Why should I apply?

You might be thinking: fundraising?  I don’t really want to spend the summer cold-calling alumni asking for cash…and I really wanted to find an internship that helps me learn more about marketing/research/management instead.

I would venture to guess that most D-SIP interns had similar thoughts when they first discovered the program.  I was drawn to the possibility of staying in Ann Arbor for the summer (you really can’t beat it), but wanted to make sure I would have the opportunity to develop actual skills and gain valuable experience in the non-profit sector, where paid opportunities are few and far between.  I was graduating, after all, and wasn’t sure what the future held for me after August.  So please, believe me when I say: apply to D-SIP.  Not only did I develop some serious analytical skills, I did it while working in arguably the most fun environment ever (the Neutral Zone), alongside an interesting, committed staff who helped me more fully understand what goes into running a successful organization.

While interns spent their weeks working on a variety of projects, Friday classes gave us time to: debrief, ask questions we may have been too shy to ask our supervisors, meet high-profile community leaders, discuss (and often challenge) assigned readings, and learning more about the other D-SIPpers.  Each of us came from a unique perspective – we had different majors, different backgrounds, different plans for post-grad – but we all left the program with new friends, interesting stories, and a shared love for the Friday morning coffee.

I can’t say enough good things about my D-SIP experience and the Neutral Zone (seriously, you’d have to stop me), and I’m happy to say that I’m still in Ann Arbor, working in the development department of a local non-profit.  So even if you don’t think fundraising is for you – consider applying.  You might be surprised by what you learn!

Go blue!

Kate

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Brown bag with the VP!

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend a brown bag lunch session with the VP of Development at the institution I work for. I have been spending some time thinking about all those fun questions, you know, the “what am I doing with my life?” kind and having a chance to meet with her was just a super fun perk from my super fun job.

The session was intended for new employees as of a year ago, so I shared lunch with 12 women, all under 25. When our host arrived, her first remark had to do with the overwhelming amount of women working in the field which gave way to a discussion about women in the workforce and what about development attracts or retains more women than men. She mentioned that when she started working for a very prestigious, east coast higher education institution in the 70s, the situation was reversed and it was something that she found extremely boggling. She had (and continues to have) strong feelings about how unjust the work force was for women and she felt it was her responsibility to surpass expectations and work to obtain a leadership role in a fundraising organization like the one she now has.

So of course all 13 women were simultaneously curious and interested in asking, “how did you do it?” The following is her advice.

Start somewhere where the goals and the mission of the institution is something you believe in. The position you first take is less important than being part of an organization you genuienly believe in and can see yourself invested in for a long time.

Ask yourself (repeatedly) what you want to gain, learn, or achieve with the experience and check in with yourself to see how you are doing. It doesn’t have to be a 6 month timeline- the questions you ask could be the ones you will need eight or more years to answer, but it is important to work with a goal in mind. And this she emphasized time and time again. Know what skills you are trying to gain, remain aware of where you are trying to go and have a check list where you can keep track of your progress. If you can visualize it and if you can evaluate yourself, you will remain perpetually aware of the skills you have which helps your confidence, and of the skills you have yet to gain which keeps you motivated.

Find someone in the work place who you find inspiring; someone you want to be like and learn from them. Try to connect with them, observe them, converse with them and analyze what about them you like and want to immitate and why. There will always be someone at any organization you work for that is really good at what they do and they will most likely love what they do. If you have the aspirations to be really great at something, you need someone to teach you the craft and to guide you on your next steps.

Find someone you don’t want to be like and learn from them as well. Observe, converse, take note. There will always be someone difficult to work with or someone you will find hard to understand and it is just as important to learn from him or her as it is to learn from the people you look up to.

That is it, that is how she did it (I mean, I am sure it isn’t it, but this is definitely at the core of what she believes determined her success). It is nothing enlightening per say, it is stuff we hear all the time, but I really liked hearing that it actually works. Especially for the current d-sipers, who I am sure hear it time and time again, you are in an incredibly priveleged position to be interning at Michigan and it is vital that you make the most of this opportunity because like me, you never know where it is going to lead.

As for me, the emphasis on being methodical in your actions to get to where you want to go and of doing some self analyzing is something that really works. It might seem obvious and sensible, but I do think it is really easy to stop thinking about the “little” goals one has to stay focused on in order to reach the “big” goals, the “dreams”. I liked being reminded of its importance and just wanted to share.

