I had many goals in this internship, because my role is one that was flexible to what I

wanted to get out of my internship, in paralleled with my official responsibilities. One specific

goal I had for this internship was to learn more about the role of Frontline fundraising in Higher

Ed Development and make as many connections in this world as I could. I had prior experience

with fundraising growing up, and in my roles in extracurricular leadership, but I had not had the

experience in a formal setting or in specifically Higher Education fundraising. With that goal, I

had the mindset of being a sponge and learning anything and everything new I could, and saying

yes to every project that I was considered to sit in on. I accomplished it by holding true to my

first promise to myself of saying yes to every opportunity that came my way and that led me to

working on projects that no other intern has worked on before in the organization (scalable of

course). I was also able to take part in the organization’s ASPIRE Frontline Fundraising

Development Program, being the second student to ever take part in the program. I took

advantage of the connections of the organization and met one on one with front line fundraisers,

and the senior leadership team of the foundation. I feel that I not only met my goals, but I

exceeded them and made connections that will last me way beyond my internship and into my

professional career someday. A secondary goal I met was getting more comfortable with

business acumen, which naturally happened when I was scheduling meetings, socializing with

coworkers, and learning the culture of the organization.

I was very worried coming in and working in a traditional cooperate position and

working under a manager/supervisor. I have worked before, but in retail where day to day

operations were significantly more casual. I came in not knowing what to except for a formal

working relationship with my manager. I came in with thinking I was more “reporting” to my

boss rather than working with them. My expectations were completely wrong. My supervisor is
very patient with me and met me where I was in my professional career, I feel that my

professional development and organizational success are a priority for her. She is admirable in

that she does not withhold any information for me to be successful. This information was

something as little as reminding me to get my parking validated or to showing me how to use

Outlook to advising me how to communicate with the organization’s CEO. I would without a

doubt work with my supervisor again and I hope that my future managers/bosses will have

similar characteristics to Jenna because she created an environment where I felt safe to try new

things, voice my opinions, and make mistakes with the confidence that she would steer me in the

right direction. Something I admire about her is how dependable she is in the organization.

Everyone knows that they can count on Jenna to get the job done right, and I hope that I have

learned from her in this internship to have the work ethic and quality of work that everyone

knows they can count on. She also presented the concept of “managing upward” to me which

made me feel empowered to help her on her projects and that the work we did was collaborative.

I hope my future mangers have the characteristics that Jenna has!

The Organization I work for affects change in everything it does. The ASU Foundation is

a supporting nonprofit organization with development of Arizona State University and its

programs as the focus. Just like the university, the ASU Foundation, follows the ASU charter,

which impacts every decision the Foundation Leadership Team makes for the organization.

There are two programs that I have been a part of that I can directly see change being made. The

first is Women in Philanthropy, which is an engagement program empowered by the foundation.

The group, in partnership with the Foundation, fundraises to fund grants for ASU Students and

Professors with big ideas, but not enough funding. I have directly been involved with the Grant

Review Committee which picks a select amount of number of team applicants for grants as large
as $50,000. Team projects range from research programs on life threatening diseases to

revolutionary technology conventions. Another program that the Foundation fundraises for The

Julie Anne Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at ASU. This entity, in partnership with the funds

that the foundation is raising for it is revolutionizing how we view planetary health. It is the first

University effort to learn about and stop the climate crisis that is upon us. With the funds the

foundation has raised, they have just opened the Walton Center for Planetary Health, that opened

in 2022, and is the home of GFL. I had the honor of directly working with the Global Futures

Laboratory frontline fundraisers through developing a a donor stewardship process, which they

had not had before. I felt that my work directly impacted donor relations, leading to donor

satisfaction, and paving the way for more gifts and in turn more revolutionary products. Day to

day, I also helped with administrative work, i.e., board of directors’ recruitment booklets,

organizing grant applications for Women and Philanthropy, creating slide shows for all staff

events, and more that catered to the organizational needs of the foundation so the frontline

fundraisers could continue their work.

