Lily Elderkin’s Articles at WOW Fellowship Blog

Reflecting on My Work So Far

So far, I have had a really interesting time at my internship with Umby, a platform that allows individuals to donate to support small amounts of insurance for people living in global poverty. I still have a couple weeks left to go, but as I look back and reflect, I feel like I’ve expanded my horizons and learned a lot.

Source: National Society of Black Engineers

I’ve learned a lot about social justice work. I’ve definitely redoubled my commitment to work in this sector after graduation. I’ve learned that I am open to a wide variety of issue areas. Before this, I knew very little about international poverty; frankly, it felt like an insurmountable issue that I didn’t have the energy to tackle when there are already so many problems at home. Now, I’ve learned so much about poverty in a huge variety of countries, from Cambodia to Mexico. It is heartbreaking that so many people face poverty, but it is heartening that there are real projects being done to combat it, often led by people from that region. I have learned a lot about microinsurance itself, its potential, and how it truly will help thousands of people moving forward. I hope that my organization has the ability to participate in this movement and help to make a difference.

I wish I had asked more questions from the beginning. Working for a startup means that a lot of our work is still in development. I wish I had spoken with my boss, who is the founder and CEO of the company, about all sorts of things from the beginning: her business plan, her media plan, the umbrella prototypes, and more. Now, I have had the opportunity to see a lot of these aspects come together; for example, we are in the process of contacting reporters to spread the word about the product, and I’ve seen mock-ups of the full website. These aspects have given me greater insight into what it looks like to start a business. I have the ambition of starting a nonprofit of my own someday, and these sorts of experiences are really valuable to see the nitty-gritty of how this happens. I just wish I had asked about this from the beginning. Luckily, I got to see them in the end!

Flexibility is key in the nonprofit world! Source: SatelliteToday.com

For those who are interested in working with a nonprofit, particularly a startup, I would advise, above all, to be flexible. Things almost never go as planned, especially in the nonprofit world, and even more so in the startup world. I have always done well by being flexible and cheerful about doing a huge variety of tasks, even if those tasks involve filing for a while or Googling random facts about Mardi Gras (both tasks I’ve done during my working life, both of which ended up being useful in the end!). Being flexible also allows you to discover new things about yourself, such as your own creative interests. At least, it has for me! For example, I know that I’m not interested in marketing as a career, but by accepting this internship I found that I really love getting to write blog posts all day, or really write anything at all, which I think is knowledge that will serve me well – and be transferable – as I continue my working life.

Overall, I’ve had a pretty fun experience working for Umby, which has been very different from all the work environments I’ve had before. I’ve learned a lot about the sector, about the issues, and about myself during the past couple months, and I look forward to closing out my experience positively!

Thinking About the Future

One of the most difficult skills I have learned so far in my internship has been marketing. I have no previous experience with marketing. As a brief reminder, I am serving as a Marketing Intern for a startup that provides microinsurance to people living in international poverty by soliciting donations from individuals. My role has been to raise awareness of our brand and, mainly, write blog posts pertaining to microinsurance so that readers understand what it is. As a result of this, I’ve gotten a lot of experience in areas like social media strategy, reaching out to news outlets to raise awareness of our work, and, of course, writing blog posts.

I am interested in working in the nonprofit sector in the future, and so far have felt very flexible about what my specific role would be within that sector. I have built up skills that I feel will be broadly transferable; for example, last summer I was a Grantwriting and Development Intern at a large nonprofit. I’m excited to be building another transferable skill set in marketing, because I think this can definitely come in handy when looking at nonprofit jobs. I think it will expand the jobs that I’ll be qualified for, and make me an overall more attractive candidate. I don’t know if marketing is a passion of mine, but I am definitely open to learning more about it and gaining more experience with it, and I’m excited about how it might open up my job prospects.

Some facts about how huge the nonprofit sector is. Source: Visual.ly, shared by lifeofgraphic2

I have definitely learned more than just this hard skill. The environment of 1871, the incubator where I work, has definitely been a really interesting place to be. Last summer, I worked in a very traditional office environment. Being in a wide-open space, where a lot of people are talking on the phone, conducting meetings, and just generally doing their work in the same area has made me a more flexible worker. I’ve enjoyed the stimulation of working here, and I know now that I can work in a huge variety of office environments. Again, I think this flexibility is key for working in the nonprofit sector, where work culture and atmosphere vary widely. (The IRS has 25 different categories for what counts as a 501(c)(3), the official designation for a nonprofit – this means that there are a lot of differences between any two given nonprofits!) I am confident that I could be happy in a lot of different situations, and this has been confirmed by my work at 1871.

I’m excited to see what the future of my career looks like! For now, I’m enjoying building my skills and experience, and seeing what I like and don’t like. This summer is making me feel hopeful that I’ll be happy no matter where I end up.

Progress at Umby

My organization, Umby, a peer-to-peer microinsurance startup, has a vision of ending poverty around the world. This is definitely an ambitious goal, but the hope is that microinsurance has the power to do just that. By allowing individuals living in poverty to invest in savings, education, and new ventures, microinsurance can break the poverty cycle and help whole generations of families.

While Umby is certainly not in a position to end poverty all by itself, we do have the opportunity to raise awareness of people living on less than $4 USD a day – the realities of their lives and, most importantly, what their needs are. In the US, we certainly have to face the reality of poverty in certain ways: walk down the street in any urban area in the country and you will see people living outside, many of whom are asking for our help. But it is still easy to ignore what poverty is really like for those that experience it, especially those that are living in a context that is vastly different than the one here in the US. I think one of the most valuable aspects of Umby’s work is the peer-to-peer aspect. The eventual platform will allow people with the resources to provide support to directly connect with those who would be receiving the microinsurance. This allows for powerful connections. It will raise awareness of the realities of international poverty to those of us who have the immense privilege of living in the US.

