Day 11: Monday June 17th - 9am to 5pm

Researching membership took up much of this day. We sent emails to several other membership organizations asking about their participation. We looked for organizations with similar benefits at a similar price mostly in the Pittsburgh area. We asked them about things like how many members they have, has participation increased or decreased in the past few years, and have they ever had unpaid membership. This will give us a bit of research to go on when presenting a new membership package for the YWCA.

Another task that took up a big portion of the day, was to upload the content to the new website server. About half of the content is new, some created by the Development and Communication Department and the rest by other departments of the YWCA. I worked to take the current content from the website and create documents with instructions for the web designers to create the new website. Stephanie then took all of the content and uploaded it onto Lava New Media in zip files. 

After spending some time doing this, we eventually got a look at some of the content on the new website. It really looked much better than the current one. It is much easier to read and the appearance is more professional. 

Day 12: Wednesday June 19th - 9am to 5pm

Social media was the theme to this day. Stephanie spent most of the day working on the YWCA Greater Pittsburgh Pinterest page, which turned out GREAT! 

I set up a hoot suite and scheduled a few posts for the week to test it out. The YWCA will now be posting on Facebook more often and finally using our Twitter!! My favorite scheduled posts was about the newest class of NASA astronauts. Check it out here!  

I also sent out copies of the Thank You video to the participants as one last final word of our appreciation. I wrote a short note on the back of each of Ellen's business cards, tucked them into the front of each package and delivered each to the participants (or someone who could get it to them).

The best part of this week was going to lunch at the Diamond Market with Stephanie, Ellen, Courtney, and Laura. It is getting close to Steph's last day, so we went out to celebrate! It was delicious! 


Fun Facts by Ellen:

•  Read Women Don't Ask by Linda Babcock
  

Day 9: Monday June 10th - 9am to 4:30pm

This Monday was a bit of a slow day with both Stephanie and Ellen out of the office. I did, however, get my first real experience working with DonorPro. I got to enter in the new members and then create a postcard for them. I printed out the post cards, addressed them, and used the postage machine to get them ready to mail. You can see a video of this in the post right below this one. I had a good time learning how to use the machine. 

Day 10: Wednesday June 12th - 9am to 5pm

This day was quite a bit more exciting than Monday. We got a lot of membership research done in the morning and after lunch, but what was much more eventful was the Nathan's Famous Hotdog Eating Contest. Maggie (the CEO) told us we should go and then Ellen asked us to go take pictures. So, Stephanie and I were off to go watch people eat dozens of hotdogs in under ten minutes. In case you didn't know, the YWCA owns the Nathans on the corner of 3rd and Wood, so they were a big part of the event. 

They chose a male and female winner, but the two actually tied. Maggie held the sign saying how many hotdogs the female winner ate (30), so I got some really great pictures of the two of them. (I'll add these in when I get on a YW computer). 

A big portion of our afternoon was spent with Ellen giving us a lesson about solicitations and direct mail. There is quite a list of things that she told us. 

Fun Facts by Ellen:
These are the most important tips Ellen gave to writing a successful solicitation. 

• Give people an entry point. Open the doors for people to connect. "They give to the American Heart Association because their father died from a heart attack. People give to people, not organizations. They never will."
• Connect to the person on the other side of the letter
• Appeal on benefits not needs
• Strong 1st sentence
• Use "you"

Here's a vine of my favorite intern task today. Learning to use the postage machine! Thanks Courtney!

Day 8: Monday June 3rd - 9am to 5pm

On Monday we began our day with an evaluation/reflection on Tribute. We played a sort of game with red, yellow, and green post-it notes representing things that went well, things that could use work, and things that went poorly. The game really showed how well tribute went this year. We had WAY more green post-its than any other color. Here are a few things from our list. 

Things that did not go well:

• Sponsor tables not being full
• Guests lists need to be obtained sooner
• Volunteer management

Things to work on:

• Structure of the raffle
• Favors (maybe put in bags)
• Need to open ballroom doors earlier

Things that worked:

• Awards
• Board participation
• Food
• Press
• Room appearance (table signs)
• PowerPoint
• Great honorary chair sponsor
• Beautiful flowers
• Good flow

This really helped to put in prospective what everyone thought of the day. Overall we received a lot of praise about Tribute.

The rest of my Monday was full of putting stuff from Tribute away and working on a Project Plan for TTW. 

Last week Ellen expressed one of her "flaws" to Stephanie and me. She said that although she always has a plan for events, she keeps it in her head, which is dangerous. So, she wanted us to spend the next week coming up with a project plan for Tribute. We would research the event through the folders on the shared file, read some of Ellen's fundraising books, and consult whoever we could to make a complete list of everything that must be done for Tribute. Stephanie and I then assigned dates to each task for when they should be completed. 