Over the course of my internship, I had the opportunity of continuous learning and

development. My manager and team were highly invested in my success, and I did not encounter

that many barriers. To identify one, I had never worked in a formal office environment such as

this before, and as expected, there was a huge learning curve. I was inexperienced with using

Outlook, clocking in and out, the organization’s culture, and other business acumen. In this

learning process, my direct manager Jenna and her boss Travis were an instrumental support

system for me. They both, were fully invested in my learning and did not let me fail. I had

weekly one on one meetings with my manager, where we would discuss my current projects, any

projects that were coming through the pipeline, organizational updates, and go over any
questions I had. These meetings made my manager feel incredibly approachable which in many

cases is unique and something I want to embody when I am a manager someday. Another sense

of support I had was that my team and my boss were very open from day one about meeting me

where I was in my professional career, they knew I was inexperienced and so they broke

everything down for me until I built a strong foundation. I will never forget a conversation I had

with my boss that was centered around learning, and she told me that our team will celebrate

each other when we succeed and do things perfect, but we will never let each other fail. This

gave me the confidence to try new things under the understanding that our team would give input

and support. Another means of support were the friends that I made with Directors and

Development and Senior Leadership Team members that had stock in my success. They

recognized my strength in fundraising and continuously trusted me with projects and gave me

guidance for not only my internship but also my professional aspirations.

My degree path is special, in the sense that it is somewhat open ended and allows me to

go many places. My internship was my first venture into something more specific to what I could

potentially be doing as a career in the future. My degree is Organizational Leadership and Project

Management, which is different than Frontline Fundraising and development but have vital uses

and similarities. This experience gave me vital in organization experience that you simply cannot

obtain from reading alone, which I have already seen has brought my learning to life. I have been

able to relate experiences or situations from the office into scenarios in course work to better

understand the concepts we are studying. The only course I have left that is related to my degree

is my Pro Seminar course, which I imagine with encompass a lot of reflection about my degree

and learning. This will be a perfect time to use my experiences in my internship with my career

path after college. I also foresee myself looking at the rest of my course work with a Frontline
Fundraising and Development lens and not solely a project management lens. The concepts still

overlap and align but now with a concentrated focus.

In short, yes, I would recommend other students who are interested in nonprofit work

pursue an internship at the ASU Foundation. The organization is rooted in building each other

up, and the culture is one of support and innovation. I feel that the company truly cares about

every one of its employees and everyone genuinely cares about each other personally and

professionally. I cannot think of a better place to have had my first real, in office position.

Though, if I were to recommend this position to someone it would have to be the right type of

person for this role. There are other student positions, but I am the only true intern, and the role

is very prestigious in the organization. Something that is very special about the position is that it

is tailored to what the student in the position is interested in, and because ASU has so much

opportunity, so does the Foundation. There are some prescribed day to day responsibilities but as

far as projects go, you must research, make connections, and be open to ambiguity in finding

what possibilities there are for projects that you can be a part of. In this role, you also have open

access to networking with members of the Senior Leadership team, I was fully empowered to

have coffee with them and go to them for advice. For me, this structure was scary in the

beginning, but I am a self-starter, have an iron-clad work ethic, and am not afraid to talk to

anyone to make connections. I could see that if the wrong individual was in this position, they

might not have had the same experience I had and might have struggled more to stake their place

in the organization.

This internship has taught me more about myself than any other opportunity ever had. It

helped me grow as a person, a professional, and as a student through projects, deliberations with

coworkers, and vital learning opportunities in the workplace setting. First, I want to evaluate the
two weaknesses that I have observed about myself through my time in my position. The first one

is that I have trouble dealing with ambiguity, this was challenged very early on, and I feel

accomplished with how I have been growing to handle it. I have always been a very planned

person; I like to know where I was and where I am going, and this is difficult for me to cope

with. I had to just say yes to everything that came my way, and I was able to find my place and

my way. The second weakness is more complex, I feel that I am very confident and not afraid to

share my position generally, but when I came into the formal organizational setting, I second

guess myself a lot more and worried a lot more about what I could and couldn’t say in relation to

my position. This has shown me that I need to be more comfortable with ambiguity and

confident in myself regardless of my position in the company. On the other side, I discovered

that I am very good at self-starting, I am an incredibly hard worker, and I am confident in my

ability to socialize with leaders within the organization. My strengths lie in a position that is

front facing because I like connecting with people and building relationships with those around

me and that I work with, I am not afraid to be extroverted in any role that I am in. I think I found

that I am a team player as well, I make every effort to bring people into the group, and not hold

jealousy if new people come onto the team.

