Week 1 : Social Innovation Forum
My first week at the Social Innovation Forum was a success! The SIF team has been extremely welcoming and I am already inspired by their dedicated work and passion. The organization is very small and close-knit with only 13 employees, including the three interns. Of these employees, there are only two males – one of which is an intern. Throughout the first week, I was able to have coffee hours with each member of the SIF team to get to know them and their roles in the organization. Many of them took us outside of the office to nearby parks, the Boston Public Market, or coffee shops. Through these meetings, I began to understand the collaborative dynamic at SIF. Although each one has their specified role (Operations Manager, Program Coordinator, Director of Strategy & Operations, etc.), they work together on almost everything. There is great concentration as a whole on collaborative efforts. This is further emphasized in the office space: there are low-wall cubicles, collaborative lounge areas, and multiple small conference/work rooms. SIF also rents its extra desks/office space to innovative start-up nonprofits. There is an additional focus on collaborating with the community – the team as a whole attends many workshops and trainings in the community, one of which is at the Racial Equity Learning Community (RELC), at the Trinity Boston Foundation. I am excited to take advantage of these opportunities this summer!
All members of the SIF team played a hands-on role in orienting the two other interns and I. They helped in setting up our SIF accounts, provided detailed presentations on their programs, and trained us on the use of Salesforce and FluidReview. Through this orientation, they were focussed on getting to know our passions, goals and interests, and how they could translate these into the work we will do at SIF. After the orientation workshops, I dove into my main project: assisting in the application process for SIF’s Accelerator program. The first step of this is conducting market scans for nonprofits to nominate for the program. I was able to begin research on the three “tracks” I will be working on.
Sounds like a really engaging, collegial environment – that’s great. It will be interesting to see if the gender breakdown within the small staff plays out in any way (I note this only because you noted this). It will also be interesting for you to observe if the collaborative approach of the organization is a product of the individuals who work there or if it is perhaps the best method because of the nature of the organization, the work that it does. Glad that you already have your hands on some meaty projects.