the actual impact of your work is highly persuasive. 

Overall, it was a great week! I had the opportunity to work on creating some marketing materials, as well as the opportunity to help interview candidates for an open position. I can’t believe the second week is over already! Looking forward to what I will learn next.

Grant Writing Tip of the Week

When writing grants, it can sometimes be helpful to let the donors know how much of an impact their dollars can make. For example, I was writing a proposal for the ACE program at Central, which helps people create or expand their small business – my supervisor told me that phrasing an ask like this: “For every X number of dollars spent, you have the ability to create/retain one job” shows the impact the donor can make for a very low sum of money. Very convincing.

Important Cause of the Week

Did you know that social isolation can actually affect the health, and ultimately the lifespan of seniors? This is something I have been interested in for a long time, since my background involves working with seniors. Here are some pretty staggering statistics:

Seniors experiencing social isolation are:

Overall, more likely to die prematurely from all causes (the risk is almost the same as for those who smoke!)

Central Community House works hard to prevent social isolation in seniors, and they did not stop when the pandemic began. Instead, they piloted a program to provide seniors with access to technology, as well as individualized training and workshops to teach them how to use it. An overwhelming majority of the seniors in this program felt more engaged and less isolated, and now Central is looking to expand the program!

Every day at MFS is strikingly different than the last.

Monday:

I arrive at the office and meet my new co-worker Siema. She tells me about the history of her name – it means a certain ‘quality’ on a person’s face – and we laugh about how she shares this name with my mom.

Siema is our new bilingual social-worker here at MFS. We are currently creating citizenship test courses for our immigrant and refugee clients. Having an Arabic speaking co-worker has been a huge asset for MFS. Many of the families I have spoken with have only recently moved to the states and so their English proficiency is minimal. This language gap becomes more pronounced when these clients navigate their jobs, legal paperwork, and in MFS’s most recent case – working with the police.

I have also spent the day crafting a new color-palette for MFS and designing our digital media posts.

Wednesday:

In the short two weeks that I have been here, I am quickly learning that my manager Nicol wears many hats. Today she is a detective. Due to a cultural and language barrier, the police have misunderstood pertinent details for a missing person case. Nicol is working with the family in order to uncover the correct information and bring the investigation back on track.

My role in this case is to scour different social media sources and bring any of the details I find to Nicol and the detective. I have already made progress in pursuit of this goal.

In addition to this case, I have assisted with intake forms for families seeking rent assistance. I have also helped tidy the office and create new shelves!

Friday:

A common thread amongst many of the people MFS serves is the need for mental health resources. After helping a client fill out a job application, I spoke with her about her background. She explained how her playful demeanor was often a cover for the struggles she faces daily. Nicol, Christy, and the other workers at the office attempt to connect clients like these with mental health resources, however there are very few who speak Arabic or are Muslim. In an effort to help bridge this gap I have been emailing and calling different offices in the Columbus area to expand our database on Muslim mental health professionals.

My week at MFS has been filled with new insights and experiences around the roles non-profits play in the Columbus community. I am excited to continue this process of growth and see where this work will take me by the end of the summer.

Things really stepped into high gear this week at CityYear as I met more folks from HeadQuarters (HQ), went to the office for the first time, and attended a Board meeting. Though Monday was a slow day, Tuesday through today (Thursday), I was asked to go in-person to the office. I was a bit nervous to do this, since I have not been to an indoors space that was not home since the pandemic started. Nevertheless, the folks at CityYear Columbus made me feel welcomed and all wore masks while in the office.

As I stepped into the office on Tuesday to attend the End-of-Year Staff meeting, Ruth was gracious enough to give me a tour of their (amazing) office. She even walked me to my spacious desk area for the summer, which was filled with welcome goodies!

Attending the staff meeting proved useful for me in getting to know the other members of the organization and to really get a vibe for CityYear Columbus. Although some of their conversations were a bit too technical for me to fully grasp, my hope is that I will learn all things CityYear soon enough to understand the jargon they use on a regular basis.

