Author: jermeelahmartin

I wish I would have known how much I would miss United for a Fair Economy as my internship comes to an end. As I complete my last days at UFE, I am grateful to reflect on my experience. I initially thought that as a remote intern, I would not be able to get the full experience that I would have otherwise gained if I was physically there, but it has been the complete opposite. I got to learn tremendously from the staff, and experience UFE culture and what it’s like to work at nonprofit. My experience with UFE this summer has been special and meaningful.

One of the many meaningful things I’ve learned and experienced with UFE is how important it is to have a healthy work and life balance. UFE values personal health and taking time off to rehabilitate. This value has helped me transform the way I approach working to including more healthy practices that have helped me become more productive. Additionally, I’ve learned that it is your passion that drives your work. Working for social justice can get tough and even frustrating, but as long as you have a passion for social justice, you can get through all the hard times. UFE has a work environment that embraces challenges together, and it’s very collaborative. Working at UFE has shown me what to look for in workplace culture in a potential post-college job, and made me consider working full time at nonprofits. I have also expanded my interest in social justice and started to plan out the rest of my academic journey at Brandeis.

Additionally, I learned that there is not one primary solution to achieving social justice. There are multiple solutions, and as an agent for change, it’s essential I find the path I am most passionate about and do my best to help with the mission. For example, United for a Fair Economy looks at economic justice holistically. Each staff member contributes their expertise to the organization’s mission through education, development, and communications. I have even been able to share my passion for education equity and its relation to a fair economy through UFE. I’ve also learned how valuable and important it is to have a set of unwavering values in a nonprofit. I noticed that a lot of the work, like communication with donors and applying to foundations for funds, all comes down to “do they have the same values?” and I think that is part of the beauty of working at UFE. It’s definitely mission-driven.

Specifically, being the development intern, I learned a lot about resource mobilization and how a lot of it comes down to tracking all data and building relationships with donors. The bulk of my work has been working in the database and updating donor information. I’ve also done foundation research, made thank you calls to donors, and organized donor-advised funds. It is essential to always to build good relationships with donors and to seek out new relationships. In nonprofits, it’s important to be extremely organized and always seeking out funding from foundations. I am grateful to learn about how to finance nonprofits.

My advice for working in social justice and working at UFE is to keep learning and develop self-efficacy. UFE is a unique workplace that encourages learning together and asking questions. Each staff member has a story, a path, and work that is inspirational and can teach you a lot and help you form your own path. I had the opportunity to sit in a lobbying meeting with Mike Lapham for the second stimulus package. That was a great learning experience to understand negotiation. And from speaking to Jeannette, I got to learn about the power of strength and self-efficacy and how that can lead to success. Always be willing to do what’s right, even if the task is a little daunting.

Thank you, UFE, for an incredible summer! (PS: Check out their State of the Dream Report !)

I moved to Brandeis University from the inner city of Chicago, IL. I lived in Chicago my entire life with my friends and family and never lived outside of the city. When I first arrived in Waltham, Massachusetts for Brandeis University, the new environment was completely different. There was an immediate culture shock. I was adapting to the Brandeis community, the Waltham community, and everything that made Brandeis so different from home. The new city, diversities, and classes all were overwhelming at first, but given the new environment and how overwhelming it felt, the most valuable lesson I’ve learned in my time at Brandeis University was that cultivating relationships with my community members is key to being successful and comfortable in new environments. I’ve learned that when I take my time to share my story and learn the stories of others, we can cultivate a relationship of open communication where both parties are comfortable to continue to ask questions and be our authentic selves. Being comfortable with each other, we can learn how to communicate with one another and have the best opportunity for learning.

This lesson is significant to me because it teaches me how to adapt to new environments without succumbing to intimidation. Learning what connects me to each and every person in my communities has been helpful to maintaining relationships where parties can potentially help each other out. I’ve found that peoples’ stories are significant to who they are and how they form their perspectives, so when I take the time to understand them, I further my understanding of communities globally, which help my goal of promoting social justice. These connections are essential to encouraging curiosity and asking questions so that learning doesn’t always end in the classroom. In this way, I’ve found that when communicating and being yourself, you can discover what connects you to each and every person and create a comfortable learning environment. 

This lesson informs my thinking about United for a Fair Economy’s work. When advocating and mobilizing communities for social justice, it is essential to understand the community members involved. I can see that relationship-building is a priority in the workplace and in United for a Fair Economy’s projects. The work is most efficient when the project participants trust one another and the team trusts one another too. 

This informs my approach to my internship because it taught me to prioritize meeting all of the staff to understand who they are, what work they do, and how our goals can intertwine. In this way, I have a connection to every person in the workspace and  I feel comfortable reaching out with questions and inquiries. I really enjoy the relationship-building aspect of my internship, because I am learning so much from them all!

This summer, I am interning at United for a Fair Economy. United for a Fair Economy is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that supports social movements working towards a resilient, sustainable, and equitable economy. United for a Fair Economy addresses the social issues of economic inequality and the uneven wealth distribution that deepens the racial divide, tears communities apart, and corrupts democracy. The organization uses popular economics education, trainings, and creative communications to address these issues. United for a Fair Economy works closely with communities and specifically uses three programs to help support their mission: Economics for Everyone workshops, the Responsible Wealth Project, and the Inclusive Economy Project. Economics for Everyone workshops use the popular education methodology to engage movement leaders to democratically and collectively develop political analysis. The Responsible Wealth project engages business leaders, investors and people who fall within the top five percent of income/wealth in the U.S. to advocate for tax fairness policies. The Inclusive Economy project uses the Living Wage Network to connect and uplift employers who pay a living wage, and Raising Wages NC–a coalition of working people, unions, community organizations, faith leaders, and policy advocates–to help advocate for raising the minimum wage to a living wage for vulnerable communities. 

I choose to work at United for a Fair Economy because I agree with the mission and understand the importance of economic inequality and its detrimental relationship towards upward mobility. Having experienced how economic injustice and unfair policies negatively impact lives,  I am passionate about economic justice and would like to continue to work towards social justice in the nonprofit sector. I value education, community building, and political advocacy as important pathways too. I found UFE to be a model nonprofit organization that holds the same values that I do. I admire the organization’s work and how they put great emphasis on working with communities. I believe that through an internship with United for a Fair Economy, I can learn more about the development and planning it takes to work towards economic justice. 

This summer, I am the development intern working closely with the fundraising and operations associate, Morgan Cowie-Haskell, and the resource mobilization director, Sara Sargent. I am primarily tasked with managing the database and tracking donations, making thank-you calls to donors, writing blog posts, and assisting with website updates. My work this summer will help further the organization’s mission because, as a nonprofit organization, donations and visibility are extremely important to operations. As I help increase visibility for UFE and help with database and donations, I help UFE better organize their operations and fundings. 

I enjoy working alongside all the team members and learning more about the workplace environment. I am excited to continue working with United for a Fair Economy this summer!

 

Thank you Brandeis University’s World of Work fellowship for allowing me to do this work!

-Jermeelah