A map showing the percentage of people living below the poverty line. In the US, it’s between 10-20%, while in parts of Africa and South America it is over 60%

This has also been my role. As I reflected last week, my role as a Marketing Intern means that I am in charge of informing people who’ve never heard of microinsurance, as well as trying to bring to life the realities of living in some of the poorest countries in the world. I believe that this ties into the idea of raising awareness, and hopefully will lead to people making donations to support microinsurance for families experiencing poverty.

This is a small step towards ending international poverty. Of course, a simple raising of awareness is not going to be enough to end poverty, especially in countries where there is a lack of infrastructure and/or a corrupt, unstable government. However, I believe that getting privileged people interested in these conversations and issues is a wonderful step on the way towards reaching a poverty-free world. The more people are willing to work together to address these problems, the faster they will be eliminated.

Social Justice at Work

I am a Waltham Group coordinator at Brandeis. I help run the Hunger and Homelessness program, which serves food at the Waltham Community Day Center and holds drives each semester to collect food, clothing, and personal care items for individuals experiencing homelessness in the Waltham and Boston area. The Waltham Group is the most incredible organization at Brandeis, and I have learned so much from being a part of this program. I also got the opportunity to take a Community Engagement Practicum, reflecting on my work as HnH Coordinator in an academic setting. In this class, we focused on centering the population we’re trying to serve: listening to their voices, involving them in the planning and administration of our programs, and never patronizing them just because they have less societal privilege than we do.

I have been thinking about Waltham Group, and this class specifically, lately during my internship. A great aspect of most microinsurance companies is that they are often formed in response to needs from community members. This gives community members the ability to explain what they need and what would actually help them. This is powerful; it gives agency back to individuals experiencing hard times. This is what I want to do when considering the blog posts and promotional materials I am in charge of developing.

My workspace – where the magic happens! Just a big table and my laptop.

So far, I have been building up a collection of blog posts about microinsurance, fun facts about umbrellas, and more. (Right now, the website is just a landing page with basic information; the section where my blogs will be posted isn’t there yet.) The basic message of most of these posts is about doing good and being kind to the people around you. I love this central conceit, but I have also been trying to focus specifically on people around the world who are looking for agency and power in very difficult times. Many have lost jobs, homes, and family, but they continue fighting for a better life for themselves and their children.

By focusing on the stories of these real families, I hope not only I am personalizing microinsurance and international poverty issues, but that I am letting individuals experiencing poverty tell their own stories as much as possible. As we learned in my Community Engagement Practicum, there’s no need to be a “voice for the voiceless”. People aren’t voiceless unless you’re speaking over them. I hope my work with Umby uplifts and centers these voices in every blog post.

-Lily Elderkin

Starting at Umby

I am spending this summer in Chicago at a startup called Umby, which is a peer-to-peer microinsurance platform. Microinsurance is just like regular insurance, except that it targets at individuals living in poverty internationally, mostly making less than $4 USD a day. To address their needs, the premiums and coverage for this type of insurance are relatively low, but it provides an important safety net for families trying to escape the poverty cycle. Umby works by selling umbrellas to consumers, with the money then going to insure one family (of the consumer’s choice) for a full year.

The main social injustice that Umby is redressing is global poverty. In developing countries around the world, individuals are especially vulnerable to the financial hardships which affect all of us at one point or another: health problems, property damage, and the like. However, for someone who is making barely enough money to get by, these hardships can be absolutely devastating. Studies have shown that individuals facing these hardships will do things like selling off their assets, dipping into (quite small) savings accounts, and reducing their food consumption. The problem is that these short-term solutions actually reinforce poverty in the long run: without money-making assets like livestock, it can be difficult to pay for the next hardship; without building up savings, it can be impossible to do economically advantageous but expensive activities such as sending children to school; reducing food consumption to the point of malnourishment or undernourishment can result in long-term health problems that will cost more money later. This is where insurance comes in. If a family has the ability to use insurance to pay for these hardships, they no longer have to deplete their assets or savings, ultimately helping to break the poverty cycle in the best cases.

Further, according to the 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, climate change is affecting the poorest countries in the world the most. Many forms of microinsurance help protect against the power of global climate change, including catastrophe insurance and many forms of livestock or crop insurance. This is another social justice issue: the wealthiest people in the wealthiest countries have the ability to ignore the effects of climate change, but those living in poor regions around the world do not have the infrastructure or the funds to recover from natural disasters.

I am specifically in charge of marketing for Umby. Umby will be officially launching at the end of the summer, so I am developing blog posts and social media strategies to ensure that people will hear of it and will be interested in donating or buying an umbrella themselves. Without the effective marketing efforts, we may not be able to provide microinsurance at all.

We are working inside of 1871, which is an incubator in downtown Chicago for startups, most of which are related to tech. This is a really cool environment to work in, as there are a ton of other young people working on a variety of new ideas, many of which are related to social justice. Most of 1871 is taken up by a huge, open workspace, where dozens of people sit on their laptops or talking to one another. It is a very artistic environment, with one side of the room taken up by this huge sculpture of downtown Chicago. There are also murals on the walls of the building done by local artists. It is definitely way cooler than your average office.

Mark Mulhern’s “Anger/Fear of Retaliation” in the halls of 1871

By the end of the summer, the major event that will be happening is the official launching of the company. I hope by then I will have raised awareness on social media and provided some helpful blog posts that spark interest in the mission and work of Umby, and are entertaining and fun to read.

Lily Elderkin