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Chase Nowak '12

“Weeklies”

August 4th, 2010

Every Friday at El Pomar, the Staff, Fellows, and Interns are required to write a weekly report to the Chairman and CEO, Bill Hybl. This was last week's:

MEMORANDUM

To: William J. Hybl
CC: RTT, Jr., RJH, DJP, Senior Staff, Fellows, and Interns
From: Chase Christian Nowak
Subject: CCN Weekly Date: 7/30/10

El Pomar Internship

Regional Partnerships

* Met with Cathy to discuss implications and additions to my research on the top grantmakers in Colorado. We decided to add a new perspective to the project by including top out-of-state grantmakers and grants coming into the state. The results will be presented to the Fellows on August 9 and to the Regional Trustees on August 10
* Put together the RSST binders for the Fellows
* Created a duplicate of my social indicator findings to present to the Regional Trustees

Internship and Professional Development

* Attended Locker Room where Lindsey facilitated and Peter presented on El Pomar etiquette. Thank you both for your time and effective advice
* Attended the final Investment Challenge where the Interns found out that Anna won the seven week competition. Thank you, Mary, for coordinating the entire competition, and thank you Mr. Tutt, Connie for answering our financial orientated questions
* Farewell Anna, I wish you the best with your future endeavors

Next Week

* Monday-Friday: In Office

 

Chase C. Nowak
Regional Partnerships Intern
El Pomar Foundation
10 Lake Circle
Colorado Springs, CO 80906
(719) 577-7039
cnowak@elpomar.org

**Learn more about El Pomar’s recent activities at

http://www.elpomarannualreport.org/

Colorado Regional Funders Project

July 26th, 2010

One of the large projects that I have been working on over the past two months is finding out how much other foundations are giving to each Colorado Region. El Pomar breaks down the state into 10 different Regions and has a Council representing each one.

This project may sound simple, but it was a very complex process. I went to the foundationcenter.org to collect the list of the Colorado foundations in order of most giving by year, which is determined by the 990 tax form each foundation submits to prove that they are giving away the 5% minimum requirement to be tax exempt. In Colorado, there are approximately 1200 foundations that are either community, private, or family foundations. El Pomar is a private foundation with a total giving of 24 million dollars per year.

After collecting the list of foundations and putting it into an Excel Spreadsheet, I had to find where the 1200 organizations was physically located by county and then place it into an El Pomar designated Region. This was time consuming. The majority of the foundations were located in Colorado Springs and Denver, and the least amount were in the rural mountain areas.

Next, I organized the data by most giving to see who the top givers were in total.

Finding out the dollar amount given by a particular foundation to a designated Region is tricky because a foundation may be located in one part of Colorado, but it may give the majority of it’s grants to a different county/Region. To determine the dollar amount given to a particular Region, I had to look at the 990 tax document itself to see the distribution of grants across Colorado for each of the foundations. This part was even more time consuming.

The reason El Pomar is investing so much for me to do a project like this is for three reasons:

1. To see how the Foundation stacks up against others for each of the 10 different Regions.
2. To give this information to Council members so that they can recommend other Foundations to nonprofits that may be in need of extra grants that El Pomar can not supply.
3. To collaborate with other foundations to be more effective in grant making by not being “redundant” with progress.

I have really enjoyed doing this research project. I was left by myself to collect and organize the data without being micromanaged. I will be presenting this data to the Trustees early next month, along with the new class of Fellows who just arrived last week so that they can get familiar with the other Colorado foundations.

Lunch with the CEO, Bill Hybl

July 25th, 2010

Bill Hybl is the CEO of El Pomar Foundation, and he has other various high-status positions such as President of the U.S. Olympic Committee, Chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public diplomacy, Civilian Aide Emeritus to the Secretary of the Army, U.S. Representative to the 56th General Assembly of the United Nations, and the list goes on. The Interns were scheduled to have a lunch with Mr. Hybl ever since June 21, but it has been rescheduled 6 times since then. We were somewhat surprised that we were actually able to have a moment of his time when the lunch did happen.  We only had 45 minutes for the eight of us to speak with him, which is a lengthy time considering the last time we met with him it was for a mere 5 minutes.

