During my summer at GoodLight Capital, I primarily worked on initiatives related to organizational strategy (my internal project, described below) and capital raising. GoodLight Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in underrepresented founders (primarily women, Black, and Latino) who use technology to solve consequential challenges (namely, climate, health, education, the future of employment, and financial inclusion). For example, I had the opportunity to work on an SPV investment made in Rasa Legal, a public benefit corporation founded by a former public defender. She and her team have developed a legal technology that assesses eligibility for expunging criminal records and then automates the expungement process. Their service is 75 to 90 percent cheaper than a traditional law firm. They are currently operating only in Utah but will expand to Arizona this fall. This investment was related to two of GoodLight's sectors of emphasis, future of employment and financial inclusion, because criminal records serve as a barrier to employment and to financial services.

My capital raising project involved synthesizing my previous experience in communications and political fundraising with my newly acquired understanding of LP financing. The firm was about to begin its follow-up campaign for existing LP/GP prospects for Q3 as part of the capital raise for its first fund (previous investments had all been one-off SPVs). I previously worked as a fact checker and copy editor at MissionWired, a digital fundraising agency that works for campaigns and nonprofits. Although I was primarily on the UX side of the equation, I was able to observe clients' long-term donor engagement strategies. Using this experience, I designed a communications cadence for these GoodLight prospects. Although I did not execute this strategy, I was happy to flex this muscle in order to help with the capital raise for our first major fund.

My internal project arose from a conversation with the founder and managing partner, Jacques-Philippe Piverger. He asked me what my favorite class last year had been; my favorite was Organizational Change with Professor Todd Jick, which sparked my interest in the role of internal meetings and offsites in developing strategic plans.

I spent the first two weeks of my summer designing an agenda for a two-day team offsite in Toronto. I pulled examples from Professor Jick's class and consulted him for his insights about the ideal agenda. His advice was (unsurprisingly) incredibly helpful both in terms of the tone I should emulate as a facilitator and the content I should emphasize.

The main takeaway I had from Professor Jick's course was the insufficiency of great plans and great enthusiasm with implementation. After the offsite, I was in charge of tracking the 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month goals we had agreed upon and reporting our progress against those goals to the executive team at the end of the month.

The best and most challenging thing about my internship was the fact that the firm is a small, entrepreneurial, all-hands-on-deck operation. I had the opportunity to dip my toes into very different parts of the business when needs arose, suhc as preparing and editing decks, interfacing with LPs, hearing conversations with institutional investors, preparing a DCF, and pitching in on deal analysis. I was able to make a mark on several parts of the business beyond my domain of strategic projects. However, I did not heed one of Professor Jick's main pieces of advice: not to let myself get sucked in too deep to the operations of the firm. He cautioned me against letting my eagerness to learn erode healthy boundaries! Perhaps I should have listened to that advice more closely. Although I really enjoy the team and the work, I have struggled to extricate myself from the ever-evolving needs of the firm and the ever-incoming emails from Jacques-Philippe. I have continued working for the firm into the fall, although I would like to bow out sooner rather than later.

I have learned so much from this experience, in terms of what I do want with my career and what I do not want. I learned that a serious, rigorous impact orientation is non-negotiable for me, and that I am not interested in working in a for-profit environment that does not align its work with a mission. This helpfully refocuses my full-time job search as it removes several companies I had had on my long list. By speaking with other players in the venture capital industry, especially those not oriented towards impact and towards underrepresented entrepreneurs, I learned that I will not be a true-blue venture capitalist. The culture values extractive capitalism and growth at all costs. I also discovered that I would really enjoy a chief of staff role immediately out of school. I enjoy big-picture thinking and coordinating distinct activities towards a shared goal — it reminds me of my pre-business school work as a theater director. However, I also learned, through the deterioration of my free time over the summer and now in the fall, about the double-edged sword of these catch-all roles. I will be cognizant of this dynamic (and my disposition to participating in it) moving forward.