Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

This week, I have continued making edits to the Zora’s House employee manual, and turning towards starting to restructure their operations manual. As my supervisor mentioned in one of our meetings, the editing process for these manuals is a lot more complicated than it appears at first glance. A large bump in the editing process has been figuring out who the intended audience is for the handbook and the manual. At first, the answer seems simple: the employee manual is for employees, and the operations manual is for anyone who needs information on how Zora’s House works. 

However, for a very small organization that will rapidly expand in the near future, the intended audience has shifted. Before, the employee manual might’ve been just for the fellowship positions at Zora’s House. Now, with the acquisition of a new, much larger space that is in the works, the number of employees will increase substantially, and can include a variety of new positions that might push Zora’s House to change some of its employee policies. Also, the operations manual for the Zora’s House space might be used by a variety of people, including the organization’s volunteers and members. However, the knowledge Zora’s House volunteers need to know or have access to about the space is a lot more detailed and includes more sensitive information compared to members and nonmembers using the space. So, who should the operations manual serve?

These questions of audience need to be resolved so that we know how to best structure these documents and know what language we should use to best convey the culture and values of the organization. However, something that has been very useful throughout this process has been seeing how other organizations structure their employee handbooks and operations manuals. Here, I see how important it is to be able to learn from others, and also be that tool for other organizations. This has reminded me of the conversations in our last learning session, and how difficult it is to find good and effective collaborative efforts. The sharing of knowledge between organizations is a crucial form of collaboration that might be overlooked sometimes, and it is a way of working together that should be better valued. It can help make organizations with similar missions and values more effective in their approaches.

At this point, we are over halfway done with the internships and I am getting into a solid rhythm with things at City Year.

This week started off with even more social media hype for the Regatta boat. Although City Year isn’t doing too hot as of today, I feel that the posts are getting plenty of engagement and that people appreciate them. I started interviewing and posing staff members with the boat and that has been a lot of fun for two reasons. First, it lets me work on these editing skills and learn more about Canva and other media creation/distribution websites. Secondly, I get to interact with staff members from different teams and see them in a more personal light. It’s bee interesting to see them share in their own words why they do their work at City Year Columbus and what matters to them. I also get to see them be a bit goofy and play a bit with the boat.

I also started doing some Asset Mapping work this week. It has involved finding the different areas and neighborhoods in which City Year serves, locating the different organizations that work within those boundaries and, eventually, will include lists of businesses, liaisons and community members which which City Year Columbus can work on creating lasting relationships. For the development team, this is useful because it helps us gauge who City Year stakeholders could approach in the future and what kinds of interests lie around the schools that we serve. It is also a useful tool for the organization, since our teams can now have a running list of people they can approach that are based right on the neighborhoods we serve and help disseminate information and receive feedback from a bottom-up perspective.

As a side note, this has also been incredibly useful for me in familiarizing myself with Columbus. Since I am originally from California and lived here about 5 months before the pandemic shut everything down, I have not been able to familiarize myself with Columbus and its different and varying neighborhoods/areas. Getting to the nitty gritty of the dividing lines of neighborhoods according to the City of Columbus has helped me locate the different streets and their significance within the city at-large. I created the Google map pictured below and seeing the boundaries demarcated by streets helped me as I located different neighborhood associations and more in this project.

I can’t wait to see what else I learn the next week, especially since a new hire for the Development Team is about to start. Learning about the Development Team needs these past six weeks has been an interesting ride and I hope to learn more with a new team member on board before the internship finishes.

• This week I was able to continue working on my project. I have been pivoting my approach to my project. I have continued to edit the emails I plan to send to the congressional members. One thing that I am looking to do is potentially finalize everything and get it ready to send out to congressional members and put it in a folder for the ROX members to send out when congressional members are back in session. Over the next few weeks, I will work on follow up material to send to the congressional members if and when they respond. ROX just had a new partner added to their team. Her background is in education, and she will be super helpful in aiding me in my project and making sure it is headed in the right direction. 
• Another item I have been working on is identifying contacts in organizations ROX could pair with. I have identified contacts to reach out and created an email template for those organizations as well. I have been adding crucial statistics to the emails to show the necessity of ROX. 
• My project timeline has shifted because of the fact congressional members are in their summer session. I have been working at adjusting my timeline so I can finish all my projects by the end of the internship. 
• I also have been researching other areas of interest that I might have in the organization. I might soon be diving deeper into the curriculum development part of ROX. 
• This weekend is the ROX Board retreat. I am excited to attend and hear all the wonderful things ROX has in store for the next year. There will be discussions about plans for the upcoming year and celebrations about the accompaniments ROX has had in the past year. It will also be super interesting to hear all the different perspectives people will bring from their field of interest. 