Mr. Hybl took us to the Broadmoor Poolside Restaurant where we could order anything we liked. Since I wanted to be neat and clean with my meal, I played it safe with a sandwich even though I was eyeballing the pasta.

He asked each of us to talk about what our plans were for the upcoming year, and he generally provided feedback or tips for the rising senior Interns. When it came to my turn, I told him that I was planning on traveling to Guatemala. He seemed very interested once I said that because he paused for about 5 seconds after I finished talking. He asked me if I was going to be near Guatemala City, and I replied telling him that I was going to be in Antigua, which is a small city outside of the City. He then said, "I have a gift that I want you to bring to a friend when you go there. My friend, Willi, is a government official, and I want you to bring him a copy of the 2012 Olympic Bronze, Silver, and Gold Medals to him." I was dumbfounded, along with everyone else at the table. He explained that he was wanting to give the Medals to each participating country beforehand. I told him that I would love to do this task for him, and I thanked him for the opportunity. I am supposed to meet with him within the next few weeks to talk with him about the trip to meet with the logistics of the trip.

After we talked about our upcoming plans, the lunch was already over with, and we continued on with our day at the Foundation.

Investment Challenge – Week 3

July 25th, 2010

During the first two weeks, I was leading the intern investment challenge with my portfolio consisting of my Apple stock and Vanguard 500 mutual fund. I was up 6% until the third week where my portfolio return went into the negative at –2%, but I was still in second place out of eight of us. Luckily, I was not performing as bad as the loser at –18% return!

Change Style Preference Test

July 16th, 2010

The Change Style Preference index was another psychometric test that I was asked to take as a Regional Partnership Intern along with the executive directors enrolled in NELP, which measures how well you adjust to change. The spectrum of the scale ranges from -66 through -16 Conserver, -16 through +16 Pragmatist, and +16 to +66 Originator. A -66 conserver has a difficult time adjusting to change and prefers to follow a way/procedure that has worked efficiently in the past, whereas, an originator is an innovative person who loves change and looks for ways to apply change in their life or business.

My results were shocking relative to the group of individuals that I was working with. I was a -24 C, which was the most extreme conserver score. The most extreme O, however, was a +44.The majority of the Executive Directors in the group were around 0-P. Cathy explained that the Ps are the first people to get burnt out in the workplace, especially when it comes to working with their board members since they have to deal with two different types of people that do not necessarily think or operate the way the way they might. Cathy stated that the conservers view the pragmatists as people who are so open-minded that their brains fall out and that the pragmatists view the conservers as uptight people.

The emphasis of this exercise was to encourage a mixture of Cs, Os and Ps in the organization’s staff, otherwise, there may be too much creativity the organization fails or too much uniform procedure that the organization falls behind the times.

 

NELP

July 16th, 2010

As a part of the Regional Partnerships Internship, I was assigned to assist my supervisor and the Regional Partnerships director, Cathy Robbins, to help with a nonprofit executive director development course called Nonprofit Executive Leadership Program (NELP). This program runs for two full days, and is located in a different region of Colorado each year to focus on a particular area for the executive directors to relate to each other. This year’s NELP was located in Pueblo, Colorado.

On Wednesday, I traveled down to Pueblo in the afternoon to assist Cathy, Kate (a Fellow), and Pam (a hired consultant) with setting up the conference room where the NELP program was going to be the next day. We decorated the room with El Pomar office supplies, flowers and the ED’s MBTI test results. Cathy took everyone out to dinner that night where I was able to practice my dinner etiquette skills that I developed in a program sponsored by Cornell’s Berry Center. The only mistake that I made that night was my outfit. I was told that we could dress casually for dinner, so I dressed myself in what I thought was causal, and a Badgers t-shirt with slacks fit my causal expectations. I met everyone in the lobby of the hotel where Cathy, Kate, and Pam where still dressed in their business formal clothes. I walked up to the Fellow and whispered to her,” Isn’t this casual?! Am I going to be okay?!” She said that I was fine, but I knew that I wasn’t. I need to buy more "casual" polo shirts. Anyway, the dinner was very nice, and the business luxury hotel room at the Marriott was excellent with a king-sized bed.

