Week 1: Culture at The Broad

After my first week at The Broad, I am even more excited with the work that I will be doing. I have been completing a few projects to ease myself into all of the logistics of a small business, as well as all of the applications The Broad uses. However, I will quickly begin to work on projects more in-depth and learning intensive, which I am looking forward to greatly.

Regarding the organizational culture, The Broad’s purpose in and of itself speaks greatly to how the business is run. As the first space of its kind in Virginia, The Broad is making space for women and gender minorities that allows them to grow and learn from each other. The organization’s mission is to “be part of the women’s club movement and to be a beacon for inclusivity in the Richmond community” (The Broad). I have quickly learned that the interactions between Ali (the Founder), other interns, and even members using the space is quite informal. While at work, Ali and the interns communicate either through the many online applications used such as Slack or Asana where we can comment at each other, texting (when Ali is not in the building), or by just discussing the matter face to face. Overall, however, I would say Asana is probably our biggest tool as it helps us manage all of our workflow. This application is designed to help teams track their work. Ali assigns specific tasks to members of the team with a description of what needs to be done, along with any necessary sub-tasks, and a due date. You can make comments on the tasks, but it is not a chat tool.

This type of industry lends itself to function in a few specific ways, such as promoting local businesses, displaying local Richmond women’s art, etc. The history or type of industry does not, however, affect the operations of the organization which is what I am doing this summer.

As a start up business, Ali is currently the only full-time employee. This summer she hired a few interns, but many of them are not working 40 hour weeks like I am. With that being said, I have a lot of one-on-one time throughout the day with Ali discussing and working together on the tasks that she assigns to me. Yet this also lends itself to be a weakness because Ali is busy doing a lot of other things, but I have no one else to go to in order to ask questions regarding any of my tasks. I think that at the start of each week, Ali and I will sit down and go through each of the tasks assigned for the week so that I have a good idea of where to start.