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What’s Best When it Comes to Jobs?

A really interesting series of articles was found last week by one of my fellow interns, and was sent around the D-SIP email group (and posted to the D-SIP facebook!). It was a debate held on the New York Times opinion blog centered on recent grads, and whether taking any job is better than having no job. If you’ve read any of my past blog posts, you know this is pretty relevant to me.

Photo courtesy annarbor.com

I graduated from LS&A with a degree in Political Science and Economics, a pretty common degree. I received an excellent, broad, liberal arts education but that’s difficult entering this job market because I’m competing with so many recent grads with similar academic backgrounds. I’m not yet on any sort of pre-professional track, so I could literally do anything. As we near the halfway point of D-SIP, you can see how I start to face this conundrum…should I take just any job, or can I afford to wait for the right one?

What I found interesting about this debate was that the people who most strongly argued in favor of taking any job were the people with the background in psychology. Both talked about how young people in my generation are too over confident when it comes to jobs, and they need a “dose of reality” when it comes to the workplace. One even calls this generation of college grads “Generation Me,” because they are too focused on themselves. Members of Generation Me see work less central to their lives and many jobs as beneath them. While I think that there is some merit to taking jobs and learning how to work, I wholeheartedly disagree that a lot of people my age are too self interested when it comes to finding a job. I’m confident that I personally know what it takes to work hard and reach success; I think I’ve learned that in past internships and on-campus experience.  Thankfully, a number of the other commentators sided with me, arguing that college students should take time when selecting a career rather than just taking a dead-end job. I feel like I have a lot of really relevant experience, even more so now going through D-SIP (which has been great!)…And I think doors will open if I’m patient. While this debate didn’t do much make me feel better about my job prospects, I think it helped reinforce my perspective—and gave me clarity on some the decisions that I will face as my job search continues.

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Networking and the Job Hunt

As apart of D-SIP, each Friday afternoon we get to discuss and participate in activities revolving around professional development.  These sessions have been particularly helpful for me because I am a recent college grad who is both looking for jobs and trying to figure out what career direction I want to move in. This week’s topic was the importance of networking, which led to a long, yet very organic, discussion about different experiences people have had and some strategies some of my fellow interns have used when it comes to this daunting task.

Within the next five years I want to end up in DC, how do I get there? Networking!

The Wall Street Journal this year ran a great blog named “Hire Education,” which followed a couple of college seniors throughout the year as they embarked on their job hunt. On that blog, a recent post said that in general a lot of students have a really hard time networking while they’re still in school.  According to the author, this is due to a few factors including: anxiety, a lack of ability to frame this type of correspondence for maximum effect, and issues revolving around an inability to define self-identity. I mostly agree with these reasons why networking is so difficult for many of us. I can especially identify with this concept revolving around personal identity. In these situations my question always seems to be, if I still don’t truly know what I want to do in life yet (I still dread the question “What are you doing now that you’ve graduated”), how am I supposed to network with established professionals to ultimately gain some benefit for the future?

Luckily, Friday’s professional development session helped reframe this concept for me. I realized that networking is a natural occurrence, an activity that I am constantly participating everyday. Once every couple of months, I email bosses and co-workers from my previous internships updating them on life. To me, this was simply about maintaining friendships, but I’ve come to realize that through this I am also developing my professional network.

I can also say that almost every job opportunity that was presented to me came about due to networking. Whether it was a reference from someone working at the company, to someone forwarding my resume along for me to someone they knew—the way that I received most of my interviews was through using my network. In this economy, it is rare that blindly dropping your resume online works, that is not the only strategy that any recent college grad can use when applying for full time jobs. It is only this year that I have come to see the benefits associated with networking. As the summer moves along I am going to try to work on this skill; it is an ability that I know D-SIP will help me develop and that is really exciting. As always, any comments or suggestions (or career advice!) are much appreciated!

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Success of giving

The other day at work, one of the gift officers I work with pop-quizzed me to see if I was up on my philanthropy knowledge. He showed me the pie chart below (without the text) and asked me which slice of the pie chart belonged to individual giving.

Half instinctively/ half guessing I guessed the largest slice. Turns out, I was right.