On Thursday morning, I was asked to greet all 17 NELP participants. From looking at their MBTI personality test results, it was easy to tell who were introverts and extroverts at first contact; I found this new perspective interesting. Throughout the entire day, I helped with the small tasks of running an event, but the entire program was more like an epiphany for the executive directors that just needed a self-development/growth/leadership class.

At first, I did not see the value or purpose of me being there, but I started to figure it out when the executive directors were talking about problems with the nonprofit industry, their own organization, and their staff. I started to jot down everything they were discussing once I started to realize that I could use this information in interviews with future employers. I figured if I have in depth personal information about such organizations, I have an upper hand when it comes to me asking questions during an interview. I also got a feel for each of the director’s personality. I feel like what I absorbed during those two days is going to give me more confidence when it come to communicating with my current and future supervisors.

 

MBTI

July 16th, 2010

During a professional development course within “Locker Room,” my Regional Partnerships supervisor and Vice President of the Foundation, Cathy Robbins, gave a presentation over a personality test called Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). She explained that it is the most popular type of personality test that corporations and other organizations use for their employees to determine their personalities and their staff can work better together. El Pomar is an institution that does this test for all of its employees in hope that awareness of other people’s individual needs and personality for efficient collaboration.

There are four sections to the MBTI:

• Extraversion or Introversion: Extraverts are people who tend to focus their attention on the outer world of people and things, whereas, introverts are people who tend to focus their attention on the inner world of ideas and impressions. I guessed that I am an introvert.
• Sensing or Intuition: Sensors are people who tend to take in information through the five senses and focus on the here and now, whereas, intuitive are people who tend to take in information from patterns and the big picture and focus on the future possibilities. I guessed that I am an intuitive.
• Thinking or Feeling: Thinkers are people who tend to make decisions based primarily on logic and objective analysis of cause and effect, whereas, feelers are people tend to make decisions based primarily on values and on subjective evaluation of person-centered concerns. I guessed that I am a thinker because of the way I think and process information.
• Judging and Perceiving: Judgers are people who tend to like a planned and organized approach to life and prefer to have things settled, whereas, perceivers are people who tend to like a flexible and spontaneous approach to life and prefer to keep their options open. I guessed that I am a judger based on my planning habits, especially since I leave nowhere without my planner.

After the presentation, we finally got our results back from Cathy. I ended up being a E.S.T.J., so I was half correct with my prediction. Every characteristic is on a 1-30 scale with one being that the characteristic is slightly shown and 30 being that the characteristic is clearly shown. I was a 5-E, 14-S,1-T, and 22-J.

The in depth description of the test states:

• Decisive, clear, and assertive
• Logical, analytical, and objectively critical
• Adept at organizing projects, procedures, and people
• Likely to value competence, efficiency, and results
• Likely to prefer proven systems and procedures
• Focused on the present, applying relevant past experience to deal with problems
• Usually seen by others as conscientious, dependable, decisive, outspoken, and self-confident

I felt like this test was very informative in a way where I know how my co-workers best function. It seemed like my results were fairly accurate, and I was happy to know that I am an E.S.T.J. because the Fellowship at El Pomar looks for that combination in their Fellows.

 

Investment Phone Conference With Monarch Investments

July 9th, 2010

The second phone conference was with Monarch Small Cap Investments, which is a company who purchases small value stocks. This phone conversation was much more interesting, since Mr. Tutt personally know the guy. Even though there was a loss in the 17 million dollar investment portfolio that was purchased a few years ago, the tone of the conversation was light and friendly.

