Media Relations
Media Relations
Nonprofit Work
Create Common Good
I chose to do one of my internships with Create Common Good because I genuinely believe in their mission: to equip those with barriers to employment with the skills necessary to remove them from poverty and give them a second chance. The most rewarding part of working with the organization was knowing the work I was doing was actually raising funds to help support these people I ate lunch with on a daily basis. There is really no greater reward than creating brighter futures for those with traumas like becoming refugees, escaping domestic violence, overcoming addiction and more.
United Way of Treasure Valley
The United Way has a unique system of helping individuals I really came to appreciate. Each region of UW does extensive research every three years on the greatest needs in their respective areas. It makes sense because as you can imagine, the more suburban and rural areas like the Treasure Valley in Idaho has significantly different needs than highly populated areas like Seattle or LA.
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On a different note, I had the amazing opportunity not only to help others where it really mattered in Boise, but to also work with a global brand from the communication, marketing and public relations standpoint. I took a lot from rebranding process they underwent while I was there, and from their large-scale events I participated in.
The Make-a-Wish Foundation of Boise
In our senior capstone class, we were challenged to collect as many "Letters to Santa" during Make-a-Wish and Macy's annual "Believe" campaign in which Macy's donated $1 to the foundation for every letter collected and returned to their store. No other direction was given and we were allowed to use our creativity and resourcefulness to whatever extent necessary. Our goal was to beat the previous class and gain more than 12,000 letters.
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To reach this goal, we were each responsible for bringing in at least 500 letters on our own, in whatever way we could think up. I took on the responsibility of getting paper and printing services donated so when we asked businesses to participate, we could provide them with branded paper, in total I got 15,000 pieces of paper donated from various businesses and 10,000 sheets of printed paper.
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Next, I asked local hotspot, Barbacoa Boise, to participated in the fundraiser using research to convince them, and they happily agreed. Basically, the management at Barbacoa offered incentive (on their own cost) to the top three servers who received the most letters from their tables. Guests were eager to participate and all in all, this raised about 3,000 letters for the cause.