The Foundation is a very special place to work, in the sense that there doesn’t seem to be

very many in office infighting negative politics. Everyone is great to work with and our CEO

instills a culture that is very oriented around a positivity and teamwork, where some other

foundation can be very competitive and hostile. There are politics and hierarchies everywhere

though and it was a wonderful experience for me to see it in real life. I was a ‘fly on the wall” so

to speak and got to observe how the leadership team acted toward each other and staff, and also

observed how different programs were treated and communicated with each other. As we know
Arizona State is a forward-thinking university that welcomes change and innovation around

every corner. It was fascinating seeing the behind the scenes of how Dr. Crow, Board of

Directors, and the entire leadership of the university inspires its employees to accept change and

constantly find better ways of running our programs. The acceptance of change affected my team

of project managers that I worked with because it demanded a forward thinking and creative

mindset to keep up with the ever-changing needs of the Foundation. It didn’t affect my position

too much, but it opened my mind to always being open to innovating old processes that might

not be as effective as they once were. This position has taught me to be mindful about what kind

of culture and values that I want and organization to have so I know that I will have the best

opportunity for success.

My position was very interesting because like I stated earlier, was geared to my interests

and what I wanted to focus on. Though this was the focus, I sit on a team of project and program

managers that oversee development projects for the Foundation. This gave me insight for both

the program/project management field, and the front-line fundraisers as well. First, for the

project and program managers there were many skills that I observed that were needed, the

biggest one being patience. These individuals help many development officers with many of

their projects and initiatives that they work on, but they, themselves aren’t fundraisers.

Fundraisers and project managers have very different schedules and communication styles that

make coordination of these project challenging. Other abilities are organization, effective

internal communication, thoughtfulness, and level headedness all of which I have read about and

learned in the classroom, but seeing how they come into play in the real work life it was very

apparent what these individuals do to be successful. The skill set for frontline fundraisers are

slightly different because they are more externally facing than the project managers in nature.
This being said they have to possess a desire to learn more about people passions, communicate

thoughtfully and effectively, be persistent even in the face of rejection, and being creative in

finding new prospects. I see some overlap in how organizational skills and communication skills

overlap but these two positions are very different due to the types of people each are

communicating with. This is the first organization that I have seen the two working together to

run projects and facilitate relationships and it is a brilliant partnership because the program

managers run projects that are vital to the organization that frontline development officers don’t

have the capacity to handle. Not only have I been able to observe these skills and partnerships,

but I now have a grasp on the skills needed to be successful in either field should I choose either

career path.

As I mentioned above, ASU is always looking for ways to change and to innovate the

way processes are being done. As a result of this, the Foundation has to keep pace with the new

initiatives and the needs of the university because it is a supporting Foundation of the university.

Public initiatives that have been made is ASU Health Observatory, ASU Medical School, the

Changing Futures Campaign, and the Global Futures Laboratory. These are all huge programs

and undertakings for the university and as a result the Foundation’s year end goals have

increased significantly putting more pressure on the organization as whole. In my immediate

role, I didn’t feel the pressure of the fast pace of change in this organization, but it is definitely

felt through the organization, especially now as we approach the halfway mark in our fiscal year.

Even though the organization is geared for change and hard work, it does not feel as though

everyone is running around stressed out about it. I always knew how ASU welcomes change, but

I was surprised how everyone in the Foundation is geared to fearlessly keeping up with the

universities ambitious goals to further the reach of the university. The largest impact of this
change within the organization was the shifting of staffing roles and I find that difficult. In the

time in my position there were many people that I knew that shifted positions to different units or

departments, there is also new people being hired on all the time. These changes I could see

effecting the organization with having to cope with new people, in new positions and ensuring

the stability of the teams.

The ASU Foundation is an amazing organization that empowers the University through

philanthropic support. Something that surprised me was how community focused the Foundation

is. A program I spoke about earlier in my reflection was Women and Philanthropy which is a

very large group of accomplished women who come together to fundraise through the year, and

then review applications and choose ASU students or professors to award grants to, they are run

and organized by the ASU Foundation. Their projects have to be rooted in research or

developing something (product, process, etc.) that will benefit our community in some way.

