HO helps clients with foreclosure prevention: I always knew that HO provides housing for the homeless but did you know they also offer a variety of financial counseling to help people keep their homes? For example, I got to sit in on a counseling session for a client who wanted to explore reverse mortgage.
Mastering Excel is something you actually need to put forth effort to do: As a Millennial, when people ask me questions like, “Do you know how to use the latest version of this Apple product?” or “Are you proficient at PowerPoint?” I always answer instinctively, “I’m sure I could figure it out” (never mind that I despise Macs and Presi is my right hand man). Generally, my arrogance isn’t completely unwarranted and after a few minutes of “messing around” I’m able to get the job done. Turns out, this mind-set doesn’t work for Excel. So before you tell your co-workers you can perform Excel-oriented tasks, make sure to set aside time to watch Lynda tutorials and save yourself from painfully Googleing your way step-by-step through your work. (Not that I’m speaking from experience of course.)
Don’t spend money you don’t have. Develop and maintain a low-impact exercise routine now to help prevent mobility loss in the future. “Coffee is NOT a meal, Rachel!” Back up your work on the computer or risk losing everything. You can’t help people until they are ready to be helped: My favorite/least favorite part of my internship has been working in an office full of women who are significantly older than I am and are therefore full of wise advice. The ideas I listed above are all things I had heard before but never really internalized until now. Thanks, co-workers, both for making me feel absurdly young and for making me wise up about a lot of important topics.
A four-step development cycle for cultivating donors is 1. Identification/Qualification 2. Cultivation 3.Solicitation 4. Stewardship : I had the privilege of sharing an office with Jaime Miller the Development Officer at HO. Through both formal job-shadowing and informal conversation, Jaime taught me loads of valuable knowledge about how to connect donors and non-profits in a mutually beneficial relationship.
Sitting at a desk all day is more exhausting than running around all day: During ungrad my number one stressor was the constant pull on my attention from what felt like 100 different sources. I spent a lot of time scheduling and trying to multi-task. I was relieved when I found out I would *only* be working one full-time job over the summer. I assumed being able to give my undivided attention to one activity would eliminate a lot of stress and completely free-up my evenings and weekends. What would I possibly do all evening without any homework, study groups, or meetings? You can imagine my surprise when I found myself coming home, cooking dinner, and falling asleep on the couch watching the news. Why is sitting at a desk all day so exhausting to me but running around campus was manageable? I realized not being able to move around while working and change my scenery, work in complete silence, and switch activities whenever I want is a difficult task in itself!