At the end of the day Monday and for awhile on Wednesday, I put all of this data into a calendar type spreadsheet. Here is my final masterpiece. (It's way too big to just put a picture. But feel free to download to see what I made!)

Fun Facts by Ellen:

• Always write it down!
• Creating a project plan for an event is essential to its future. If you have a step by step guide anyone can make that event happen again, no matter who is still around. 

Day 6: Wednesday May 29th - 9am to 5pm

Since Monday was a holiday, Wednesday was a very busy day. It was our final day to finish up work for Tribute to Women. The day started out with some small tasks like printing a few more table tents, making a phone call about confusion over tickets, and reading over the PowerPoint one last time. The one big task of the day was to create the favors to place at each plate-setting during the luncheon. We used a YWCA chipclip to hold together a copy of the community report, a YWCA coaster, and a YWCA notepad. When we set them on the chairs at tribute we laid a YWCA pen on top as well. Making 650 of these was quite a job and took us every last minute that we were allotted. The van was coming to transport everything over to the Westin at 2, so they had to be completed by then. 

We successfully got them done, but took a much needed ice cream break afterwords. (At Dream Cream an amazing ice cream shop downtown that benefits non-profits and fulfills people's dreams). After this break I counted out 2,000 raffle tickets for the raffle the next day and Ellen sat with Courtney to finish the seating arrangements. 

Also this day Ellen gave us a list of a few things we can work on next week while she is off. 

• Project Planning - we need to create a spreadsheet that lays out what needs to happen and when for TTW so that someone could take over the entire event. We will need to look back at dates on letters in the many folders and create a timeline to be used in the future. 
• Update the rubric used by the selection committee.
• Put together and send out a fiscal year end solicitation. This will include the notepads that we ordered, statistics, a donation form, and a letter. 
• Upload new content onto website

Fun Facts From Ellen:

• Having a selection committee vote on award recipients becomes a popularity contest and there is always a winner or a looser. It is better to create a rubric of criteria and choose the highest scoring nominees. This will build harmony within the committee. 
• Use statistics like 1 out of 4 instead of 400,000 people. Things that you can actually picture have more of an impact on a person. 

Day 7: Thursday May 30th - 9am to 3pm

TRIBUTE! 

Here are some photos from the 31st Annual Tribute to Women Luncheon! 

That day went perfectly! In the morning I stopped and picked up the flowers from the florist for the awardees and then headed over to the venue to get everything set up. I packaged the raffle prizes, and then got to sell raffle tickets with the other volunteers. We ended up making over $2,000! The lunch was delicious (thanks to our menu choices hah) and the rest of the event ran smoothly. 

Here are some photos from the 31st Annual Tribute to Women Luncheon! 

Day 5: Monday May 20th - 9am to 5pm

This week started off with a meeting first thing Monday morning. Stephanie and I sat with Ellen, Courtney and Laura (the two other development employees) to compile a list about everything left to do for Tribute to Women. The list, although lengthy, seemed manageable. Stephanie and I ended up with a quite a to do list for the week. 

• I ordered signs for the venue (Welcome, Raffle, Registration ext.)
• Organized sponsors and their emails into a spreadsheet
• Delivered invites to the last few guests
• Chose the menu for lunch
• Created the PowerPoint to play during lunch (listing awardees, raffle prizes, and sponsors)
• Created table tents for all sponsors and tables bought

Some of this was finished on Wednesday as well. Stephanie also hired an interpreter for the event and made corrections in the script before sending it over to Jennifer Abney. 

Day 6: Wednesday May 22nd - 9am to 4pm. 

On Wednesday we finished up to the to do list, but spent most of the day working on the table placements for sponsors. We had 60 tables of 10 seats, 29 with the best views, and 34 sponsors. It took us a few hours to place each sponsor based on their sponsorship level, what type of company they were, and what board member would be sitting close enough to welcome them. I learned quite a bit through this table placement process. We had to make sure there wasn't a bank next to another bank, similar types of law firms next to each other  and even makes sure the two office supply companies tables were not too close .

Also on this day I learned a bit of general event fundraising advice. 

Fun facts by Ellen 

• Determine an event focus: if your having a fundraiser (as apposed to a friend raiser) make sure you are going to make money.
• No tickets (just RSVP) allows for you to obtain everyone's email, address, name, and phone number at registration.
• Every check sent as a donation provides a name, address, and new donor information. Each should be copied and filed. 
• Create a Who's Who list of the important people at each table. Give that information to the board members to have them work the room and make connections with new/potential donors. 
• Key goals of a fundraising event: generating a prospect pool, creating visibility, and generating funds. 
• When ordering programs order the number of guests, plus the number of sponsor requests sent out this year, plus a few extra for a cushion. You will want to send a program book from this year with the sponsorship request next year. 

