Parents Education Network Summer 2014 [Raffi]

My name is Raffi Manoukian and I am a senior business administration student majoring in Organizational Behavior and minoring in Psychology. The 2014 Summer Public Service Internship Program at the University of San Francisco has given me a great opportunity to apply the business skills I have been learning throughout my life and education. I was assigned to Intern with the (PEN) Parents Education Network, a non-profit organization that helps provide resources for parents with children who have learning and attention disabilities.

What sets PEN apart from other organizations is that they work on a more personal “grass-roots” level. They band together families who are facing similar hardships in order to develop a support group which can help better integrate children with learning disabilities, and to provide them with the tools they need in order to gain a proper grip on executive functioning. Executive functioning is a set of mental processes that helps connect past experience with present action. People use it to perform activities such as planning, organizing, strategizing, paying attention to and remembering details, and managing time and space. When various learning disabilities such as ADD and Dyslexia come into play, it can be a huge challenge for a child to assimilate into a culture that strives for “normality”. This societal view of manufacturing “cookie-cutter” children to produce a set standard for a community doesn’t work for everyone, as everyone is unique and perceives their own reality differently. Pen understands this is the case and strives to bring this issue to light.

Having struggled with ADD since childhood, I can personally attest to the challenge of growing up with a learning disability. It seemed that I grew up in a time and place that wasn’t very tolerant of ADD because I felt ostracized for my inability to keep up and pay attention. I felt inadequate and both my parents and I were constantly worried about my abilities. The material support I was given felt more like a push than a helping hand. If I had access to a resource/support center like PEN, not only would my parents and I have means of entry to many helpful material resources, but also the emotional support to help me realize that my learning style is unique, not deficient.

As a Strategy Research Intern at PEN, my task is to help analyze the organization’s effort to reach their target audience and strategize ways to help boost the effectiveness of their efforts. PEN is planning a strategy retreat in the fall. In order to enable informed, comprehensive decisions, they need research completed in key strategic areas. I am working with the Executive Director, Laura Maloney, and other key Board Members. Through my interest in Organizational Behaviors and Psychology, I hope to facilitate a positive wellbeing on a personal, social, and business level.  Growing up with learning difficulties, I share a close connection to PEN’s cause and am honored to have the chance to help.

 

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Week 1& 2

-My first two assignments regarded background research on PEN and research questions regarding the non-profit sector.

-I helped with a LinkedIn data processing project and organized information on PEN’s Parent Project Research Presentation.

-I attended three meetings regarding strategy research. We discussed current strategy with a SWOT analysis and conducted a discussion on PEN’s strategic planning vision.  We also discussed and outlined possible questions to help with planning.

– I conducted a presentation of what I have learned so far to my supervisor (Laura Maloney) and a board member (Karl Shaikh).

– I conducted background research on Gavin Newsom’s business/political experience and created a summary document for board members. Since Newsom is a key strategic associate of PEN, it is a good idea to have a solid understanding of his skills and accomplishments in the business/political world in order to lead PEN in a better direction when working with him.

 

Week 3&4

Strategy Research is all about broadening horizons and gaining further reach on the purpose and goal of an organization. In PEN’s case, the boards of directors are always trying to strategize ways to enhance their service and help more children struggling with learning disabilities.

-One way to determine their reach is by comparing how many members vs non-members attend their Speaker Series events. Another way is through a comparison of membership rates for the past four years. My task was to sort through excel spreadsheets and retrieve this information. Thanks to the Excel skills I have learned throughout various business courses (such as Quantitative Business Analysis and Managerial Accounting), this task was a breeze.

-In order to maintain a streamlined approach in regards to PEN’s strategizing efforts, I helped review PEN’s board meeting notes from 2012-13 and 2013-14. I created a summary document explaining all decisions made and all actions required (when someone commits to a task).

-I am currently working on a project to summarize PEN’s bylaws so that the rules under which PEN operates can be referenced to with ease.  The extensive note taking experience I have had over the course of my education has greatly helped my ability to summarize and take notes in an effective manner.

 

Week 5&6

-After finalizing my summary of PEN’s Bylaws, I submitted the document for review to see whether it contains all the pertinent information needed.

-My supervisor and I then discussed my work in comparing attendance rates at their Speaker Series events. We decided that it would be a good idea to include a section with rates converted into proportions and percentages in order to further clarify the presentation of its information.

-PEN has an online database with “WildApricot” to keep track of all of its members. I began working on a project to help organize PEN’s database to help prepare for an upgrade to a new one. I helped merge similar accounts and checked for spelling errors and typos for the organizations entire membership contact list.

 

Week 7&8

-In order to have a better handle on PEN’s demographic and reach, I broke down their extensive contact list within their database and organized several spreadsheets for further analysis.

-One spreadsheet listed active long term members from PEN’s birth to July 2011 and another listed new members from 2012-2014.

-The next spreadsheet contained an analysis of the attendance at PEN’s Speaker Series Events from 2012-2014. I created a list of non-members that attended these events in order to inspect and further speculate about the demographic PEN is working with.

-I created a document listing web page resources regarding learning disabilities for PEN’s new website which is under construction.

-Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation theory is pertinent to PEN’s goals as an organization. I created a document outlining and summarizing Rogers’ theory, to be brought up and discussed during the next board meeting.

-Meetup is a social networking tool that allows groups of likeminded people to connect and post gatherings and events. Since PEN has an interest in Meetup, I created a summary document outlining its features and capabilities in order to give the board members a better idea of what it is all about and whether they want to utilize it.

-Since PEN is upgrading to a new database, I transfered the information from the old database into a file that will then be used to update the new database.

-Lasty, I began researching on how to boost PEN’s social media followers and overall presence.