These groups projects can include disease prevention, vaccine development, funding student

workers, empowering groups to attend conferences, and more. These women notice a need in the

ASU community and actively are making a difference in being a catalyst for change. Another

program that is run and developed by the Foundation is PitchFunder a new crowd funding

platform that the Foundation launched that is similar to the concept of GoFund me. This program

is gaining popularity around campus and had made real change in our world, not just community.

One fund to speak of utilized the platform to raise funds for developing and deploying malaria

prevention kits in Africa. The group of ASU students together with a professor was able to raise

tens of thousands of dollars for these life saving kits all through this Foundation Initiative.

Beyond this, the Foundation is deeply committed to social justice and awareness for celebrating

our minority groups. There are foundation engagement committees that ensure heritage months
are celebrated and inclusivity is at the forefront of all of the employees. It is so special because

the Foundation is also guided by the Universities charter; especially, “measured not by whom it

excludes, but whom it includes and how they succeed,” which is a special and unique guiding

light for a Foundation. I am proud to work for an organization that is so committed to creating an

environment that is inclusive of everyone.

My internship provided me with so much more than just professional development. I feel

like as soon as I accepted my job offer, an entire new world was opened up to me. Due to the fact

that we are affiliated with a university life-long continued learning is a huge pillar of the

institution. Every employee has access to thousands of Linked in Learning courses for free so

that we can earn certificates and learn more for our personal and professional development.

There are courses that are concentrated to professional skills but there are personal life ones as

well some include investing, financial management, motivation techniques, and so much more.

Whenever I had any down time, my manager was fully supportive of my taking these courses.

On top of these self-directed trainings, there is always workshops happening at the Foundation of

some sort that are usually concentrated by units. One of the programs that I took advantage of is

the Aspire Frontline Development Program which is a semester long course during working

hours with five, two-hour sessions totaling 10 hours of paid work time committed to continues

learning. I was the second student worker to ever complete the program as it is rooted in learning

the ropes of Frontline Fundraising, which is a career path that I am incredibly interested in.

Every session, 2 various senior leaders from different parts of the foundation came and gave 1-

hour presentations on every step in the development process, research and development, donor

engagement and stewardship, planned estate giving, cooperate philanthropy, and more. This was

my favorite of the internship because ti allowed sa space for me to have a high-level overview of
the work that I want to be doing from the leaders who are involved every day, we also moved

along in a cohort of 8 so we can further network with other professionals in the organization.

Everything about this internship make me want to come back. I always joked that coming

to work was like coming to Disneyland, and though that might have been slightly exaggerated, I

felt a lot of joy and excitement coming to work. The first piece was how well my manager and I

worked together. She empowered me to learn, try new things, and advocated for me to help on a

variety of projects that our team wasn’t necessarily involved in. This support from my manager

allowed me to make so many connections within the organization and build rapport with many

people at many different levels of the organization. Other aspects of what made the internship so

exciting was how amazing the people are at the Foundation. There is a very strong emphasis on

collaboration and office rapport, it is encouraged to get up and talk with coworkers and take

interest in them, not just the work they are doing. Walking down the halls I always see people I

knew and had great conversations with them. This would always put me in a good mood no

matter what work had to get done that day because I knew I had the entire organization

supporting me. I also loved the projects I worked on. I have a very strong work ethic and that

was established early on in my internship, so I was able to help with many projects. I got to help

with creating new aspects of the PitchFunder Program, developed stewardship materials for

ASU’s Global Futures Laboratory, created Board of Directors meeting materials, helped with the

president’s suite at the ASU home games, and volunteered at other program events where

needed. The variety and responsibility I had in all my work make sure that I was never really

doing the same thing over and over and thus did not have the opportunity to get bored in my

work. Every week coming into work I always carried an excitement with me of trying something

new and what I was going to learn next.

project manager. In that sense, I think this internship was good for me because I worked with the

Program Management team and though I didn’t do much of the work they do, the experience has

even further confirmed my adversity to going into this field. I knew that I wanted to do

something in fundraising/development, but I was unsure as to what I wanted to do. Though I

don’t have all the answers yet, I have found aspects of this career path that I am more passionate

about than others. For example, I was fascinated by learning about cooperate philanthropy and

how that is done on such a large scale. I think that working within development in that realm

would be very interesting. I think development careers are typically stable, I am worried though

as the economy and inflation gets worse, individuals are having a tough time with their finances.