According to Giving USA, the total 2008 U.S. philanthropy was $307.7 Billion. Individual giving and bequests accounted for 82% ($251.94 billion) of the total philanthropic dollars, while corporations accounted for 5% and foundations for 13%.

I will admit that before D-SIP and my current position, I shared in the widely-held perception that foundations and corporations are the biggest/best sources from which to obtain donations. However, if we look at dollars raised in the past, the trend tends to be consistent– individual giving is the greatest portion of charitable giving. Even despite the difficult economic conditions in the last year which saw a 5.7% decline in giving, Americans chose to contribute to the causes dear to their hearts.

The brief Philanthropy: 101 session prompted a discussion about the way that individual giving differs from foundation and corporate philanthropy; individual giving by nature is a much more emotional “let’s do good things, let’s be passionate” experience. Foundation and corporate giving is about measureables, sustainability, the systematic approach to making a difference.

The way in which individuals–complex, emotional, intelligent beings–are involved in giving left me with some serious food for thought. Specifically, I am curious about the way in which we measure success (particularly in higher education).

At the end of a fiscal year, how can an institution know if it has been “successful”? Is it the total of dollars raised? Is it the level of donor satisfaction? Is it the number of initiatives/programs that are created? What should we be looking at?!

I’m curious about this because I think that when an institution’s philanthropic support is largely based on individual giving, success cannot solely be quantified, it cannot be turned into charts and graphs because it is naturally much more complicated than a 1 for “yes, I donated” and 2 for “no, I did not”.

In my mind, individuals are much harder to reach and harder to solicit, but also much more involved in their giving (especially when it comes to giving back to their alma mater). They want to support causes they believe in, and they want to work with institutions that make them feel that their monetary and emotional investment is valued. So, in my opinion measuring success cannot solely be a process in which we measure numbers that can be sliced and cut, charted and graphed, but also a measurement of the relationships created and their movement.

I think that being able to have measurements that are a reflection of where a donor started and how he/she has moved is just as important as the amount of dollars raised. Having the ability to know what prompted someone to give, how they moved through the process and what was the pivotal moment in this process which culminated in a donation (or not) is important. I think that there is just as much value in getting an individual to give, as there is in getting someone to move from not being a supporter to accepting that giving back has its merits. I think in many ways it can indicate what the fundraisers did right, but more importantly, it can indicate in which direction they need to be moving.

I’m not sure how institutions do this or even really think about it. It’s something that I am starting to explore more and more within my job so I am still forming my own ideas, but I do think it is very interesting to consider given the fact that individuals are clearly largely invested in giving.

Thoughts?!

** Source: Giving USA 2009 (givingusa.org)

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Beginnings

This last month has been a whirlwind. I spent April enjoying the weather, seeing friends for the last nights out in college, wrapping up my student organization commitments, reflecting on where I am to go in the future, and, oh yeah, taking exams. I graduated May 1^st, a thundering, rainy mess of a morning that turned into one of the most amazing days of my life (I have the Obama commencement address still bookmarked on my browser and watch snippets of it from time to time—does that make me a political nerd?). And then last week I started D-SIP.

Suddenly life is more settled, it has routine.  I feel re-energized and refocused as I start this internship. I still am not totally sure where I want to go next. Over the year, I have had job opportunities come and go and I decided on D-SIP because I felt like it had the perfect blend of personal and professional development to put me on the right path for the future. As the summer moves along I will continue to blog about my internship, let you know how my workdays, philanthropy class, and projects are going, and keep you updated on my job search. Even with this newfound routine in my life I am sure this summer will be equally challenging and enlightening as my April was.

This summer I will be working for the School of Art and Design, which is up on North Campus and is known for producing awesome grads that go onto do great things across many different disciplines.

I’ll be working in Development focused on helping with their annual fund. I’m excited to bring some of my analytical background to the job, but I’m also nervous because I really want to deliver for them. I’ve only worked two full days so far, so once I actually delve into my project more I’ll let you know how it’s going!

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Ready (or Not), Set, Go!

