For my first two weeks with A Better Chicago, I have primarily been sitting in on meetings, getting to know the team, and learning a lot about the work they do here. A Better Chicago is a venture philanthropy that invests in and helps scale local nonprofits helping lift youth out of poverty. Over the past two weeks, I have familiarized myself with many of the organizations in their portfolio---some of which directly work within Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and others that are external organizations for children and teenagers primarily in Chicago's South and West sides. I have also been adjusting to living in Chicago and I’m having an incredible time so far! It really is so beautiful here and I’ve been swimming in Lake Michigan every day, playing volleyball in Lincoln Park, and cooking with my roommates. I work in the Loop, which is downtown Chicago, in a huge skyscraper which has been super fun. The Bean was closed for a few months for construction, but it just reopened so I’m excited to go back sometime soon.
What went well?
At the very end of week 2, I was able to sit in on the Q2 all staff meeting, or “Step Back” as they call it. This was super interesting as I was able to see the organization was planning for the upcoming quarter and their macro-level goals, for example their goal of a $50 million capital raise in the next 5 years. Furthermore, I learned what each team has been working on. I primarily work under the Director of Strategic Initiatives on special projects, but I’m really interested in the work of the Data & Impact team and the Portfolio Management team. After the meeting, we went to lunch as an entire team which was a great opportunity to get to know everyone more.
What could have been done differently?
Overall, I’m happy with how everything has been going. However, one thing I could have been doing differently is being more proactive with what I’m doing. I believe this is the first time that ABC has had an intern and this summer there are two interns---myself and someone from UChicago that’s here via a program by their Institute of Politics. Because of this, there isn’t a super set plan of what we are supposed to do, and we mostly do slightly random tasks that people assign us, for example data collection or specific landscape research. However, in the future I want to be more proactive with the work I’m doing.
What were some of the issues?
I work remotely 3 days a week and I work in person at their office in downtown Chicago 2 days a week. I don’t enjoy working remotely and find that I am very unproductive and unmotivated when I am not in the office. I am working on finding places I can go during my remote days, like coffee shops and libraries, to make my workdays more productive.
What do I plan to do next?
I’m looking forward to working more with the data team during week 3 on an extensive revamping of their data analysis system. Each of the nonprofit “investments” in their portfolio is required to give extensive data on a biannual basis to ensure that their decisions are data-driven and their impact on the youth of Chicago is quantifiable. I am interested in data science generally, so I’m looking forward to building my technical and programming skills, learning more about data management at a small firm, and doing impactful work for the entire team. I am also looking forward to coffee chatting with everyone who works here in the coming weeks.