For the past two months I have had the honor of interning at Pride Foundation. It was an amazing experience—working with some of the most amazing people (and dogs). My time here has been really enjoyable and everyone is so nice, welcoming, and open-minded. Working at Pride Foundation has been a great life experience and learning experience.
Here are some of the life lessons I learned from my internship:
- Nonprofit work is exciting
As a Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies and Asian Studies major, I am always asked “What kind of career can you go into with those majors?” or “What do you want to do when you graduate?” For the longest time, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do or where life was going to take me—but now I think I know. Nonprofit work is so inspiring; you give back to the community and work to make important change. That is exactly what I want to do with my life, and working at Pride Foundation helped me realize how great nonprofit work is.
- Social media is complicated
For the past two months, I have been working in the Communications Department at Pride Foundation. I have been managing our organizational social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I felt like I was already a social media guru before coming to Pride Foundation, but doing social media work on behalf of an organization is a lot more difficult. For nonprofits like Pride Foundation, you have to think about your audience and if what you’re sharing will be widely applicable. There are a lot of factors that you have to take into account when looking for social media posts. After this internship, I know a lot more about social media and the various strategies you can use to increase your following. One of the greatest memories of my internship was the day of the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality. I was able to experience it all live on social media as it was happening—keeping our supporters updated with the latest news and information. I feel blessed and honored to have had that experience. When I look back on that memory, I will never forget where I was or what I was doing at that moment in time. That was significant and important moment that I was thankful to be able to experience through my internship.
- Pride Foundation is Awesome!
When I first applied to intern at Pride Foundation, I only had a broad understanding of all the great work that they do. Over the past two months, I have obtained a greater awareness of the awesome work that Pride Foundation does! The thing I love about Pride Foundation is they have created a network of other great like-minded organizations. They work together to solve issues within five states across the Northwest: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. They raise resources, and invest them right back to amazing people and organizations. They are doing such great work for the LGBTQ community, and I don’t think people know that enough! Overall, Pride Foundation is a great place to intern and they are doing great work to benefit our entire community.
Allegra Kartha is Pride Foundation’s Communications Intern.