This past week was pretty challenging for me. I met with one of my organization's corporate sponsors to discuss an educational/fundraising event series he wants to hold in his small business. This was an interesting experience as I saw how my boss networks with donors, makes asks on behalf of the organization, and builds relationships with folks who sustain our work. While I learned a lot, I found myself walking away from the experience feeling disheartened.  Asking wealthy people for money is not the work I want to do, nor was it what I was expecting to do with my summer. I understand this to be a dilemma faced by many interns in the nonprofit area, so I considered it only a matter of time until I confronted my own frustrations with the nonprofit industrial complex. Rather than dwelling on the fact that I am spending most of my time as an intern appealing to donors on behalf of our cause, I am moving forward with the perspective that this is, unfortunately, an essential element to getting the work done. I firmly believe in EBC's mission and have directly spoken to dozens of people whose lives have changed because of our organizing efforts; using this as my motivation, I am moving forward with the rest of my summer and doing my best to remain positive. Though this was definitely a low point, as I write this, things are already looking up while I start my LiA project. I will share more about it in my next post, so stay tuned!