"I worked as a summer associate at the Robin Hood Foundation, with two primary projects. The first project was focused on Robin Hood’s family philanthropy programs. These programs provide an introduction to poverty-fighting and Robin Hood’s mission for the youth in New York City. For this project, I assessed how effective the programming was at: 1) cultivating increased donations from the participating families; and 2) inspiring the youth participants to pursue careers in the social impact space. My second project was focused on the investment strategy for an educational initiative called the Learning + Tech Fund. Through this project, I explored the current landscape of family engagement programs in New York City and analyzed how Robin Hood’s investments could best support the future success of these programs within the five boroughs. Both projects support Robin Hood’s mission of following the data, investing in the most impactful nonprofits, and supporting families.

I applied many of the skills I learned in my classes at Columbia Business School during my summer at Robin Hood. I utilized many tools learned in my strategy classes in developing my final project, a landscape analysis. I assessed a marketplace for risks, opportunities, and redundancies to determine where Robin Hood’s investments would best succeed. Additionally, many of my elective classes focused on evaluating nonprofits and social enterprises that currently exist in New York City. This curriculum allowed me to effectively contribute to conversations and provide meaningful insights to the Robin Hood team. Through courses such as Impact Investing and Global Philanthropy, I was prepared to discuss and analyze impact measurement techniques, which is a focus area for Robin Hood.

The largest challenge I faced was experiencing my internship in a remote setting. While outside of our control, I was eager to meet my colleagues face-to-face and engage in conversations with the brilliant minds at Robin Hood. Despite this, Robin Hood did a great job of setting up meet and greets so that the associate class was able to meet employees across various functions and specialties. While the summer associate class held Zoom happy hour and other remote activities, it certainly was not the same as being in person. I am hopeful I will get to meet some of my summer colleagues in person down the road!

After my summer at Robin Hood, I found myself completely in awe of the organization. It is filled with inspiring, brilliant, passional people who will stop at nothing to help New Yorkers in need. I wish I had more than 10 weeks to work with this incredible group of people, as I have so much to learn from my teams and their remarkable experiences. I gained a deeper level of respect for the sheer volume of planning, assessment, and feedback that goes into every decision Robin Hood makes. The team brilliantly combines quantitative and qualitative approaches, and supports a culture of empathy, collaboration, and humility. This opportunity opened my eyes to what a career at a foundation or other nonprofit may look like. The work was dynamic, innovative, and inspiring. This experience was exactly what I was looking for when applying to Columbia Business School. I was eager to find an experience that combined strategic thinking with mission-driven purpose, and Robin Hood did just that. I look forward to continuing to support Robin Hood and hope that many future CBS students considering spending their summer with the team!"