The beginning of week 6 started off with a very long staff meeting. As the school year is quickly approaching, there are a plethora of tasks to be completed. This meeting helped lay out my schedule and focus areas for this week. I am looking forward to designing more content for the Family Mentor Foundation as well. 

Tuesday started off with another early meeting, this time discussing our current programs, and our options to expand our new ideas further. If I could give this week any title it would be “meetings” Wednesday started with an 8am meeting to discuss development and fundraising strategies. This meeting was a little different than the others, with committee members joining us in our brainstorming. As I attend more and more meetings, I continue to learn how important communication is in every aspect of Family Mentor Foundation. Later in the afternoon Wednesday was filled with lots of designing content, helping create documents on funding, and gathering donor information. 

Fortunately Thursday offered a change of pace, with a morning delivery to Gladden House. Staff typically does not deliver our buddy boxes, but we wanted to get some footage of our process. It is always a treat to get out of the office and interact with the Columbus community. Thursday I was once again glued to my desk, editing and re-editing material for our social media platforms and other outlets of communication. It is so easy to become enthralled by work and tune out every other distraction. 

When Friday rolled around I was shocked at how fast the week felt. It reminded me of the saying, “the days are long, but the years are short.” Once again allowing myself to take time to step back and be grateful for everything I have in my life. 

The last week has been so busy with Equitas Health!! In the last few days, we had our first patron party and 2021 Art for Life submissions closed. Also, in addition to getting the submissions ready for the jury meeting, we have a thank you event for our past event, AIDS Walk, and more patron parties coming up soon.

The art submissions have kept me super busy. Currently, we are at over 125, with two or three coming in every hour. My role with each submission is to edit the artist’s biography and statement and prepare their submission to be juried. It has been so fun to see all of the artists’ work as it starts to arrive. We just received an Aminah Robinson piece, and it is a beautiful fabric piece that tells the story of Bilali, an enslaved African in the US who fought for the US in the War of 1812 and was a spiritual leader. In the style only Robinson can do, the fabric work is truly incredible. (If anyone wants to bid on it and give it to me, let me know… it is valued higher than my student loan debt so I am currently sitting out this one…)

Our first patron party of the year was a success! We had it at the Columbus Museum of Art in the special events pavilion. I was working registration and check in for the first half of the event, and then gave out paperwork to people who donated to be patrons for the event. The event was incredibly successful, and the whole team seemed to be equally as excited for the funds we raised as well as having our first indoor, in-person event since March 2020. Our community was equally as excited to be able to gather in person one again, as they got to see artwork, hear from the artists, take advantage of the open bar, and give to our organization.

To begin my sixth week of the Columbus Foundation Fellowship, at Hope Hollow, I was tasked with running an errand to the Ohio State University James Cancer Hospital to drop off restaurant gift cards and cash for a patient. While to some this may sound like a mundane errand, the purpose of the trip was far more consequential than a weekly trip to the grocery store.

Each and every patient that Hope Hollow assists has a distinct need that usually cannot be met by health care providers or government agencies. Additionally, Hope Hollow is the only non-profit in Columbus that provides direct services such as lodging, meals, transportation assistance, and emotional support to cancer patients and their loved ones in a rapid fashion (typically on the day that Hope Hollow receives a referral). 

One of the patients that Hope Hollow assisted on Monday was being discharged from the Ohio State University James Cancer Hospital and needed to travel home to Florida, with his belongings, on a Greyhound bus. The financial assistance that this patient needed was beyond the scope of assistance that the James Cancer Hospital permits. So, an administrator at the James Cancer Hospital suggested that the patient’s social worker contact Hope Hollow.

Without hesitation, Hope Hollow granted this patient’s request for financial assistance. For most people, especially people like myself who are fortunate enough to be healthy, it is unimaginable to have to travel hundreds of miles by Greyhound bus after battling cancer and being discharged from the hospital. But, for many cancer patients that Hope Hollow assists, a substantial amount of travel (however, typically not as far as Florida) is required in order to receive the best possible medical care.

When considering the cost of cancer treatment, the cost of traveling for treatment is often overlooked (especially for Columbus residents, who are lucky enough to live in a city with fantastic hospitals). Hope Hollow serves to fill in the gaps that health care providers and government agencies overlook when considering the financial burdens associated with cancer treatment.

Week 5 flew by! Although I am mainly focused on one project at the moment, I am still learning new things every day. For example, I was able to attend my first Science Committee meeting this week. FLOW’s Science Committee meets to discuss things like current and future restoration projects, capstone opportunities, grants, and upcoming events. During the meeting, we had the opportunity to take a tour of Willow Brook Village where a stream restoration project has occurred. In case the method would be applicable to streams within the Olentangy Watershed, they were willing to share the process and outcomes with FLOW. It was super exciting to see how their hard work was paying off!

