One of the Robin Hood Foundation’s key goals is to build capacity within the nonprofit sector of New York City across all areas of effective pathways out of poverty. I worked on two main projects while with the organization and both helped the organization to achieve these goals. The primary project that I worked on was the Grant Readiness and Insights Training (GRIT) initiative that Robin Hood runs each year. I helped to operationalize this year’s workshop series by working with colleagues to develop workshop content, recruit nonprofit participants, and survey previous alum of the program to inform changes and improvements. This program is one of the best ways that Robin Hood has of providing valuable learnings to organizations that are not yet able to secure significant philanthropic funding. In part due to my work on the program, Robin Hood is planning a potential expansion of the program to have it run twice annually, and thereby double its impacts. The second project that I worked on was with Robin Hood’s management assistance team, to help them revaluate how they prioritize and approach organizations within Robin Hood’s grant portfolio to work on large scale collaborative capacity-building projects. The results of my work should contribute to stronger engagement and more collaborative pairings between the management assistance team and leadership at those priority organizations.

These projects required me to effectively collaborate with a diverse group of team members and make high-stakes decisions. also called upon my analytical skills and judgement developed through courses such as High Performing Nonprofits, and Challenges in Launching Social Ventures to review nonprofit applications for the GRIT program to isolate those that would gain the most from participating in this year’s cohort. I also was asked to perform a detailed evaluation of the applicants and eventual cohort across a number of demographic categories, which utilized skills formed in my stats and data analytics classes. The management assistance project had me performing a landscape analysis of other similar capacity-building programs and how they evaluate potential organizations to work with. I also had to present my work to the entire company, which required me to put a deck together and exercise my presentation skills.

I have no real background or experience working in Robin Hood’s mission area of pathways out of poverty in New York City. One of the main challenges that I faced was the need to quickly absorb a lot of information and familiarize myself with the nonprofit landscape in that sector. I feet that I was able to rise to that challenge during my time there. I had wonderful supervisors who ensured I was unafraid to ask questions when an acronym was used that I didn’t understand, or an organization or individual was named and I did not immediately grasp the connection. I also took advantage of having a terrific team of co-associates working with me throughout the summer, most of whom had an academic focus on social issues in the city and poverty relief. We were able to have many robust conversations that really helped to ground me in the space. I also tend to struggle with public speaking and professional presentations. As I was aware I’d be presenting to a large audience of experts at the end of the summer, I worked closely with my supervisor not only on preparing the deck, but also practicing the presentation with her as audience to get the timing right and really focus on my key takeaways. This was definitely a challenge but proved to be one of the most invaluable aspects of the experience.

When I decided to join the Robin Hood team as a summer associate my primary goal was simply to experience a work environment that was very different from my past experience at a small nonprofit in Washington, DC. I was unsure that the actual projects that I’d be working on would fully utilize my MBA developed skills, but Robin Hood is renowned as one of the most eminent foundations in the city, and I wanted to learn from some of the best what it takes to operate and effect change at an organization of that scale. I was pleased to see that Robin Hood has such a diverse team of individuals on staff and that they all have an amazing work ethic and respect for each other, and that goes a long way to contributing to the foundation’s success. About myself, I learned that I am really good at stepping into a situation that is completely new and learning quickly to ensure that I am providing valuable contributions to my team. I thrive in that environment when I’m provided with the right resources and mentorship.