Courtney Catallo ’13
My Experience
This summer I worked on a variety of projects including (but not limited to) creating a current state organizational assessment and strategic business plan for an after-school youth development organization, conducting a funding assessment for a local park conservancy group in Boston, and developing a financial tool for an arts high-school that projects expected revenues and expenses based on levels of student enrollment. TDC’s mission is to provide the nonprofit sector with the business and management skills critical to operating effectively. In my work this summer I helped to achieve this mission by better preparing a number of organizations for the future in a lasting way. In my project with the arts school, I worked with the client to create a financial tool that they can use well into the future to understand the benefits and consequences of changing their student enrollment numbers. The model took into account necessary changes in expenses related to staffing, space and supplies based on the particular enrollment levels by arts ‘major’ (i.e. music, dance, theatre, etc.). In addition, I worked with a park conservancy group in Boston to understand the implications of a reduction or elimination in its current state funding on their operational business model. I conducted numerous stakeholder interviews with the conservancy’s current donors, potential donors, peer park groups, and other local nonprofits to understand their current environment and look for best practices. My final written assessment was published as a public document and was presented to the state. Lastly, I worked with an after-school youth development program to help create their five-year strategic business plan. As part of the process, I created a new framework for the client to use in order to assess potential program expansions in the future. The client used this framework (and will continue to use it) in order to better understand the implications related to growth and program expansion.
One of the things I liked most about my internship at TDC is that I was able to directly use many of the skills I learned at CBS. First, many of my projects required that I used my finance and accounting skills that I learned in my core business classes. I built a financial model for a high-school using the information gained during my finance class. I also worked on number of projects that involved conducting current state organizational assessments and creating five-year strategic plans. For these projects I used a wide-variety of skills learned in my classes. I conducted financial analysis for these organizations to better understand their current financial health and where they should be in the future. I also used the skills I learned in my strategy classes (Strategy Formulation and Marketing Strategy) to help figure out the best way for these organizations to position themselves in their markets moving forward. Lastly, the two classes I took related to nonprofit management (The Nonprofit Sector and the City and High Performing Nonprofits) were probably most relevant to my work this summer. These classes provided me with specific nonprofit examples that aligned very well with the projects I worked on over the summer. I was able to refer directly back to the case studies discussed during class to help think through some of the problems faced by my clients.
The biggest challenge I faced this summer was adjusting to getting thrown into a number of different projects at once. Much of this was related to the fact that I was a summer intern, and therefore did not have a ton of time to get used to working with each of the clients. Since I was only working for such a short amount of time, I was expected to pick up the information quickly and to be able to work on my own without much guidance. Especially in the beginning of the internship, it was difficult to pick up in the middle of a project and continue with it as if it was my own. However, as the internship progressed, I better adjusted to learning so quickly and figured out the appropriate point people in the office to help when needed.
This experience helped me learn a lot about both the nonprofit world as well as about where I see myself in the future. First, this internship provided me with the opportunity to interact with a variety of nonprofit organizations working in different fields. This allowed me to better understand the different types of challenges nonprofits currently face and how they deal with them. This experience also helped me learn a lot about where I see myself in the future. By interacting with a wide variety of organizations, I was able to better figure out where my interests lie and what types of organizations I am most drawn too. I also realized that I really enjoyed working on my projects this summer and found that I do in fact enjoy the field of nonprofit consulting. While at this point I am still unsure whether I want to remain in consulting or move to working in a more focused nonprofit organization, this summer has provided me with valuable experiences in the nonprofit world. I know I will use what I’ve learned this summer in my future career.