Although the conversation was light and lifting, it was still over business. Mr. Tutt asked the investment manager what he thought about the future market even though he already knew what he was going to say. The manager stated that he saw that the market is going to "get better" in the next quarter since this past quarter was a down quarter. Mr. Tutt then told the manager that he must be believing in Obama’s domestic policy when he noticed that the manager owns about 2% of his portfolio in solar-panel shares, but the manager insisted that he was more conservative on investing and that the purchase was based on a random added-value stock that he picked. The conversation quickly turned political. The manager fired the same question back to Mr. Tutt to view his opinion on the market. The President stated, “Well, I really think Obama is screwing up everything.” I looked at the stock ticker on his Bloomberg computer screen on his desk and saw that the Dow Jones Industrial was down 140 points at 9600, which explained the negativity in his statement. Mr. Tutt used the example of the recent deadline of the 8000-dollar tax credit given to new homeowners. He stated that people are only buying when they are given money to do so, and the recent 1000-point drop was due to the negative outlook on the housing market with the population waiting for the next handout to buy a house rather than buying houses on a regular schedule. Mr. Tutt said that we are now a part of the handout generation where buying only occurs if there is some government incentive. From my economic classes at Cornell and learning about incentives, I do realize the rationality of the conversation and Mr. Tutt’s beliefs.

 

Investment Meetings with President Tutt

July 9th, 2010

When my internship coordinator asked me whether or not the Foundation could do anything to enhance my internship experience, I told her that I had an interest in the investments department. Two days after talking with her, I got a phone call from the investments department inviting me to attend phone conferences with two different investment firms to listen to their semi-annual portfolio updates prepared for the President, Mr. Tutt. I immediately jumped on the opportunity and scheduled the two appointments on my Outlook calendar.

The first phone conference was with Prudential Investments with their PRISA II real estate mutual fund they own. El Pomar owns 17 million dollars worth of this fund. It was very interesting to sit in and listen to this meeting. Over the three years that El Pomar has owned this fund, it has decreased in value by 25%, so it was interesting to hear what the Vanguard representative had to say about the decrease in value. He mainly talked about the housing bubble that popped in 2008. The representative also stated that the future looked bright for the real estate market. I found it interesting that the mutual fund creates liquidity for its holders by income generated by rent generating property such as apartment complexes.

Investment Challenge – Week 4

July 9th, 2010

During the first two weeks, I was leading the intern investment challenge with my portfolio consisting of my Apple stock and Vanguard 500 mutual fund. I was up 6% until the third week where my portfolio return went into the negative at –2%, but I was still in second place out of eight of us. Luckily, I was not performing as bad as the loser at –18% return!

Community Impact Visits

Every detail about my tasks this week was identical to those from the last as far as my regional funders and social indicator projects goes, except for a Community Impact Visit (CIV) that I attended. A CIV is a standard check-up of a non-profit organization that the Foundation has given grant money to. The purpose of the check-up is to see whether or not the organization has used their grant money appropriately. I was invited to attend two CIVs; one in Pueblo and one in La Junta. Both of these counties are in the Southeast Region of Colorado, which is a dry desolate location with small western-style towns.

The first CIV was at Pueblo Cooperative Care Center, which is a nonprofit organization that works directly with their low income clients. Cooperative Care is a faith-based charitable organization providing the following services: food, clothing, medical prescription assistance, emergency transportation assistance, and personal hygiene products. In 2009, the Center served 11,428 households, reaching 24,010 individuals with only 3 employed staff members and 68 volunteers. My first impression was a surprise since they help so many people with the old out-dated small building that they are located in. As soon as I entered, I heard the unfamiliar sound of typewriters! The Executive Director, Marcie Reynolds, explained that the majority of social issues come out of poverty: you steal because you have to feed your family, you consume drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of the experiences of poverty, and you fight to protect your family and what is yours from others who are stealing. What she had to say was very impacting as far as my eyes being opened about what other people outside of my own tightly knit community deals with. Marcie explained that the Foundation has help her organization by providing extra food and clothing to give to their clients. She stated that her future goal is to become more financially independent from grant makers and to move into a larger building with one floor because their small two-story building with no handicap access for the elderly. She gave us a quick tour around the building after the meeting. I felt way over dressed walking through their small warehouse in a business formal attire, but everyone that we talked to thanked us for giving them the grant to their organization, which made me feel good and important at the same time.