Day 3: Monday May 13th - 9am to 4:30pm

Writing the speeches for the Tribute to Women event was our main task this day. We had an example from last year to go off of, but had to create new dialogue for Marsha, Maggie, and Jennifer to welcome the guests, thank everyone, and give out the awards. This speech consisted of not only the dialogue, but the actions and the timeline of the day as well.

To write this speech, we first had to figure out who was sitting at the dais and where. This took a lot more planning than expected. We had to make sure the CEO and President of the Board were sitting by the appropriate sponsors and that the awardees were sitting in the correct order. Also, Jennifer Abney had to be sitting closest to the podium since she is the emcee of the event. 

Overall speech writing was an adventure, but I think we did an alright job. We also got to have some fun decorating our desks that day because a prospective board member was coming in. To get to the conference room and CEO's office, you have to walk right past us, so they wanted it to look nice. We hung old photos from the YWCA's history as well as some other things we found around the office.

Day 4: Wednesday May 15th - 9am to 5pm

The YWCA is working to put together a "Thank You" video to debut at the Tribute to Women Luncheon. The participants in the video will be asked to stand for recognition at the lunch, so we had to make sure to invite them. That was my first job on Wednesday. I had to find contact information for 12 participants and create invitations (since there were only 2 left over) to send to them. The invitations included the details of the event, an explanation about why they are getting a complimentary ticket, an RSVP card, and Ellen's card. We are still waiting to hear back about some of the addresses. This proved that when you need something done by someone else, make sure to leave at least a weeks time for it to happen.

The first week of my internship was a really great educational experience filled with responsibility. 

Day 1: Monday May 6th - 9am to 5pm

The beginning of my first day at the YWCA was a typical introduction. I met my co-intern, Stephanie. We went through a run down of all the major projects we would be completing. We got our computers set up, mapped several drives, and set up passwords. We went and got our IDs made and then had a meeting about the Tribute to Women event coming up on May 30th. 

Stephanie and I got our first assignment during this meeting. We were to create the Program Book for TTW (Tribute to Women). Our first task was to create the program notes. This is a layout to send to the design company so that they can put the book together for printing. It's a basic layout of page numbers and what is on that page. The tricky part is to put all of the ads in the right place. Sponsors pay a large sum of money for these ads and we want to please them all. We started by putting our high level sponsors ads in the front and then worked our way through the book, basing it on last year's. We matched up the bios of the awardees with ads that made sense to what they do. Some of the ads were actually congratulatory images for the awardees. Laying the book out to be visually appealing was also something we had to worry about. This was somewhat difficult since there were still several ads that had not been submitted. 

Our next task was to rework the bios for each awardee. We made them all consistent with using just first names and put them all in the same tense. Some were just a few adjustments and others needed completely rewritten. This took us to then end of our day and a bit into the next day. 

Day 2: Wednesday May 8th - 9am to 5pm

The second day began with finishing up the bios for the awardees from the day before. We really spent most of our day finishing up the Program Book (all other time was spent at lunch with Ellen and cleaning out our desks). At lunch, Ellen went over what we had done the day before on the Program Book and made some changes. She provided great advice about the best way to complete the job.  After lunch I rewrote the welcome letter from the CEO and President of the board. Stephanie and I updated the lists for board members, updated the bio for the Mistress of Ceremonies, corrected the list of sponsors, and created the table of contents after all of the other parts were in place. 

After all of this was completed, I sat down with Ellen to go over all of the sections before sending them out to the design company. She provided me with some helpful writing tips that make a welcome letter sound much more appealing to donors. 

• Don't use infinitives, they take away the personal connection
• Don't take the donors out of the equation. Instead of saying we, say together we. 
• List words in groups of threes based on length. 
• Always use a visual image over non-visual adjectives. Ex. forging a trail

Since my first year at Point Park when I shadowed Mell Steven-Cosnek at the YWCA, I have wanted to be more involved. After some trials and tribulations this year, I applied to the YWCA's Development Department for their Development Internship. I got the interview and immediately found out that I got the job. I am so excited to start working with this amazing nonprofit organization on Monday!

My semester will be filled with many exciting projects. The Tribute to Women lunch is quickly approaching, the donor files are overflowing (and in need of organization), and my fellow intern and i will be collaborating on even more projects. I will be working Mondays, Wednesdays, and some Fridays from about 9 to 5 at the office on Wood Street. I'm excited to be working down town all summer, right across from Point Park. 

This opportunity will hopefully allow me to get some real world experience in development, learn some valuable fundraising skills from my boss Ellen Sheppard, and learn about some of her intricate databases. Planning annual events, writing grants, and soliciting individual gifts will all be on the "to do" list this summer. I can't wait to get started. You'll be hearing more shortly!

Take care, 
Amie