Falling in Love with Non-Profits
Before becoming a NPI Fellow, I focused mainly on the for-profit sector for work experience. I interned at a venture capital firm for a year and a half and then a public accounting firm for a summer. After these experiences, as great as they were, I knew it was the right time to give the non-profit realm a chance.
After being selected as a fellow, I was placed at the Center for Employment Training (CET). The center’s mission is to aid students in gaining the vocational skills to be employable upon graduation. CET is one of the most successful in the country, with the highest retention rates, employment rates and highest earnings gains across their 14 locations. While working in the executive office as their Community and Social Media Relations Intern, I have pushed my knowledge beyond the classroom. While I am an Management and Information Systems (MIS) major, my work is much more focused on PR and marketing concepts and therefore, I needed to adapt my MIS skills to help me accomplish day to day tasks. Whether it be cleaning up datasets or creating flyers and brochures, each day is exciting and quite unique.
Though I was aware of the differences between non-profits and for-profits on paper, experiencing them first hand has been quite valuable. Non-profit work has already taught me quite a bit about the significant role and impact an individual can have in the non-profit world and this just hasn’t been my experience at larger, for-profit firms. As my supervisor and I went through our goals for the year together, I had a comprehensive list surrounding my goals of expanding of my knowledge and understanding of non-profits. Her sole objective: make me fall in love with non-profit work. With each passing day of work, I feel myself succumbing more and more to her objective.