This is what graduating from the University of Michigan felt like exactly one year ago. I was very content living the college life and wanted nothing more than to stay. I disliked everything about the way that being forced to voluntarily leave Ann Arbor made me feel. While my serious lack of excitement about reaching the finish line was founded on numerous reasons, it was perhaps my complete lack of confidence in what came next that motivated my inability to get going and get excited about all those “great accomplishments”  and those “great mountains to climb” everyone kept talking about.

I started applying for jobs right and left. I joined every single job searching website and started cranking out job applications like WHOA without really considering where I had been and what my deep, deep desire was now that I had invaluable experiences and knowledge to share with the world from my time at Michigan. I graduated with a B.A. in Communication Studies and Italian, and I could see myself doing everything under the sun–moving to Italy to teach English, being a kindergarten teacher, PR, Television, Writing, Event Planning, etc. Is it clear yet that I had no sense of direction/didn’t want to accept I needed to find one?! I had to take it back to basics and consider what in my four years at Michigan had been pivotal–what had made my heart leap? I kept coming back to the U-M Development Summer Internship Program which I had participated in the summer before.

Before participating in D-SIP, the only thing I knew was that I wanted to do “good stuff”. I didn’t know how or where but I felt compelled to pursue a career with a mission. Participating in D-SIP opened my eyes not only to the importance of fundraising for higher education institutions, but to the vast world of philanthropy and the infinite number of opportunities available to do “good stuff” in a systematic and purposeful way. D-SIP also encouraged me to consider what philanthropic missions were important to me, and to become a serious participant in giving to those causes that were (and are) important to me, like education. The more I thought about this, the clearer it became that what was most important to me in answering the very frightening “what now?!” question was the underlying desire to enter a business concerned with giving back to society, with linking individual passions with the needs of our world, with the welfare of others.

Once I realized this, my job search went from being practically stagnant to moving rather swiftly. I really wanted to move to Chicago, and I was able to land a position at a prestigious institution of higher education in the area with their central development major gifts team. Crazy to believe (because it feels like I started yesterday,) but I have been in this position for the past six months and I could not be happier.

D-SIP surrounded me with incredibly talented and knowledgeable individuals who motivated me in my quest to find my path post-graduation, and who continue to encourage me as I dabble in higher education fundraising. I am incredibly excited to be part of this field and to share my experiences and thoughts on philanthropy with you all!

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“Real World” living after Canham Natatorium

I never realized how incredible it was to be a member of the University of Michigan Women’s Water Polo team until it was over. While there are aspects (feeling your wet hair crunch because it has turned into miniature icicles as you walk to class in January, the long uncomfortable bus rides to and from Bloomington, waking up at 5:45am to run through the sleeting snow to get to the pool, missing a football Saturday for travel) that made me occasionally question dedicating my entire college experience to Michigan athletics, the good far outweighed the bad so now in hindsight I could not be more thankful I stuck with it.

As I approached my senior year, I was uncertain about what I would do in the “real world”. As my interests spread across performance, design, law, food, athletics, writing, social work – every day I woke up with a new life plan. Somewhere in this process of making future life plans, the development internship program caught my eye. I thought – wow this would be a great way for me to give back to a university that has given me so much. So while I knew very little about having a career in development, after doing some research, talking to people in the industry, reading about Michigan’s current campaign I immediately felt this could be something I would not only enjoy, but could also be very successful. After a summer working in the development office at the law school, shadowing visits with donors, listening to the incredibly passionate stories about why donors give I was determined to make this my life plan.

With my bursting love for college athletics I had to find a way to combine my passion for athletics, higher education, and fundraising. I thought I found the answer when a job opening popped up at DePaul as the assistant director for athletics in development. There was even graphic design involved – I thought this couldn’t be more perfect.  After several rounds of challenging interviews they decided to go with a different candidate. I cried – is my life plan shot down already?

As disappointed as I was to not land my first job in athletics as a development officer, I was equally excited to be offered a position as an academic coordinator for student-athletes at the University of Virginia.  Fundraising may be missing from my current job responsibilities, but the ability to build relationships (the most important skill I attribute to my experience in D-SIP) is what makes me successful as a coordinator. It’s all about the relationships with the students and gaining their trust to support them be successful in whatever it is he or she want to pursue. Seeing the student-athletes win championships, graduate and pursue incredible careers, give back to the community is the reason people give to athletics.  It’s so exciting to be a part of the support system that enables these students to have such a well rounded educational experience.

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