I arrived at the Donorschoose.org head­quar­ter­sat 9:30 am for the first day of my Princetern­ship. Andrew Pro­tain ’06, was host­ing me and another Princetern, Sejal Pachisia, for three days. Andrew is the Teacher User Expe­ri­ence Spe­cial­ist at Donorschoose.org (DC). I am very thank­ful to him for prepar­ing a highly orga­nized sched­ule that allowed us to meet with peo­ple from all the depart­ments we were inter­ested in.

Andrew intro­duced us to the Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer at DC, Cesar Bocane­gra. We went to one of the small, cozy meet­ing rooms for a short meet­ing with Mr. Bocane­gra. He gave us a brief overview of the dif­fer­ent depart­ments at DC and their func­tions. I really enjoyed talk­ing to Mr. Bocane­gra. He talked to us about his career path and work expe­ri­ence before join­ing DC. I real­ized that it is very impor­tant for a per­son to fol­low his inter­est if he/she wants to enjoy his job. I met a num­ber of peo­ple at DC who said that their inter­est in edu­ca­tion was the main rea­son why they loved work­ing at DC.

Then we met the Oper­a­tions Asso­ciate, Diane Finkel, and joined her in her Logis­tics and Busi­ness Rela­tions team check-in. It was an inter­est­ing expe­ri­ence. AlthoughI did not under­stand cer­tain tech­ni­cal terms, the meet­ing was very insight­ful. I felt that the envi­ron­ment of dis­cus­sion was quite friendly and casual. After the meet­ing, we had lunch with Andrew and Char­lotte Weiskit­tel ’06, another Prince­ton alum at DC. We talked about Prince­ton and activ­i­ties we were/are involved at the uni­ver­sity. I felt glad to know that Andrew was the editor-in-chief of a Prince­ton stu­dent run mag­a­zine that I now work for.

Then we par­tic­i­pated in one of my favorite expe­ri­ences of the Princetern­ship. We helped put together Thank-You pack­ages that would be sent to donors. I read very sweet thank-you let­ters and cards from the stu­dents.  The stu­dents would often describe the equip­ment bought with the help of the dona­tions and how they have improved their learn­ing abil­i­ties. I could see the impact DC was mak­ing in the lives of these stu­dents when I read their sin­cere grat­i­tude. Then, we par­tic­i­pated in the tech team meet­ing. We wit­nessed how the small tech team com­mu­ni­cated with one another and how they man­aged their daily activities.

Over­all, the envi­ron­ment at DC had a very casual atmos­phere. I did not find cubi­cles that sep­a­rated the staff. Instead, DC staff could see each other and the CEO, Charles Best, from their desk. I noticed that DC was a small, closely knit orga­ni­za­tion that was mak­ing a huge impact in the improve­ment of pub­lic schools in the nation. Most of the DC staff I talked to stressed that they loved work­ing at DC because even though it is a small orga­ni­za­tion, they feel that their indi­vid­ual efforts make cer­tain impact in the lives of many stu­dents and teachers.

Jan­u­ary 11, 2012 Wednesday

Fel­low Princetern Sejal, Andrew Pro­tain, and Pujan

The sec­ond day at Donorschoose.org (DC) began with a debrief­ing of the first day with Andrew Pro­tain ’08. I thanked Andrew for firstly offer­ing to host us and sec­ondly arrang­ing such insight­ful inter­ac­tions with other mem­bers of DC. Then we met the Mar­ket­ing Man­ager of DC, Anna Doherty, fol­lowed by a meet­ing with Vice Pres­i­dent of DC’s Human Cap­i­tal, Thalia Theodore. Mrs. Theodore informed us about the hir­ing prac­tices of DC. She also shed light on how the train­ing and ori­en­ta­tion of new employ­ees are han­dled. It was inter­est­ing to note that not many inter­na­tional stu­dents, like me, apply to work at DC.

After that, we had lunch with the cus­tomer rela­tions team. I noticed the mem­bers of the team have had diverse career back­grounds before join­ing DC. The team mem­bers also informed us about their roles at DC. There were many job descrip­tions that sounded sim­i­lar but had sub­tle dif­fer­ences in oper­a­tions. I also learned that employ­ees at DC often changed their roles accord­ing to chang­ing demands and there­fore had to be quite flex­i­ble. After the lunch, we met with the Account­ing Man­ager, Rama Louis. She had a lot of use­ful sug­ges­tions for us. Her most impor­tant sug­ges­tion was to work doing some­thing we are really pas­sion­ate about. She claimed that if one is pas­sion­ate about his/her work, work will not feel like work. She also added that one might have to start lower down the order and grad­u­ally move up to his/her dream job. She also empha­sized team­work over smart­ness or effi­ciency as the secret to success.

