Justin Dorazio: Third Sector New England

Screen Shot 2017-07-06 at 12.04.32 PMI have the pleasure of interning with Third Sector New England, which is a nonprofit intermediary whose mission is to build the knowledge, power, and effectiveness of individuals, organizations and groups that engage people in community and public life. As I write that first sentence, I realize that I’m already wrong. I now intern for TSNE MissionWorks, which is one of the many changes occurring here at the NonProfitCenter in downtown Boston, the home of TSNE.

Within the organization of about 60+ employees (and growing), I work with the Leadership and Learning Program who focuses on building the skills, knowledge, and confidence of its constituents, which are primarily nonprofit leaders and professionals. However, the LLP team is only one small fraction of the work that TSNE provides. Essentially, if you have a service for your smaller non-profit that you need help with, it’s likely TSNE does that: anything from fiscal sponsorship, to consulting services, to workshops, to grants, TSNE provides it or will do their best to connect you with someone in their network that does. It is one of the largest nonprofits in the area with a footprint that extends far wider than the New England area (hence the name change).

As a part of the LLP team, I am assisting them on the Better Non-Profit Management Training Series, which are individual workshops open to non-profit leaders in areas such as financial management, supervision, public speaking, communications, fundraising, etc. While during the beginning portion of the internship I was able to help run the trainings from a logistical standpoint and sit-in to hear from the outstanding speakers on their expertise in non-profit best practices, I now focus on program planning for future iterations.

My main independent project is a market analysis for the BNM Training Series (yes, TSNE loves to use acronyms for everything). This research project was geared towards observing other organizations that offer similar trainings using comparison metrics such as pricing scales, online presence, trainer sourcing, and marketing impact, among others. While I am about done with the research and analysis, the next stages for my project are the recommendation and implementation portions where I hope to help shape the future trainings and successfulness of the BNM series.

However, something I’ve learned while working for a non-profit such as TSNE is that there is always more work to be done. Quickly after learning there was a new intern in town, every department seemingly had a new project for me to take on. I was tasked with projects from the Fiscal Sponsorship Practice Leader, the COO, in addition to people within my actual team that spanned from data analytics of fiscal sponsors, to a costing analysis, to a consulting contracts project, to running cohort based trainings. I felt like a bobble-head just nodding yes to all of these different projects. I was more than happy to take them on, but it seemed daunting at the time to take on all these projects in all these different areas.

What occurred to me after that first week though was that the organization was, admittedly to them, so siloed, that there were few people who worked across all of the different departments. However, an intern, with a few responsibilities and limited time would be able to see across all of them and to partake in various tasks for them all. I quickly learned to value my strategic position and appreciate the vantage point I was given.

That vantage point was also important when looking at some of the major changes that I had mentioned earlier. The organization changing its name was a huge deal; we had a two-hour meeting with Sametz Blackstone, which is a brand strategy, design, and media agency, where they explained the transformation across all platforms. To show how democratic TSNE works and how it values its employees’ opinions, the name and color scheme were actually voted on by the employees themselves.

Two other changes occurring here are the retirement of long-term CEO of 35+ years and the renovation of our office space. There is an interim CEO and a plan to find a new one by the end of the year in addition to an organizational restructure with position changes, department reshuffling and ultimately more streamlined and efficient processes. The renovation to our office space is to make room for all of the new employees and to transform the space to be more open and collaborative, one of the key points of emphasis during this transition. I’m currently at my first full day at my new desk…exciting times.

Being able to understand the reasons for change and to take part in change of this magnitude during just a 10-week internship is extremely unique and eye-opening. But it only scratches the surface of the greater work being done here at TSNE. An organization that dedicates itself to seeing other nonprofits and agencies achieve their own mission is a very unique model; the pooling of resources, experience, and ideas all culminate in better outcomes for these organizations and in turn, a better society. The new slogan here is Partners in Social Change, and I’m really excited to see where all of that change leads, even beyond my short stay.