OhioGuidestone journal

6/15/15-Training/Think Tank
This was my first day at my internship. I was greeted with a newly-decorated work
space and the smiling faces of my new colleagues. I was given a tour of the building
and faces that I would eventually grow accustom to. My cubicle was located in a
bullpen with six others who shared my excitement and enthusiasm for fundraising
for such a great cause. The department that I ended up being affiliated with in my
internship was the Advancement department, which does all of the fundraising and
events for the organization. One of the bigger occurrences that happened this day
was the think tank. Think tanking is where my department gets together in a
meeting and shares their upcoming plans, goals, ideas and so on about what they
are individually working on. It is a great means of open communication in the
department, leaving everyone in the know and with the most beneficial ideas. It is
an interesting way of brainstorming, while still being constructive to the main goals
of the group.
6/16/15- VP Cindy, Think Tank, Assignments
Tuesday we met the departments new vice president, Cindy Naegal. This day we
ultimately had more think tank style meetings to incorporate her into the current
events, concerns, procedures, and so forth that the agency is involved with or
facing. This exercise was great practice in communicating with superiors and the
idea of dividing work labor adequately. Also, my direct supervisor, Jessica, gave me
an initial list of tasks that I would be working on in the upcoming weeks. Although
some of the tasks seemed personally challenging, I wanted to get the full
experience of this internship and do my best.
6/22/15- Jessica sick, Assignments, Independent Work
This day of my internship, my supervisor had to call in ill. This was one of the more
self-disciplined days of my time here considering I was responsible for myself and
my new tasks after only being introduced to everything the internship demanded
days before. I had to rely on my interpersonal skills to help me get the expected
results of my direct supervisor through others. Breaking comfort zones by meeting
new people in other areas of the department and such wasnt the easiest thing for
me, but I made good progress on laying out my goals and game plans for the
upcoming projects I was assigned.
6/23/15- Donation Center, Assignments
Today I tackled the donation center. This location of the agency is where individuals
can drop off items to be dispersed through all of the programs that OhioGuidestone
directly helps. The problem with the donation center was that it was disorganized.
Shelves and tables line the inside of what looks similar to a garage were cluttered

and disarrayed with belongings. My task for the day was to organize from top to
bottom, while remaining available to those who would be stopping in to donate or
acquire them. I was able to interact with some of the social workers who use this
facility as often as possible. Hearing from them as to why they do what they do, or
how grateful they were for this location really encouraged me to try harder within
my internship experience; I wanted to be more involved.

6/29/15-Restructuring Assignments for Practicum, Research Promotional

Events
After a confirmation email with Dr. Duncan, we realized that there were aspects of
my internship that needed to be altered. This meant tailoring my internship more
around my requirements versus what the agency was providing for me initially. I had
to make sure that my VCD, COMM and JMC requirements were met in order for my
practicum and internship for an Applied Communication degree to be accepted. We
ended up being able to touch base on each section of requirements, with a strong
concentration being on the communication aspect of my job. Besides this, I also was
requested to look into local events and promotional gigs that would work well with
our agency. One of the tasks I also ended up helping with was writing up a thank
you letter to all those who attended our Walnut Wednesday event in downtown
Cleveland. We had a drawing for a gift card that day, and I was able to congratulate
the winner through a separately written letter.
6/30/15- Newsletter Blurbs, Activities for Stepstone Summer Celebration
Today was one of my busier days at my internship. I attempted a few more
assignments off my list. The first of the assignments being that I had to write small
blurbs for upcoming events we were affiliated with for our agencys monthly
newsletter. These ended up being published after they were received and confirmed
from the department that creates the newsletter. I was to make sure these blurbs
were no more than three sentences, or 140 characters. This task was difficult
because I had to make these events sound intriguing in a small amount of space,
Furthering on, I was requested to come up with activities to be played between our
volunteers and students for an upcoming school promotional event. The games
were to be age appropriate, yet give the ability for volunteers to easily jump in and
become involved with. We ended up choosing a summertime theme for the event,
which led to us choosing more water/sun related activities. I had to be able to keep
the generational gaps in mind while creating an activity that everyone would enjoy,
then convey said activity to my department.
7/6/15- Gift card calling for 16th Annual Harbor House Golf Outing
This day was probably the most difficult task and day for me during my internship.
Our affiliate program, PFSC, was holding their annual golf outing and needed my

departments help in having their local businesses donate gift cards/items to be

raffled off during the benefit. This task was difficult initially because the event was
being held in New Philadelphia, Ohiowhich was difficult for me to help facilitate
considering I am not from the area. They were also on a time crunch and needed
the donations within a week. My first attempt at reaching businesses was through
email and physical mail. I had to draft up a letter on letterhead requesting that
these businesses donate to our cause/event. I was able to send out over thirty
copies of said letter today, but was still uneasy that I would get any response.
7/7/15- ^^^^^^^^^
This day was day two of my task to raise donations for the golf outing. I quickly
learned that if I were going to get quick confirmations and notice of our event, I had
to directly reach out to these managers/owners and call them. This was the hardest
part of my entire internship because I am terrible at communicating over the phone,
let alone soliciting for donations. I secluded myself to the donation center to make
all the necessary phone calls in one day. For being so nervous about this task, I
ended up confirming over twenty donations from locations ranging from flower
arrangements to free meals at local restaurants. I learned that sometimes the fear
of public/uncomfortable speaking situations is often worse than the act itself.
7/8/15 Seminar Requirements, Donation Center
After the stresses of the previous day of solicitation, today was more or less a
recovery day. I spent half of my day in the donation center, organizing and greeting,
and the other half creating game plans for the assignment sheet I originally
received. We also had a working lunch this day as well. Similar to the think tanks,
we went out to lunch with a group of people from the department to discuss our
recent accomplishments and goals. I had a great time learning about my colleagues
besides what we display in an office setting. Interpersonal communication skills
came into play today.
7/13/15 Phone meeting with Crains, Website Giving Comparison
Assignment, Starting Website, Clerical Work, Gofundme Research
On this day we had a phone conference with an organization that we had been
partnering up with, Crains Cleveland Business. They chose our non-profit to be the
benefactor of their third quarter giving and volunteer hours, and we wanted to
reciprocate our gratitude by offering everything possible to make it a meaningful
experience for them as well. I had never been a part of a phone conference before,
but it was fun to meet John over the phone and discuss our ideas on getting the
most of our experiences in the upcoming months.
7/14/15 Website, Webinar for Giving Tuesday

