Taking on a new role

I just found out last week that my internship may be shifting to more of a research fellow position, which I am very excited about. Everything is still in the very beginning stages so nothing is certain yet. But apparently the foundation is starting to help develop the strategy to move ASU in to the next phase of The Challenges campaign. The Challenges was a very innovative project that helped to inform the public that ASU is determined to tackle the major "challenges" of our time, which include the areas of education, technology, communities, sustainability, economic opportunity, healthy lives, human rights, and understanding the past and present for the sake of our future. The next phase is going to focus on how ASU is providing The Solutions and addressing some of these issues. Over the next couple months I will slowly transition from my current responsibilities over to a research and support role for this new project. I think it will incredibly interesting and I looking forward to working with impressive group of people that will be involved.

Stuff to do before break

I can't express how excited I am to go on a little break from work and school next week. On Wednesday evening my girlfriend and I are flying out to spend Christmas with her family in Minnesota. We also have a bunch of friends from college that live in Minneapolis so it will be fun to see all of them. Before I leave however, I have a few things to finish up with at work. There is huge invitation mailing going out for a conversation with President Crow at the Tempe Center for the Arts so I'm sure I will spend a lot of time stuffing envelopes this week. I am also working on putting together a family tree of the Fulton family - as most may know they are the family that made the Fulton Teacher's College and Fulton School of Engineering possible. One of the gift officers thought it would be helpful to have all of the information such as birthdays, ages and children's names of the Fultons so I'll have to spend a lot of time doing research. Then, I'll be working on doing the final drafts of the CASE award entries so I can get them sent in before I leave. It will be a busy week, but at least it will be a short one!

Food Drive

The office has been having a pretty heated food drive contest over the past month. The Foundation was divided into several teams and which ever team brought in the most food items won a free breakfast - a highly sought after prize. Combining a large group of already generous and charitable people with a competitive element made for an exciting contest. We had a few captains that collected money and when out shopping to find the best deals they could. Many huge boxes of Ramen noodles were purchased to say the least. It looked like we were leading the whole time  but then on the last day some of the other teams literally wheeled in their food items on large dollies. Our team ended up coming in third I think, but together be brought in over a couple thousand food items to help out those in need.

Agency Review

Last week I started to volunteer for the Tempe Community Council's (TCC) Agency Review. I heard about this opportunity almost a year ago when I was interviewing a manager at TCC for another class. I had asked about the skills necessary to be a successful non-profit manager and he said that proposal and grant writing was huge and that I should take advantage of every chance I have to get experience in that area. He told me to stay on the lookout for the next Agency Review. The Agency Review is process that allows citizens of Tempe to have a say as to which local non-profits should receive public grants. Over the course of the next couple weeks I will review between 4 to 10 proposals from various Tempe non-profit agencies. I believe 35 agencies have submitted 55 proposals so far this year asking for around $1.3 million. I get to read through the proposals, fill out an evaluation and formulate questions to ask the agencies that I'm reviewing. Then, in February I get to sit down with a panel of other volunteers who have reviewed the same agencies and we get to have representatives of the agencies answer our questions. Last year, the city council went along with every one of the recommendations from the Agency Review. It's very cool process and I am excited to be apart of it and to learn more about proposals.

CASE Awards

Recently, I have been working on putting together a couple entries for CASE awards for the foundation.  CASE stands for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and they give out awards for best practices in various areas of university advancement such as fundraising, marketing, training, etc...In order to be considered for an award, a school must submit an entry that describes the program and why it is special or innovative. My supervisor came to me a while back and told me that she thought two of our departments, the Parents Association and the Office of Estate and Gift Planning, deserved CASE awards. She told me to take point on the project which meant doing the research for what was required, writing the entries and submitting all materials. It was interesting getting to know more about each of the departments and finding out what made each of them unique and how they demonstrated innovation. We're in the final stages of the submission process now. I've written drafts of the entries up and my supervisors are reviewing them. Everything is due by the end of next week.

