{"id":12748,"date":"2019-12-24T03:12:37","date_gmt":"2019-12-24T08:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/internsdc.com\/?p=12748"},"modified":"2019-12-24T03:12:37","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T08:12:37","slug":"adapt-explore-say-yes-an-interview-with-sara-conklin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atdevserver.com\/Internsdc\/adapt-explore-say-yes-an-interview-with-sara-conklin\/","title":{"rendered":"Adapt, Explore, Say “Yes”!: An Interview with Sara Conklin"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with a fellow WISH alumni, Sara Conklin. \u00a0Sara was an intern living in WISH housing a few years ago, and now, she works for a wonderful nonprofit in the development department.<\/p>\n

Where did you interview in DC?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I was the Executive intern for the Human Rights Campaign, full time, for a whole semester. Basically my job was to assist the President and prepare our Board of Directors for their October meeting.\u00a0 I started right after I graduated from Stanford and about halfway through my internship I was promoted.<\/p>\n

Where do you work now?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Now, I\u2019m the development coordinator at SMYAL<\/a> (pronounced like \u201csmile!\u201d). \u00a0It\u2019s funny, because I work in Eastern Market a few blocks away from my old WISH house!<\/p>\n

\u201cSMYAL\u201d stands for Supporting, Mentoring Youth Advocates and Leaders, and it specifically exists to be a safe space for LGBT youth, roughly between the ages of thirteen and twenty one. We do a lot of social programming and after school activities that encourage leadership and advocacy.<\/p>\n

My job is mostly grant work and fundraising. When you do development for a nonprofit, your biggest job is finding ways to reignite your donor base every year, along with finding new ways to reach out to the people who keep your doors open.<\/p>\n

Do you have a single lesson or piece of advice you got from your internship?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Yeah, what I lie to tell people who are interning is that you\u2019re never too big for any job<\/em>.\u00a0 Really, no matter where you are on the totem pole, sometimes you\u2019re stuffing envelopes and that\u2019s fine.\u00a0 You\u2019re part of a bigger community, and it\u2019ll be more fun and exciting if you say \u201cyes\u201d to as many things as possible.<\/p>\n

What do you wish you\u2019d done more of during your internship<\/strong>?<\/h3>\n

You know, I got really close with the people in my WISH house and at my internship, but I wish I\u2019d reached out to more people who\u2019d had other internships.<\/p>\n

If a young person wanted a job just like yours, what advice would you give them<\/strong>?<\/h3>\n

So if you want a job just like mine, you want a job running the backstage of a nonprofit, and I think those positions are exciting.<\/p>\n

You have to be creative and adaptable and you have to be ready to absorb your community \u2013 be a sponge. You need to be willing to explore.<\/p>\n

Development is consistently changing.\u00a0 You always have to assess how to reconnect with your donors because without individual contributions your organization wouldn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

Value everything, think outside the box and pay attention to what might be a major opportunity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Thanks again for your time and insight, Sara. \u00a0And good luck on your important work with SMYAL!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with a fellow WISH alumni, Sara Conklin. \u00a0Sara was an intern living in WISH housing a few years ago, and now, she works for a wonderful nonprofit in the development department. Where did you interview in DC? I was the Executive intern for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28,24],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-12748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internship-advice","category-tips-for-recent-grads","tag-internship-opportunities-dc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atdevserver.com\/Internsdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atdevserver.com\/Internsdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atdevserver.com\/Internsdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atdevserver.com\/Internsdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atdevserver.com\/Internsdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atdevserver.com\/Internsdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atdevserver.com\/Internsdc\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atdevserver.com\/Internsdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atdevserver.com\/Internsdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atdevserver.com\/Internsdc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}