One Month Marker

This is my first foray into the wonderful world of Project 55 blogging, and it's been great getting a sense of what everyone else has been up to so far. I've now been at the Foundation Center in New York for a full month, and can hardly believe it! Perhaps some of you are familiar with the Foundation Center (or have become so after starting your fellowship), but if not it's definitely worth checking out! I've worked and volunteered for a number of non-profits in the past, but the Foundation Center has been completely different than all of them. Instead of being one part of a 10 person sparsely decorated office, suddenly I'm part of an actual division, in an organization that spans multiple floors!

I arrived on the first day to find out that instead of becoming a part of Educational Services (which has acquired my PP55 cohort, Reilly Kiernan), I'd be joining the dynamic, recently formed "Business Development" team. Basically, that means that we (an unstoppable team of four) work with the Foundation Center's products: their sale, development, maintenance, etc. Regardless of what this actually means in relation to what I do, working at the Foundation Center has already given me fabulous insight into the complexities of the non-profit sector, from the perspective of both the grantseeker and grantmaker. Having done more hands-on non-profit work in the past, it is very interesting to get more of a bird's eye view of the challenges of the sector. Hopefully I can continue to learn as much in the coming months as I have in the past 4 weeks!

I hope that everyone has a great holiday weekend!