I am a senior at the University of Oregon graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Planning, Public Policy, and Management with a minor in Spanish, and I have spent the last six months as a Development Intern at ShelterCare. Going into this year, I did not feel ready for my undergraduate education to end, and I felt frustrated by the lack of opportunities to apply the skills I had spent the past three years learning. My internship at ShelterCare has given me exactly what I was looking for, the perfect opportunity to apply and practice the policy and non-profit management skills I had been taught with the guidance and feedback of the development team to improve them.
This hands-on experience has helped me to learn through firsthand experience many of the tasks essential to non-profit development work. One of the most important skills I have been able to learn about has been grant writing. I have researched grants through grant databases, done research on various foundations, and Cat, ShelterCare’s Development Director, entrusted me with writing two grants. I was even able to secure funding from one of these grants to build move-in kits for ShelterCare program participants. Receiving this grant was so surreal and so rewarding as I know that the funds will go to helping people feel at home in their new houses. I know that these skills will make me a more well-rounded candidate for work in the non-profit sector.
In addition to grant writing, I was also able to help in planning several fundraising events. At the beginning of my internship, I was able to help plan and run ShelterCare’s annual Mega Dance fundraiser. Because this is an annual event, much of the heavy lifting had already been done by the time I came onto the team. However, witnessing and assisting in the preparation of this event prepared me to play a more significant role in this year’s second annual Bags and Brews Cornhole Tournament.
For this event, I was able to help with both fundraising and social media promotion. In regards to donations, I researched local businesses to connect with, contacted businesses to request donations for our prize baskets, coordinated pickups, and helped to put together prizes. I really enjoyed getting to engage with local businesses and see just how much community support was behind ShelterCare’s work. It is truly encouraging to see businesses willing to contribute their goods and services to support what ShelterCare does, and for us to be able to promote their work by including their products and services in prize baskets and on social media. The relationships and the mutual support that went into organizing everything, from event sponsors to prize baskets, showed me how a community should work.
As someone who grew up on the internet and now tries their best to stay off of it, I wasn’t necessarily excited about marketing or social media work. However, once I started working with Alyssa, ShelterCare’s Development and Marketing Coordinator, and saw her spark for the creative freedom she found in social media marketing, I was intrigued. We then decided that one of my first projects would be to choose an aspect of ShelterCare’s work to highlight with a social media campaign I would design, write up, and schedule – the whole shebang. I was lucky enough to come on right as Delancy, ShelterCare’s Volunteer Coordinator, was ready to launch our volunteer program. This gave me the perfect opportunity to get the word out about the amazing work ShelterCare does, why people should get involved, and new opportunities to do so. I then created a five-day social media campaign to distribute across Facebook and Instagram. I had so much fun creating this campaign and seeing engagement on it. This project really changed my mindset about social media marketing. I also fell in love with Canva, (a graphic design tool). I am not sure how I went through three years of college without it.
Following this project, I started to jump at the opportunity to handle social media tasks. Going on to promote our yoga mat drive, cornhole tournament, and move-in kits. The team even trusted me with writing the press release for our cornhole tournament which ended up with the news attending the event!
My learning at ShelterCare extended beyond the walls of 499 (the main office building). The development team invited me to attend many networking events, lunches, and non-profit events with them. This gave me the opportunity to learn not only how ShelterCare works, but about the network of nonprofits they are a part of and the dynamics of non-profits more generally. I also conducted three informational interviews during my second term with professionals from other local nonprofits. These interactions have helped me to get more comfortable with networking. The fact that I was required, as a part of my internship, to meet with professionals from other organizations and learn about their work reinforced once again that Cat didn’t just care about how my work contributed to ShelterCare, but how my work furthered my professional development.
I am so thankful that I was able to intern at ShelterCare. Working with Cat, Delancy, and Alyssa was a work environment I never dreaded coming into. Coming into this experience, I was unsure if I was interested in working in a government or non-profit organization. This experience opened my eyes to the benefits of non-profit work, and the flexibility present in its environment that is missing from government jobs. It came up time and time again through my work at ShelterCare, networking events, and informational interviews, that in the non-profit sector, and especially at small organizations, there are not enough people or resources to have specialists very often, so most employees work more as generalists. As a person who highly values variety and novelty, this was great news, and it really aligned with the experience I had been having in this internship. The variety, flexibility, and trust that I had while working with ShelterCare have motivated me to apply for positions with several nonprofits following graduation. My experience at ShelterCare has been the more enriching and educational experience that I have had in my professional career thus far.
– Ellie White
About the Author
Ellie White recently completed her Bachelor of Arts in Planning, Public Policy, and Non-profit Management at the University of Oregon. Throughout her time in university she has worked in the Oregon State Legislature, studied in Spain, and worked for ShelterCare. She will be moving away this summer with her two cats and her dog to pursue conservation work.