The second CIV was in La Junta, which is out east from Pueblo, at the Helping Hands nonprofit organization. This nonprofit also directly works with individuals based on their direct monetary needs. The staff of this organization The Executive Director gave us what was like a checking book for us to see what individuals where helped. With the grant, Helping Hands gave money to assist with natural gas, gasoline, electricity, transportation, rent, and grocery bills. The E.D. explained to us that the hardest time for the organization along with everyone in need is during December where utilities are necessary to keep a house warm.

El Pomar Investments

6/14/2010

This Monday was unlike any other Monday at work that I have experienced. Usually Mondays, to me, are very slow and generally boring. I arrived to work 30 minutes early just because I knew that I was going to hit the ground running if I did not get a head start on my day crammed with meetings.

During the morning, I attended the Regional Strategic Planning meeting where I conducted a presentation/ game over where to find documents within the networked server. Beforehand, I was given a list of 20 different documents for the Strategic Planning Team to find. I wanted to make this an interesting game, so I ended up writing a crafty script and game up with a prize, which was a Hershey bar that I was given. I ended up putting the candy bar into a white envelope to make the participants of the game want to find as many documents first as possible so that they could be the one to get the mystery prize rather than just a chocolate bar.

During lunch, I ended up getting front desk duty at the main office building. Once I was done, I only had 20 minutes to run home and grab something to eat before my meeting with Mr. Tutt, the CFO of the Foundation.

The meeting with Mr. Tutt consisted of two parts. The first part was a power point presentation of the reading material that we covered in our simple investment book that was given to us for the "investment challenge." I only skimmed the book since all of the material on stocks, bonds, and mutual funds was imprinted onto my brain from my Investments class at Cornell. For the second half of the meeting, Mr. Tutt talked about how the Foundation invests its 440 million dollar portfolio, which was very interesting. Mr. Tutt only manages about 20% of the entire portfolio himself, and then hires other investment companies to invest the other 80%. I was asked not to go into too many details with my description on my published blog, but you can ask me in person, and I can talk about it. All I can say is that the Foundation is mostly a technical investor, meaning that the organization looks at past trends in data to predict how the stock market will perform in the short run. At Cornell, we were taught that technical analysis of stocks does not work in the long run; Prof.. Conrad told us that just following the market and keeping long-term investments would be most beneficial and profitable in the long run.

Going Gaga During Week 2 (6/8-6/11)

On Tuesday, my main task was to create a power point presentation of the Regional Partnerships department for the incoming Fellows. I had all day to create and edit the power point, which was fairly fun because I was able to spend time talking to the other interns in the room. I am happy that all of my power point skills from my introductory ECB classes were able to fit nicely into the professional scene. Besides work, I was very excited to see the new Lady Gaga music video after work, so I made sure that I completed the power point by the time 5:00 p.m.. rolled around. My excitement quickly turned to disappointment when I saw her new video… I was utterly distraught.

On Wednesday, I was required to continue editing the minutes that I had to take at the retreat. This set of minutes ended up being one of the longest papers that I have ever typed. 13 complete pages, not doubled spaced. This made me realize that El Pomar was preparing me for Cornell rather than the opposite. We also had “locker room” on Wednesday where we interns talked about each other’s experiences throughout the past week. I was happy to talk about the retreat that I went to, since all of the other interns have to stay on the organization’s premises all of the time.

On Thursday and Friday, I continued to look for social indicators of communities throughout Colorado. In order to obtain the information that I needed, I made phone calls directly to non-profits and County Commissioner Offices. Even though I never asked to talk with the heads of these organizations and offices, I always ended up there since no one knows the information about a community than a non-profit president or County Commissioner. These calls were very fluid for two main reasons: First, as soon as I said El Pomar, the recipient of the phone call always reacted by saying,” you have given us a grant,” or,” we have seen your work in our community.” Those words made me feel I had the upper hand on the conversation. Secondly, my telephone skills that I have acquired by working at Cornell’s information desk for the past year and a half gave the mental organization skills to how to start, lead, conduct, and end a conversation effectively.