Zoo Lights

We had our work holiday party at Zoo Lights last night. Unfortunately I was late because my girlfriend and I attended her work party first. It was my first time going to Zoo Lights so I didn't realize how packed it would be. After finally finding a place to park, we made our way through the zoo and checked out all the light exhibits on the way which were pretty neat. When we got to the tent where the foundation party was, everybody had already left and all the food was gone! I wish we had gotten there earlier because it was a great venue for a party. It was down this long road that was closed off to the rest of visitors and in this open area with a giant fire pit and tents set up for food, drinks and even arts and crafts for kids. We were lucky enough that they hadn't closed the bar up yet, so we grabbed a drink and sat by the fire for a little bit before going back and checking out the rest of the zoo. Fun night overall, but I wish we had made it there earlier so I could have introduced my girlfriend to all the great people I work with.

American Dream Academy

I thought I would use an entry to talk about the organization that my girlfriend works for. She is a program manager for the American Dream Academy (ADA) which is run out of ASU's Center for Community Development and Human Rights. ADA is a parent outreach program that aims to equip parents with the tools they need to get more involved in their children's education. Many parents do not have experience in a formal school environment or come from different countries so they face many barriers from becoming active participants in their children's education. ADA places special emphasis on the importance of obtaining a college degree. ADA has partnered with over 150 schools throughout metro Phoenix. Volunteer facilitators hold classes for groups of parents from each school. Upon completion of the program parents attend a graduation ceremony. Last Friday I was able to attend one of these graduations for the first time and see my girlfriend in action as well as the impact the program has for families. Thew Elementary had about 150 parents participate and graduate from the program, so it was a packed house. My girlfriend was the MC and led the entire event in both Spanish and English - pretty impressive to watch. Parents received their certificates and watched as a procession of their children marched in. Not very many dry eyes in the house. It was a proud day for all, including myself because I was able to see the amazing work that my girlfriend and ADA perform in the community every day.

Mentorship

I have been lucky in this internship to have many mentors and people at the foundation open to teaching me and providing me with opportunities to shadow and learn. Recently, the foundation brought on a new gift officer and he has been an especially great mentor. On is first day he let me know that he always enjoyed helping out interns and told me that I would never be bothering him if needed or wanted anything. He has taken time to show me how he organizes his approach to prospective donors, which includes writing hand-written letters asking for opportunities to meet with them. The letters have really paid off for him so far - everyone he has followed up with by phone has mentioned them. He has let me sit in on those follow up calls which has been great - I've gotten a better idea of how to get your foot in the door even when people are resistant at first. He explained to me that being a development officer is really all about building relationships and letting people know that you can be their connection to ASU. Asking for major gifts comes much later, after you have established that relationship and identified areas where donor interests and values align with initiatives going on at ASU.

Treehouse life

Ok, so here's another one my "random" posts about traveling: After we had finished teaching in southern Thailand, we traveled north to the amazing city of Chiang Mai where a huge new years celebration was taking place. It's pretty much a giant water fight that lasts for a week. There we heard about this thing called the Gibbon Experience in Laos where you get to live in a treehouse and zipline through the jungle for a weekend. It sounded too cool to pass up and we were heading that way anyway so we decided to give it a try. Turned out to be a great decision! When we got to the town in Laso and arrived at the headquarters we watched a five minute video that supposedly told us all we needed to know about zipline safety. Then, we drove about 3 hours into the jungle and hiked for an additional hour where we met up with our guide for the rest of the weekend. He took us a bit further in and we came upon our first "zip". He asked us if we saw the video, we said yes and then he said "ok, follow me" and zipped away! We looked at each other and laughed nervously - Only in Laos would they let you hook up to a zipline a couple hundred feet about the jungle floor with no protective gear, supervision or instruction. One by one we hesitantly hooked up and ziplined our way across the jungle to our treehouse which would be our home for the next few days. In the mornings, we listened to the calls of endangered gibbons and were lucky enough to see them a few times swinging in the trees. We were able to go out and zipline on our own and visit all of the different tree houses that they had set up (we had the best one!). It was an unforgettable experience. I've attached a video of our Gibbon Experience below.