In addition to the Science Committee meeting, I got to spend some time outside this week. One of FLOW’s projects is a tree nursery in Weinland Park. The land was obtained from a city landbank, and the goal is to grow trees that can be dispersed throughout the neighborhood to be planted. To maintain the project site, I stop by occasionally to mow the grass, pull weeds, and check the status of the trees. Throughout the rest of the Fellowship, I will make visits to various pollinator gardens and project sites to do a similar thing.

Tomorrow, we have another workday for the Slyh Run Bridge project by Cranbrook Elementary School. Hopefully, we have a big turn out and lots of people power so the bridge can be done in time for school in August. Although building a foot bridge doesn’t directly apply to FLOW’s mission, a lot of other work has gone in to restore the area. Tons of invasive bush honeysuckle have been removed and a beautiful pollinator garden is growing steps away from the river. The bridge will allow families to enjoy these benefits of the river while also having a safe path to school. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Next week, I am hoping to finish up my Storymap project of creating an interactive website with maps, pictures, and descriptions of FLOW’s current project sites. Since we’re halfway through the summer, I am eager to pick up the pace and fit as much work in as possible for FLOW’s mission. Talk to you next week! -Shelly

We had our first gardening event this week which involved weeding all of the beds, adding stakes, and planting flowers!

It was excruciatingly hot outside but with a team of five we got it all done. The veggies are growing a lot but the recent weather isn’t making it easy on them. We will likely have to push back our first Farm Stand to the last week of July or the first week of August.

Our original goals included having a banner by now. However, after some emails and brainstorming we have decided that the best course of action would be to create a garden webpage or add the garden and an interest form on the Columbus ECDI page. While we would love to see a nice banner up, having a webpage will allow the banner to be less crowded and since the garden is an ongoing project having a set place where people can find the opportunity to get involved will benefit in the long run.

As for the Women’s Business Center, we have multiple projects going on. JP Morgan Chase has released a mentorship program for “small businesses,” so we created a form for our members to submit if they would like to be recommended for it. Doing this allows us to determine if they are eligible to apply before we recommend them.

A few of my bosses are also working with Elevate Northland on the Northland Unity Festival and they secured ten vendor spots for ECDI members! This also required a survey and automation sequence, and Samantha the Marketing and Communications Manager designed an email to go out with the survey embedded!

ECDI’s main building is a refurbished schoolhouse that was built in the 1900s. It is absolutely beautiful on the inside, but construction has started on the building. So as I sit at my cubicle I see my other bosses, John and Terry, run around with the construction crew. Today we had to refile literally thousands of lending loan documents, strangely enough it wasn’t too bad of a time. I guess it really pays off to work somewhere with good vibes.

All in all, it was a pretty great week and I have been given more design and data projects to work on next week. In the next few weeks there is a big board meeting, a data deadline, and ongoing construction so there’s lots to look forward to in the near future!

At the conclusion of my fifth week of the Columbus Foundation Fellowship, I have reflected on the versatility of the non-profit sector. Not only the versatility of the services that non-profits provide for our communities but also the versatility of skills required for those who work in the non-profit sector. 

One of my favorite things about working with Hope Hollow is that each day is unpredictable. At the beginning of the summer, Kevin, Hope Hollow’s co-founder and co-director, presented me with a list of tasks to work on throughout my fellowship. I originally viewed this list of projects similarly to that of a class syllabus. I believed I had set projects that needed to be accomplished by a set deadline, the end of my fellowship. But, in reality, because non-profit work is centered around the immediate needs of the communities they serve, new tasks that were not on the original agenda are added meaning other projects may be delayed. 

While the main priority for Hope Hollow, fulfilling each and every referral from cancer patients and their loved ones that are received from medical institutions and hospitals in Central Ohio, remains constant, the day-to-day projects are widely variable. Unlike major corporations or even small businesses who have departments and individuals that largely focus on just their professional realm, Hope Hollow’s co-founders and co-directors, who are the only full-time workers for Hope Hollow and completely volunteer their time, have to be jacks of all trades. 

Day-to-day conversations with Kevin typically encompass touching bases on numerous different ongoing projects. In conversation, Kevin and I have pivoted from talking about Hope Hollow’s social media presence to Hope Hollow’s upcoming fundraising efforts. While at times it can be challenging to focus on so many different projects, it is also exciting to know that there are never-ending opportunities to better Hope Hollow in hopes of furthering its mission and impact. 

To outsiders, the amount of work that Kevin and Jane shoulder may appear insane, especially for a retired couple. But, Hope Hollow’s mission and the cancer community are so extraordinary that Hope Hollow’s co-founders and co-directors have decided to volunteer their “time, talent, and treasure” (as Jane always says) to the immense project of helping the cancer community.