Perhaps the most intense part of this week consisted of attending the last Board meeting for the fiscal year. I was charged with taking notes–something that is going to be on their official records–and so I was a bit nervous about how this would work out. Thankfully, I had familiarized myself with some of the names of the attendees, understood enough of the basic acronyms to know what the Board members and Staff used, and was able to take down useful and detailed notes. Attending the Board meeting was also useful exposure as to the administrative and Directive processes of an organization, which was something I am interested in observing.

This week I was also assigned official projects for the summer. I posted my first social media posts for the week and began to do research on prospective stakeholders–essentially potential donors for the organization. Perhaps the most random project assigned to me is to decorate and hype up this boat/yacht for the Kiwanis Regatta that CityYear was invited to participated in for the summer:

It may be random, but I will do my best for this! I have never done a regatta nor have I done something more arts centered or creative in a while. So I am excited to do this project. If any of you have any tips on how to decorate this, let me know!

Week 2 has been filled with a lot of different experiences. With the first week in the rear view, i have been able to really dive into my full work schedule and get a feel for most of the tasks that I will be working on at the GIAC.

I start every morning off working on emails and checking to make sure that all our new campers are 100% registered and ready for their day here! After I update anything that needs attended to on those excel sheets, which are the biggest excel sheets i’ve ever seen by the way. I then move onto uploading all of our data from Ticketure, which is the software we use to keep track of how many people are coming into the center throughout the day as well as sell tickets to all of our events! I upload those into MASSIVE excel sheets and then color coordinate them by category.

Once im done with that, its time to open the doors and let the campers in! This week we have had a lot of campers! They’ve been doing all sorts of things from learning how to use binoculars, to identifying different types of birds and turtles, to even conducting some of their own science experiments!

After the kids head home, I get back to my desk and work on social media content to help promote the exhibition and events we have coming up this week!

• I was able to sit in a handful of collaborative meetings this week. It was interesting to see how members of ROX collaborated to come up with new innovative ideas to improve the organization. The most fascinating part was to hear how people in different positions and departments worked together to achieve common goals. 
• Each week I will be meeting with someone new to learn about their position and journey through nonprofits. I got the honor to meet with the CEO and Founder Lisa Hinkelman this week. I was amazed at her journey to founding her own nonprofit. The lessons she learned and the advice she gave me were extremely inspiring. It was motivating to see someone who has a true passion for change. Her drive to help girls become successful was infectious and encouraging to say the least. In my discussion with Dr. Hinkelman, I was able to ask my questions about all the research she has done. Some of the methods and programs she mentioned she used were things I had just learned about in my political research class in college. To see information from the classroom transfer to real life was a really unique connection. 
• ROX received a larger funding donation from Alliance Data. To celebrate, there was a small gathering to connect with members of Alliance Data to discuss the mission of ROX. During the gathering, I was able to talk with different people who all had a desire to see ROX succeed. It was super interesting to hear ROX members discuss how the funds would be used for tangible resources. The connection between the donation and real-life resources was inspiring to see the power of change when people come together. 
• One major task I have been working on this week is helping get information out about the next funding campaign. I helped put letters and packages together for donors to soon receive. It was fascinating to see the behind the scenes work that go into funding campaigns. There was a great deal of hands-on work that other members of ROX helped out with. While putting these letters and packages together I was able to work with a member of ROX and discuss how grass root organizations work and how their infrastructures were similar to ROX. I loved being able to expand my knowledge about nonprofits and connecting them with specific organizations such as grass root organizations.
• The last thing I was able to do is plan out a project that I will start working on next week. I will be connecting with members of state legislatures and other non-profit organizations to talk about ROX and find out how to implement the ROX program into schools in their districts or their organizations. Next, I will figure out what key items needed to be accomplished in order to establish relationships with other states congressional members and organizations. Finally, I will be looking into funding opportunities for ROX in Ohio and other funding that would directly benefit girls in the state of Ohio.