I think this is also a great opportunity to stay more to the cooperate side of philanthropy rather

than on the individual side. Development is a stable career path, that even through the pandemic

was booming and was able to easily transition to the virtual workspace if needed. Overall, this

experience helped me identify potential niches in the field of development that I would love to

go into in the future.

This field is the relationship business, in order to ask for gifts, there needs to be a strong

cultivated connection that has been growing over some time. With this, fundraisers have to

compassionate, self-motivating, positive, and emotionally intelligent (Charity Link, 2023). With

this in mind I am very grateful that I worked in customer service before this and already had a

customer/donor centered mind and heart. That skill is hard to learn and is that makes fundraisers

successful. In have realized that I am the happiest when I am leading people, I am the most

confident version of myself because I am not having to please others, but intern motivate my

team to procure high level outcomes. Because of this I would love to work up to a position in
nonprofit leadership someday, though I know it will be a long road to get there. Most likely I will

start as a development officer or Associate Director of Development and start with a portfolio of

donors and work to build relationships with them and start acquiring gifts I the next 2 years.

From there the possibilities are endless, especially if I can grow my portfolio successfully. I can

move into other director roles in the next 5 years and hopefully one day work to be an executive

director or Assistant Vice President of a unit which would most likely be in the next 10 years.

Though this is the traditional path in development, I want to find a niche area that I could excel

in; something like I mentioned early in cooperate philanthropy. I am fascinated by large

cooperation’s meeting the percentage of money that need to give away to charities a year

because it shows their commitment to the community around them.

As I mentioned earlier, I am a planned person, and I am working on being more go with

the flow and dealing with ambiguity. Coming into this position it stressed me out so much when

everyone would say “you will find projects” or “as you meet more people, projects will come

your way” because I was coming in brand new and only knew one person in the organization.

Prior to beginning this position, I would have loved to hear that the longer you are in the

organization the more people will meet you and want your input on projects. I began with putting

an undue amount of pressure on myself to figure out what I was going to make of my position

and how I was going to get the most out of it. But the more I relaxed and was my natural

extremely outgoing self, I had many projects to choose from that sought me out, not the other

way around. I would also tell myself that my mindset of “being a sponge” and saying yes to

everything that came my way was the absolute best mindset to have and to not change a thing

about it. The more I told people that I wanted to learn and soak up everything I could, the more

people were excited to have me sit in on their teams and or help with their projects. To the next
person that steps into this role I would tell them to be confident, but also to be so humble in

where they are. You can come in with all the in-school experience, but it really can’t compare to

experience gained in a real organization. The more you are honest and push your ego aside, the

more people want to take you under their wings and share their learned experiences with you.

This mindset will help you go so far at the Foundation.

Coming from this internship, I have learned that I would love to work at the ASU

Foundation after college. Many people have said that they want me on their team after I graduate

which feel like such a dream come true. I know that nothing is that easy though and I must

continue to learn and grow my skills coming out of this position. I am still in this role until May,

so until then I plan on expanding my networking and not allowing myself to get comfortable. I

want to keep pushing myself to sit in on new projects and meet with new people within the

organization. I plan to start working after I graduate and so I know that I need to start looking at

job postings at the Foundation and in other organizations to get a sense of the type of job I would

be able to get post-graduation. I want to take advantage of the LinkedIn learning courses offered

to me through my position while I still have access to them. One last piece of knowledge I have

learned is that knowledge is power, and I can learn more skills to set myself apart, that is what I

need to do. This position has truly changed my life, it has given me the confidence in my

professional development and given me a more structured vision of what I want my professional

life to look at post-graduation.

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Charity Link. (2023, June 20). 13 qualities of a successful fundraiser.

https://www.charitylink.net/blog/13-qualities-of-a-successful-fundraiser