Reflecting on the First Weeks

Now a few weeks in, I feel that I have started to blend into my office better. I like the way it is set up, as in the desks are all in one main area so everything feels very open. There are a few individual cubicles but doors are always open. It is small enough that questions and conversations are exchanged without leaving our desks. I go to weekly team meetings, and though a lot of the topics my coworkers go over are still very foreign to me I do understand more and more that is said each week. When I first arrived, things were a little squished in office because I was overlapping with a few interns that were about to head home for the summer. Last week, an intern had her last day. It was really nice to see how much the office appreciated her, and we had a going away lunch where she was presented with a plaque for her work. The general attitude of the office is so friendly and I really am enjoying it.

Here are most of my coworkers, and Courtney is the intern who finished
shortly after I arrived. Nikia is on the far left, then Carrie, Rachel,
 Courtney, myself, and Leslie.

I have been getting more acquainted with what my position hopes to accomplish as well. Basically, United Way of SLO is an avid survey-taking and data collecting nonprofit. Nearly every project that they have completed or continue to complete annually has multiple surveys, quotes from participants, numbers and figures and much more that gives an indication for that program's success level. Given this data, I have been analyzing it from a marketing standpoint to find trends that would be most compelling to share to future participants, or perhaps figures that would compel an individual to donate to United Way. With the data I organize, I have been making flyers and brochures that are informative and persuasive. I love the design aspect- and simultaneously analytic side- of my work so far. Additionally, once I have gone through all existing data, I have been asked to collect new data and continue the process of making sense of that data.
Here are a few examples of flyers I have created:

I created this for our resource hotline, 211.

This one was created for the UW
Instagram page, which I started.
@unitedwayslo

I created this one for an education outreach program we have.

So, that's all for my update! I can definitely say that things are going great :)

The First Day

The first day of my internship for United Way was on May 26, 2016. While I really had no idea what to expect, I also have worked before with United Way, in high school, so I was instantly welcomed by many familiar faces. What I found most immediately surprising was how fast the time was going throughout the day; I suppose that after years of movie-theater-jobs, I had begun to associate "work" with "slow and boring." Even on my first day where I was just getting settled in, I left feeling like I could have stayed longer, working on my project for the day much more. The first day I was introduced to the computer system, given a small office tour, shown to my desk, and acquainted with more specifically what I would be doing. Since my first day, I have been put in charge of most of United Way SLO's publicity. I have written and published Facebook and Twitter posts. I have written and submitted press releases for the United Way Youth Board (which is pretty neat since the Youth Board is how I first came into contact with United Way). I have compiled surveys from the Youth Board and United Way's Imagination Library, and turned the data into informative flyers for publicity. I have created brochures. All this in the first week, and I haven't been bored once. I am very excited to see where the summer takes me. :)

Here is a picture I took of my desk!