1. 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.

2. 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.)

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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!

“I’ve come back to life – I’d checked out.  This is a miracle…[Housing Opportunities] saved my life, honestly.  I was on the verge of giving up,” a client told me when we were talking one afternoon in her apartment.  For this client, like the majority of those we serve, unforeseen circumstances prevented her from working anymore and a woman who was once a self-sufficient, engaged mother became homeless and suicidal.  “I had nothing – everything was gone.  I was so deep in a hole and I knew I would never get out,” she said.  Housing Opportunities was initially able to help this client by providing her with a temporary housing unit, getting her approved for Social Security Disability Insurance, and offering her companionship at a time when she had never felt more alone.  Five years later, she is a part of our permanent housing program and spends her free time helping HO’s new clients by providing information about resources, giving rides, and being a friend: “I want to pay it forward.”

Hearing stories like the above remind me why it is imperative to serve others.  With my hectic schedule, sometimes I treat philanthropy like just another item on my to-do list; I want to cross it off so I can move on with my day.  But the problem with this mentality is that philanthropy is not confined to the group you volunteer with, your job at a non-profit, or the checks you write to your favorite charity.  Just as we are continually breathing, we should continually be serving.  What I am learning everyday at my internship is that our (humanity’s) need is so great but our potential is even greater.  I’ve seen what an office of twenty-one dedicated individuals is capable of giving to society when they work together towards eliminating homelessness; I want to see what a nation of people can do when they work together towards eliminating suffering worldwide.  This is obviously a grandiose desire; since I started working for an organization whose clientele report we saved their life, I can’t help but dream big.

(below) A client’s daughters style my hair  🙂