This day at my internship, I started putting together my website portfolio. I have

never put together a website, so I wanted to make sure I allotted myself enough
time to organize and orchestrate it. I chose the site Weebly as my template site. I
started putting together my projects, assignments and requirements in ways that
the evaluation would see fit. I also was able to attend my first webinar this day.
Similarly to building a website, I had never attended a webinar or anything like it
before. My supervisor and I attended a webinar about Giving Tuesday, a charity
campaign that coincides with Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. We are partnering
up with a local business for this event, so we wanted to get as much background
information as possible. We were able to communicate with executives that are
directly linked to the movement, listen to their plans for this years campaign, and
so on. It was a learning experience, and I got to attempt a few new things today to
add to my skillset.
7/15/15 Stepstone Summertime Celebration
Today was based around our school program, Stepstone Academy. We planned out a
social event in which parents, children, community members, donors, and
prospective students could interact, receive knowledge on our school and donate.
One of our partnering agencies, Crains Cleveland Business, attended to be able to
receive volunteer hours and interact with our children. There was a lot of event
planning, photo-journalism, interpersonal communication and so forth that was put
into play as well. We essentially wanted to promote the benefits of our charter
school in the fun, interactive setting of a summer-themed party. I directly worked
with entertaining the kids with some outdoor games, and interacting with our
partnering volunteers.
7/20/15 Crains Cares Flyer, Website
Aside from adding more to my website, and working on certain internship portfolio
requirements, I also put together a flyer for our partnering business (Crains
Cleveland Business). I was responsible for making sure that we promoted this
business at an event that we were going to be attending as OhioGuidestone. We
had a table set up, and at said table, my flyer was supposed to acknowledge our
recent partnership and that we will be launching a campaign together that would
benefit our charter school.
7/21/15 Website, Meeting with Duncan
This day was somewhat of a half-day at my internship compared to what it normally
is. I worked on some small assignments involving research and development for my
supervisor on our upcoming charity campaigns and events, as well as working on
my website portfolio. Unexpectedly, I received an email this day that informed me
that Dr. Duncan had limited appointments left for a meeting involving my
practicum/internship requirements. The only day that was appropriate to my
schedule ended up being today, forcing me to leave my internship three hours early.

I was able to make it to said meeting with Dr. Duncan and she was able to confirm
that my requirements were on track for completion.
7/22/15 Giving Tuesday Research, Residential Picnic
Continuing on from the previous week, I continued my research that was
encompassing that idea of Giving Tuesday campaign. I also was able to find an
application that will be useful in upcoming relay/walks in order to receive donations
in correlation to miles completed. We also had another event today with our
residential children and donors. The children in this program are typically at-risk
teens, so any community involvement is encouraged. We had the local police and
fire departments out with their trucks and such to play with the kids. We also had a
bunch of prospective donors present that wanted to be more involved in their giving
efforts.
7/27/15- Giving Tuesday meeting with Alyssa, Research.
The research that had been found thus far on Giving Tuesday endeavors was the
topic of interest in a very important meeting today. Our marketing and
advancement supervisors were present in said meeting, and wanted to know our
overall plans for our Giving Tuesday campaign. This was the first meeting I had ever
been to that was conducted in said manner, so it was interesting to see how
communication levels and language change depending on the environment. I
managed to be maintain a good level of participation within this meeting, giving my
opinion/advice when I saw necessary. Other than the meeting, my main objective for
the day was working on further research for our upcoming projects and events.

7/28/15- Helped with upcoming activities for Stepstone, emails with

Crowdriser exec.
Today I sat in on further meetings for upcoming events revolving around our
different programs. Throughout this internship, I have learned that not only is there
a lot of planning/research that goes into each event and idea in an agency, but also
the chain of command and amount of editing needed as well. The programs that I
was consistently working on were our Giving Tuesday donation campaign, Crains
Cares, and the donation center. I also was able to be involved in a chain email with
executives from Crowdriser, a app that we will be using for broadcasting/controlling
our donations for Giving Tuesday.
7/29/15- Website, Another Webinar for Giving Tuesday and Crowdriser
Besides continually working/adding to my website requirements, I attended another
webinar event on Giving Tuesday. This webinar was specifically designed to show
the possibilities our campaign could embody, whether it be marketing techniques,
beneficial platforms or what have you. We were able to see how we would set up

the layout of our site, and exactly how to run it, as well as speak to some of the
professionals who run the site.
8/3/15- Donation Center, Website
For my last week at my internship, we kept it pretty simple and slow-paced. I was
able to re-organize our donation center, and make sure everything was up to date. I
also added further information and requirements to my website portfolio.
8/4/15