Since first stepping foot onto Valpo’s campus as a freshman three years ago, the infamous “What are your plans after graduation?” question has always been daunting.  My typical response provides a semi-decent answer, as I mention my aspirations of a career in the nonprofit world. Yet, the follow up question—“What do you plan to do in that field?”—is more challenging. My 21-year-old (male) instincts tend to kick in at this point, and I reply with a simple, “Not sure. I still have to figure that out.” I’m realizing, though, that things need to be figured out fairly soon. Over the past month, my time at Legacy Foundation provided several opportunities for me to realize three key organizational characteristics that are essential for the nonprofit in which I will someday work. Whether observing a diverse group of area residents rally behind Legacy’s collective impact initiative known as “Neighborhood Spotlight”, conceptualizing hurtful […]

Nearing completion of my third week at Legacy Foundation, it’s nice to pause and reflect on the first portion of my internship as a CAPS Fellow. Prior to starting, I wasn’t particularly knowledgeable of Legacy’s work; in fact, my understanding of community foundations was fairly nonexistent. Thankfully, I’ve learned quite a bit so far. As my internship focuses on grant-making research and evaluation, my first project dealt with restructuring Legacy’s grant report form. I quickly discovered that grant reporting is a very critical component of the grant process, and must therefore be structured well in order to accurately measure outcomes. After researching several key questions that other foundations ask on their forms, I soon developed questions that Legacy could use. In addition to typical qualitative questions, Legacy seeks to evaluate specific data pertaining to grant effectiveness; in other words, quantitative questions must be incorporated in this process. Though the value […]