Internship - Development Meeting

Korrin B.

July 2, 2010 - 9:00 PM

Earlier this week, I got the opportunity to sit in on one of the bi-weekly meetings that the Development Department at The Carter Center holds. These staff meetings include all of the chief development officers and are led by the Vice President of Operations at The Carter Center. The Vice President of Operations is not only in charge of overseeing the fundraising of the organization, but also of all of the PR and various parts of the organization that are not directly health or peace programs.

During the meetings, several topics are discussed. Each division of development gives an update on what they're working on, people share suggestions for activities to do or changes to make, and they also look at the current numbers of The Center in terms of fundraising. The meeting had about ten participants and then another two who attended via a conference call.

It was an interesting experience for me, as it let me hear more about what other sections of development are working on and how all of the sections coordinate in order to fundraise effectively. It was also nice to meet some new faces. The meeting took place at the main center, not the Kirbo building where I work, so before the meeting started, my supervisor took me through the health development offices at the main center and introduced me to everyone who works there.

The best part of the meeting for me was being able to see what some of the work I have been doing is being used for. A couple of weeks ago, I did some research on some organizations that do not currently have a relationship with The Carter Center. I looked up their corporate giving programs and tried to determine whether they would be a good match for The Carter Center. I organized my research into succinct reports that I gave to my supervisor. Apparently, The Carter Center has a donor who has contacts at these different organizations and said he would be willing to speak on our behalf if we were interested in cultivating them. Anyway, when my supervisor gave his update at the meeting, the reports I had created were passed around to everyone at the meeting to look at and determine whether The Carter Center wanted to further see if they would be interested in a donation.

Overall, it was an interesting an experience to be able to see some more of the inner workings of the development department and to be able to see directly how my work is being used.