1. Policy, Outreach, and the Community: A Summer of Political
Interning and Non-Profit Leadership Training in Louisville
By Carmen Mitchell, University of Louisville, Brown Fellows Class of 2014
Introduction
• Creating communication materials for foster youth with information about
college readiness; Using the blueprint, Joni and I created email
templates, student-aimed brochures, business cards, posters, and
graphics that could be used for the future website.
My first two enrichment projects focused on general learning about
nonprofit advocacy (particularly related to special education) and cultural
diversity in the advocacy space, so for this summer my enrichment project
goal was to gain hands-on training on how to manage nonprofit institutions
and campaigns from both the executive and entry levels.
• Learning about the integration of different community centers that house
foster youth and the relationship between such centers and the private
partners that financially support youth; Joni and I visited
institutions, including the True Up headquarters, to learn about the
benefits and challenges of organizational collaboration.
Part Two
Part One
To build on my previous nonprofit experiences, for the first part of my
summer, I participated in four training seminars at the Center for Nonprofit
Excellence, a Louisville organization founded in 1999 as a collaborative
initiative between several organizations including Metro United Way, the
Donors Forum of Kentuckiana, and Metro Louisville government. The four
seminars I participated in were:
For the second part of the summer to build on the skills and information
from my CNPE seminars, I did a collaborative internship between True Up
of Louisville and State Representative Joni Jenkins at Jefferson Community
and Technical College working on developing outreach sessions to young
people in foster homes transitioning to higher education adulthood. This
collaboration is called True Up 4.0 and is a program currently in
development o address foster youth needs.
1. At the Helm: An Intensive Training for New Nonprofit Executive
Directors: Learning about the responsibilities of being in a management
role at a nonprofit institution, and how to balance between the desires of
the board and the abilities of the employees
• True Up is an agency in Kentucky that collaborates with nonprofit
organizations that house and support foster kids including
Uspiritus, Boys and Girls Haven, Home of the Innocents, Maryhurst, St.
Joseph’s Children’s Home, and Metro United Way (the fiscal agent). T
2. Board Chair Boot Camp: Learning about the property duties of
someone serving as a member of a nonprofit executive board or as a
committee member, as well as how to determine (from the perspective of
the nonprofit director) what types of board members to select based on
professional strengths and how to maintain effective communication
between board directors and organization management
• Witnessing state legislative policymaking at work in Frankfort and in
Louisville; attending meetings with Joni to witness political
interaction, including a licensing committee about contractual
agreements between nurse practitioners and doctors, as well as
attending meetings about topics such as pension reform, addressing
elder abuse, and implementation of new educational practices in
Jefferson Country Public Schools. While many of these events didn’t
have a direct connection to what she and I were working on, it was
important to learn about a variety of community issues directly from the
government leaders who address them, and in the big picture all of
these systems work together to improve the community as a whole.
• rue Up chooses to collaborate with JCTC because many foster kids
choose to enter community college programs due to the lower costs
compared to a four-year university or a lack of preparedness for other
academic programs.
3. From Written Word to Dynamic Delivery; Transforming Great Ideas
into Spot-on Presentations: A clinic on public speaking and oral
presentations; how to avoid common pitfalls in public speaking and how
to communicate ideas clearly to the community being served
4. Nonprofit Startup Clinic: Information about the logistics of starting a
nonprofit including researching whether there is a demand in the market
for your idea; Paperwork, tax filings, accounting and board meeting
reports; how to recruit partners who are willing to invest their time and/or
financial resources into your idea.
• Outside of her work in Frankfort, Representative Jenkins works full-time
at JCTC on educational initiatives such as this, and I chose to work with
her this summer with this program because many of the challenges
faced by Foster children overlap with those faced by children with other
types of special needs (medical, poverty, etc.).
• Also, I wanted to have firsthand experience with how she works both
directly with the young adults and how she translates that work into
impact at the organizational leadership role and the policy
implementation that takes place in legislature.
Internship Goals and Achievements
• Working on creating blueprints for community initiatives based on
empirical and anecdotal data; Using data such at the statistics talked
already discussed, Joni and I created an outline that would serve as the
skeleton of the program, a grant/policy outline, and a base for
promotional talking points
Outcomes
• After completing this internship, I have gained in building community
partnerships and working on building successful policy procedures and
lobbying them effectively. Also through the training seminars at CNPE, I
have much deeper understanding of all of the less publicized but
extremely vital nut and bolt details needed to manage a non-profit
organization.
• Through both of these experiences I have a much stronger network of
civic-minded leaders in the city of Louisville, and this network will assist
me in possibly starting my own citywide initiative or fully-fledged nonprofit organization (hopefully focused on Autism) or working with an
already established organization as an effective contributor to the
mission.
• This fall I will be participating in Leadership Louisville’s FOCUS
program, and after I graduate I will be studying Public Health at the
University of Louisville, and I am looking forward to carrying these
experiences with me to further my leadership skills in the city of
Louisville.