As an upcoming graduate of the Ohio State University and intern with the Women’s Fund of Central Ohio, I found Regina Mahone’s response to Caroline Preston’s coverage of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network conference interesting and representative of many of my own experiences. I have interned for over a year now with the Women’s Fund of Central Ohio with the grants department, and throughout that year I have been inspired by their strategies to promote social change for women and girls. Now, I know that I want to work within the non-profit sector in the future.
Regina’s article discusses how the current dismal state of the economy is affecting the goals and projects of non-profits. It also appears that the economy is: 1) decreasing job opportunities for recent graduates (an economic phenomenon I have personally felt in the past three months); and 2) presenting recent graduates with new and unusual opportunities to advance (another trend I have personally experienced in my job search process).
Throughout this past winter and spring I have applied to very competitive internships with non-profits in Washington D.C. and New York City such as The Women’s Foreign Policy Group, The Institute For Women Policy Studies, and MADRE. I was accepted to a few of the internships I applied to but the majority of the responses were that they had to cut down on the amount of staff members or that their budget for this year only had room for one intern. As a student who has a 3.9 GPA, multiple internship experiences, experience with thesis research and conducting international fieldwork, and who has excellent office and organizational skills, I was surprised with such negative results! My advisor attributed it to the bad economy: let’s face it; it is a BAD time to graduate.
I believe that although non-profits are affected by the crippled economy, like Regina suggests, they are also able to present opportunities for advancement and their work is increasingly crucial in this suffering economy. It is important for recent graduates to recognize that this economic crisis has not only created a lack of job opportunities in the non-profit sector but also has created areas of need within our communities, making the work of non-profits increasingly important. Recent graduates should not only be motivated by the possibility to assume “new and unusual” opportunities to promote social change, but they should be motivated to impact the communities who are suffering the most from such poverty.
If I were to offer advice to young nonprofit professionals to keep them from leaving the non-profit sector, I would encourage them to consider the social impact they can make by assuming such new and unusual opportunities. For instance, since 2001 the Women’s Fund of Central Ohio has awarded 90 grants worth nearly $800,000 to programs that enhance the economic independence, life skills, and leadership potential of women and girls in central Ohio. Why would a recent graduate pass up an opportunity to directly impact the lives of women and girls, or other populations, through non-profit activism? I have decided to move forward next year in the non-profit sector with Teach For America, a national non-profit organization which strives to solve educational disparity by sending high achieving graduates into low income schools. My work as an intern with the Women’s Fund has allowed me to see how one can make a direct social impact with their career and I have been inspired to continue such work next year as well as for the rest of my life.
Written by Kate Roy