Interning at Champaign County Humane Society

It has been two weeks since beginning my internship as the Administrative Intern at the Champaign County Humane Society (CCHS). Staff already has me engaging in a multitude of projects that are helping the organization. They have had a Development Intern in the past but I am currently the first Administrative Intern. This is due in part because I proposed the position to the Executive Director, Mary Tiefenbrunn, after job shadowing her in the spring. I aim to finish my internship leaving a good reputation of UIUC ACES students. With this goal in mind I hope that they find that my role as a summer Admin Intern very helpful, and invite other Ag students to fill my position next summer.

 A large portion of my work is spent with Megan Wolf the Development Director. Megan is responsible for tasks relating to organization and donor relations. This includes mailers that are sent out to collect donations, as well as co-ordination with the Development Committee who is in contact with donors as an extension of Megan. I was given the opportunity to attend the June Development Committee meeting with Megan and experience the sort of tasks and responsibilities the Development Committee engage in. Currently I am working on a presentation to help the committee understand the relationship we want to build between the CCHS Development Committee and our donors. As the CCHS is a private non-profit organization, we rely heavily on community donations and so it is important that we develop personal relationships with our donors.

Above: Jackie, part of our Adoption
Staff, being oriented by our call
tracking list. Jackie is one of many
staff members helping answer and direct calls.

                       

Above: Staff often bring their pets to work as

 the humane society is animal friendly. This

handsome Labradoodle is the Development

Director Megan Wolf's dog Hank Shatner-Schmit.

 He is patiently waiting for me to give him a treat.

The CCHS is currently in the process in getting new phones and a new phone system. The goal is to have an automated phone menu to help direct some of our calls and frequently asked questions. To help develop a menu of frequent call subjects, I was in charge of developing an excel sheet of those subjects and orientate the staff with the project. Tracking how often we get calls regarding certain subjects will help us put together this new system.







Other tasks I've been involved in is transferring donor information between systems in our network. Our adoption system, Chameleon, is a system that keeps track of all of our contacts that have either adopted, relinquished, or donated to the CCHS. It is important in order to develop more personal relationships with our donors that we know information regarding if they have ever adopted from us, the name of the animal, the breed and when the adoption took place.With this information I can then enter it into another program called Giftworks which tracks all of our donors, donation amounts, as well as other notes. 

Though I have a variety of administrative tasks to handle each day the humane society is an awesome place to be involved with due to the variety of animals and animal care tasks that I often volunteer to help out with. Most of the animals in the humane society are dogs, cats and small animals. However, every so often we can get unique animals such as our Potbelly Pig, Daphnee. Sometimes getting her to the outside pens can be difficult. Being one of the few male staff members at the organization, I'm always happy to help. 

Above: Our Potbelly Pig, Daphnee, who is currently looking for a family to adopt her.
She loves being outside in the pens and spilling water from her pool to make mud to lay in.

In addition to the tasks and projects I'm working on I've also been able to research topics regarding other humane society's membership programs and how other companies and non-profits are using LinkedIn. Putting together this research for our Executive Director, Mary Tiefenbrunn, and Megan Wolf, will better our use of the professional social network and other programs. The knowledge I've gained from being involved with a non-profit organization has been an awesome experience already. Not only will the internship give me work experience, it will also guide future decisions whether to purse a career involved with a non-profit organization. The internship has provided many network opportunities involved with other lawyers and law offices as I work towards applying to law schools.  I look forward to the rest of my internship here at the Champaign County Humane Society and updating the blog to share all of the great things the CCHS does.