6/7/2010: I Am King Frog

Ever since the first day of my internship, I was scheduled on my Outlook calendar without physical communication from anyone to show up early to work to drive to a retreat at Bear Trap Ranch on Monday I was asked to be prepared to have an ice-breaking game for the Senior Staff and Fellows and to take minutes of the entire retreat. Over the weekend, I was requested to conduct the game "King Frog," so I ended up picking that game as my choice in game even though I have never even heard of it. In preparation for this game, I looked up instructions online to how to play it and practiced giving the instructions in front of a mirror to boost my charisma. When Monday came along, we ended up traveling 30 minutes into the mountains from where El Pomar is located. The retreat that we went to was like a Christian youth camp with all of the leadership obstacles erected all throughout the property.

The first item on the agenda was the ice-breaker game. I gave the instructions for everyone to move outside from inside the cabin that we were located in. I was kind of nervous initially, but I realized that I had a few minutes as we were walking outside to practice the instructions one last time. I was never as prepared to give a speech about anything until this King Frog game came along. After I gave the instructions for the game, someone said that they didn't understand the instructions… that was when I got nervous, but we continued to play the game despite their confusion. I just told that person to just go with the game, and eventually, she would catch on.

After the icebreaker, we all migrated back inside for the remainder of the day. To my realization, the retreat was not about doing fun icebreaker games, but it was a business matter. My focus immediately switched from fun to a serious intern as we all sat at out table with our agenda for the day. The purpose of Monday’s retreat was to strategize how the Foundation could be more effective in their grant making process outside of the Colorado Springs/ Denver area. We talked about how our Council members located across the state could be more effective along with how we as a staff could be more effective to our Council members that the Foundation relies on for information about the communities across Colorado.

While this meeting was proceeding, I had to take minutes (or notes) of the entire 7-hour meeting, and let me tell you, there are a lot of minutes in a day. All organizations really need to rename minutes into hours.

I did end up getting a lot of information from this meeting like how the Foundation operates. I learned that in order to be a grant making foundation, organizations can not be a fundraising organization, but rather invest with an endowment. Being a foundation also means that all of the Foundations profits are tax-free. The catch to being at a foundation status is that you must expend 5% of your assets to a charitable cause each year. El Pomar has $439 million in assets, so it is required for the Foundation to give a casual $22 million per year for a charitable cause.

Day Two: Settling Into the Summer Shoes

Entering my second day at the Foundation was still a mystery, since I was not assigned any project to work on during the first day. Once I got to my office, which was the first time being alone to myself unaccompanied, I looked at my Outlook mailbox, viewed my calendar, and realized that my day was already planned for me with various meetings with the familiar supervisors that I met the previous day. Meeting one was with my immediate supervisor, Jacqueline. She was a Fellow for the Foundation for three years. She sat down with me, explained what the Regional Partnerships of the Foundation were, explained some of the projects that I was going to be working on in the immediate future, and showed me the hierarchy of the Regional Partnerships department of the Foundation. After all, I was the Regional Partnership intern, so I felt that knowing what I was going to be doing this summer was necessary.

The Regional Partnerships department of the Foundation creates an extension of the organization from our community in Colorado Springs to all of the other communities within the state. El Pomar has broken the state up into nine different regions to categorize and organize the department’s operations and efforts. Within these nine different regions outside of our own community (the Front Range Region), there are elected Council members that are community leaders to provide an extension to the Foundation to update us on their community issues to help us organize our efforts with the non-profits within those regions.

My position as the Regional Partnership in short involves research. My first project requires me to look at social indicators of different communities or "needs assessments" for each county within each region of Colorado. With these results, the Foundation will be able to determine what counties of Colorado need the most financial and administrative attention. The second project requires me to find out find out the other top funders/grant makers in each region of Colorado. These results will allow El Pomar to see how they stack up against other funders and grant makers in terms of dollars given out per year and to see how the Foundation can work along with these other organizations to hopefully become more efficient in how all of these organizations give out grants.