After talk­ing to Rama, we met with the Direc­tor of Part­ner­ships and Busi­ness Devel­op­ment, Elaine Perez. She informed us that DC man­aged its oper­a­tions from two types of funds: direct funds and part­ner­ships with cor­po­ra­tions and foun­da­tions. She informed us that DC has been doing well on its cor­po­rate part­ner­ships but would like to increase the share of the direct dona­tions. She told us about var­i­ous inci­dents in which DC had unex­pect­edly been funded by foun­da­tions because of its focus on education.

Then we par­tic­i­pated in a project that was the most amaz­ing expe­ri­ence of the Princetern­ship. We wore both given DC gift cards and asked to donate to dif­fer­ent projects using the DC web­site. I donated to two pro­ject­sthat dealt with pur­chas­ing equip­ment to help English-learning in pub­lic schools with a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of stu­dents who speak Eng­lish as a sec­ond lan­guage. I very much iden­ti­fied with the projects because I myself used to lis­ten to the BBC to learn Eng­lish. It was a very reward­ing expe­ri­ence to see the projects get com­pleted and to receive thank you emails from the teachers.

We ended the day with a meet­ing with Zach Walker, the Donor Rela­tions Man­ager. He informed us about the per­for­mance review exer­cises that DC employs to pro­vide its employ­ees with cru­cial feed­back. Mr. Walker pulled up his own per­for­mance review sheet and walked us through the dif­fer­ent sec­tions under it. I found the exer­cise very help­ful and constructive.

Jan­u­ary 12, 2012 Thursday

The final day of the Princetern­ship began with a meet­ing with the Devel­op­ment Direc­tor of the Part­ner­ship and Busi­ness Devel­op­ment team, Reyna Booth. Although we had already met a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the depart­ment the pre­vi­ous day, the meet­ing was still help­ful because Mrs. Booth gave a more gen­eral per­spec­tive where as we had received a more cor­po­rate ori­ented overview before. She also informed us about how dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies helped DC by dis­trib­ut­ing DC gift cards among its employ­ees. Such ini­tia­tives have yielded good results both for DC and the companies.

Then we par­tic­i­pated in a pre­sen­ta­tion that explored the pos­si­bil­ity of using a pro­gram called Sales­force for improved cus­tomer ser­vice. Although there were many tech­ni­cal terms that I did not under­stand, the par­tic­i­pants were engaged in a cost ben­e­fit analy­sis of switch­ing from the present pro­gram to Sales­force. After that, we had a kype ses­sion with the Screen­ing Man­ager, Alex Pruner. She informed us about dif­fer­ent mar­ket­ing strate­gies adopted by DC. It was very nice of Andrew to have sched­uled the skype ses­sion because the other Princetern was very inter­ested in the mar­ket­ing side of DC.

Then we sat in an Oper­a­tions meet­ing fol­lowed by a final debrief­ing with Andrew. We were very thank­ful to Andrew for putting up such a well-organized Princetern­ship. We man­aged to explore so much of DC in 3 days. The day ended with a guest speech by Carla Har­ris, Board Chair of Mor­gan Stan­ley Foun­da­tion and Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Mor­gan Stan­ley Invest­ment Man­age­ment. Mrs. Har­ris shared words of wis­dom on ways to achieve suc­cess. She stressed that the term suc­cess should not be a vague con­cept. It should be con­crete and we should develop our per­son­al­ity in such a way that adjec­tives asso­ci­ated with that type of suc­cess suit us. She fur­ther shed light on the impor­tance of men­tors and spon­sors in fur­ther­ing one’s career. She also stressed on the impor­tance of lis­ten­ing and accept­ing pos­i­tive crit­i­cism. She high­lighted that aca­d­e­mics, expe­ri­ence and net­work were all impor­tant for suc­cess. I found the talk very inspi­ra­tional and a good note to end the Princeternship.

I would like to take this oppor­tu­nity to once again thank Andrew Pro­tain ’06 for putting up such a well-organized, insight­ful and help­ful Princetern­ship. These 3 days have informed me a lot about how DC and sim­i­lar non­prof­its oper­ate and has inspired me to play some part in help­ing them make an impact. I have also applied for an inter­na­tional intern­ship at another non­profit that deals with female lit­er­acy after the Princeternship.