Finding a balance

So this semester I definitely found it challenging to balance work and school...as evidenced by the massive amount of last minute blog entries I'm about to do before the deadline. Last year was my first year in the MPA program and I did not work while I was taking classes. Even though I had an abundance of time, I still found myself doing a lot of my assignments at the last minute. I suppose I have always been an expert procrastinator. Because I already struggled to get school work completed on time, it was hard for me to imagine working full time and taking a full class load. On the other hand, I thought being so busy might help to give me some structure and force me to get my work done on a timely schedule. So this first semester has been sort of experiment with mixed results. I think my internship has definitely pushed me to manage my time better, but I did not do it as well as I should have. I ended up dropping a course this semester, for a few reasons aside from my work load - but had I been better about time management I definitely could have stuck it out. I also neglected this blog much more than I should have, so instead of relaxing this weekend I'll be pounding out these entries! I'm looking forward to next semester, now that I have a better idea of what work and school balance should look like. Hopefully I'll be able to acheive it! 

Gift Proposal

I put together a major gift proposal for a long-time donor the other day. The proposal was for a naming opportunity in the new W.P. Carey building: McCord Hall. If the donor agrees to a gift of certain dollar amount he will be able to name a room in the new facility after himself, a loved one or a favorite professor. It was fun getting to see how the proposal process works at the Foundation. Because we have our own in-house marketing department, there is a slick “proposal on demand” tool I got to use. I was able to choose from various text layouts, pictures and other stylistic options to put together a professional, polished and individualized proposal. Having our own Communication and Marketing Department right down stairs is definitely a nice perk of working at a large Foundation. We’ll find out after the holidays if he decides to make the gift or not!

New Leadership

Recently the Foundation underwent a major changing of the guard. The former president, Johnnie Ray resigned for personal reasons and Rick Shangraw was appointed as the new CEO. I never got the chance to meet with Johnnie, but I know he was greatly admired and respected throughout the Foundation, and that he personally recruited many of our executive team members. For a while I thought it might be a rough transition, but it has been very smooth thus far and Dr. Shangraw seems like an approachable, kind and more than capable new CEO.  Rick was VP for the Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development at ASU prior to this position, and before that he was the Director of the Global Institute of Sustainability. He has done extremely well communicating with all of the Foundation staff throughout the transition process. We have held a couple all staff meetings to meet him and hear about his plans for the foundation. President Crow spoke at one of the meetings and talked about his long history with Dr. Shangraw. Dr. Shangraw has also sent out a few short video messages to everyone to introduce himself, talk about his excitement to be at the foundation and just to say happy holidays. I think the videos have been pretty neat – much more personable than an email blast! I look forward to getting the chance to meet with him before my internship ends. 

Mini-research projects

Whenever I’m not working on a special project, I spend a lot of time digging up relevant material for Gift Officers to give to donors. For instance, one donor wanted to know about all of the entrepreneurial programs going on at ASU. There are a bunch, and it was interesting to learn about all of them. Change Makers  and 10,000 Solutions were especially fun to research – pretty inspiring stuff going on in those projects. These little research assignments have helped me to realize the massive number of programs and events that ASU has going on at any one time. The only problem is, that sometimes it takes hours of researching to discover them. ASU can seem very compartmentalized, and if you’re not apart of a certain program or college than it’s hard to find out about a lot of cool opportunities going on within them. I encourage everyone to take some time searching through all the college websites to find things that interest them. If you’re interested in Entrepreneurship, there are opportunities to get involved in virtually every college of the university. 

Internal Introductory Meetings

My supervisor has been pushing me to meet with as many leaders within the foundation that I can. There are lots, and I am still trying to meet all of them after being with the foundation for over six months. I have really enjoyed the chats thus far.  All of the people I have met with are very impressive individuals coming from interesting backgrounds.  Everyone has been more than happy to sit down with me for a few minutes and share their knowledge and expertise. It has really helped me learn the ins and outs of the different departments, especially the ones I don’t work with on a daily basis. It has been interesting hearing about how all of them came to be at the foundation – none ever thought they would be in development, and many came from the private sector. For the most part, development was something that just sort of crossed their path and they took off with it.  Maybe I’ll have a similar story!