The final piece to my second day included two hours in the "locker room." This activity, which is held every Wednesday for two hours, is an all-intern weekly debrief session to talk about each other's experiences along. This period also allows my internship director to create a mini-class that will help polish our professional skills, like a speech or professional writing class. Today’s activity was actually held by an intern where she introduced the one and only "investment challenge." In order to be successful in this challenge, we are required to read a Wall Street Journal book, Complete Money and Investing Guidebook, which is about investing. We’ll see how it compares to the Investments class that I took at Cornell. I am also interested to see whether the Foundation uses a fundamental or an analytical approach to how the Foundation invests the half billion-dollar endowment.

6/9/2010 Blog Topic: – The staff retreat on 6/7 where I had to create an icebreaker game for the staff members and take minutes on the entire day-retreat.

Day One (5/1/2010): Orientation Day

Two weeks before I was suppose to start my internship at the El Pomar Foundation for the summer, I received a very short yet descriptive set of directions to where I should show up, how I should dress, and what I should bring to work, which happened to be nothing. I was unquestionably excited yet utterly terrified to start an internship at a prestigious non-profit grant making organization for the summer, dressed in sharp business formal attire.

I arrived at the main office of the Foundation at 7:55 a.m. sharp, so that I wouldn't be late by being on time. I entered the familiar lobby in which I applied for the internship in person two months past. As I waited for my internship supervisor, Nathalia, to come get me, I made small talk with the receptionist. At that time I did not know the importance of my work experience that Cornell given me for what I was about to do in this small yet elegant room.

Nathalia came in with a very excited expression on her face, the same excitement that I saw during my interview, and we entered a large boardroom where there were two binders and two water bottles placed on the corner side of the cherry table. This was it; this was what I have been so excited to start ever since I found the application for this very position. My delighted supervisor eagerly asked me to go through the entire binder, which happened to be the El Pomar Foundation’s sparknotes. I got a quick snapshot of the history of the Foundation, which origins started in 1937, her expectations for me, and the how the hierarchy is structured within the organization. Here is a web link to the Foundation for more information about past grants to other non-profits: http://www.elpomar.org/

After the introduction to the Foundation in sparknote form, which I was already informed of by studying the website in case I was asked a question about the organization by chance, I was introduced to all of the staff, Fellows, vice president and president. I got the immediate impression that this summer was going to be a laid back yet rigorously challenging summer by the friendly conversations about the hard work I was going to do. At this point, I was not quite sure about what my work was going to be, so this talk excited me even more. After meeting everyone in the "main building" which is attached to the Broadmoor Hotel, Nathalia and I drove over to the Penrose House. This new location, 1.6 miles away from the Broadmoor, was not too familiar to me, but it was the mansion of the founder of the Foundation, Spencer Penrose. At first, I was not quite sure why we were traveling to this modern palace, but I immediately realized once we got there what the function of this house was. This estate serves three purposes:
1. To provide other non-profit organizations a venue to hold meetings for no charge in case the organization can not pay for a different location or if they want to have an extravagant meeting in an elegant boardroom.
2. It provides offices for the Fellows.
3. It serves as a historical museum to the public.

It finally came to me that my office was not in the office main office building that I visited earlier that morning, but it happened to be in the mansion that I was touring! I started to get excited out of nowhere. I ended up asking Nathalia where my office was going to be, and in response, she smiled and told me that we were going to it next. Here is a web link to the Penrose House.

My office is located in the Tower Room of the mansion where three of the other interns were stationed. This room looked like a board room with a large cherry table in the center, but the walls were lined with long desks (I will provide pictures later). I was thrilled about where I was working with a lovely maintained courtyard outside of my office and the sounds of birds chirping in the background. At that point, I could not believe that I was going to be working there for an entire 12 weeks. I felt blessed.

After seeing were I was working, I traveled back to the Broadmoor Hotel to have lunch with all of the other interns that I did not meet that morning. There are six other interns that I met at lunch, all with very social personalities. It was easy to talk with everyone with their welcoming spirits.

For the rest of the day, I settled into my desk, where I got familiar with Microsoft’s email and calendar system, Outlook.

6/8/2010 Blog Topics:

• The Foundation in deeper detail
• My responsibilities
• The current projects that I am working on
• The staff retreat on 6/7 where I had to create an icebreaker game for the staff members