So far in the spring semester of my internship with the Chester Community Improvement Project, most of my work has focused on helping CCIP organize for fundraising efforts later in the semester. Specifically, Delco Gives 2025, which is run by The Foundation for Delaware County, is coming up on May 8-9, 2025. Delco Gives is a fundraising project that brings together hundreds of nonprofit organizations from throughout Delaware County to bring in donations through the same fundraiser, and use the large event to bring good attention to all the organizations. To prepare for this event, I have been updating the profile of CCIP on the Delco Gives website, putting together social media posts that can be used leading up to and during the event, and attending meetings and webinars about Delco Gives on behalf of CCIP to ensure that no information is missed. In addition to this work on Delco Gives, I have also done a some work beginning to get send out information to potential future residents of the Grace Manor neighborhood about plans, and I will continue to work on smaller aspects of planning for the neighborhood throughout the semester.
My main goal for this semester is to gain more thorough experience with the more financial and technical sides of running a nonprofit organization. I am fairly familiar with how advocacy-focused nonprofits function in terms of the relationship-building and interpersonal aspects, but I am less familiar with the more behind-the-scenes work of fundraising and financial management. I think that through my work on CCIP's Delco Gives profile, along with potentially working on some grant applications for CCIP, I will gain a better understanding of these aspects of nonprofits over the course of the semester. I also hope to gain further experience with interacting with the community members and residents that are actually being served by the nonprofit, which I might do by attending appointments with Ms. Annette similar to how I did last semester.