Investing in the future of Advancement
This summer, Institutional Advancement is excited to host a CASE Graduate Trainee and a new cohort of CASE interns. Supporting staff in Advancement Operations, Advancement Services, Donor Relations and Special Events, CASE interns and trainees come from diverse backgrounds and experiences. We hope you will join us in welcoming them!
Founded in 1974, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) is a volunteer-led nonprofit focused on educational advancement. They provide resources and training for professionals in alumni relations, communications, development, marketing and advancement services. As part of their commitment to helping educational institutions meet the needs of more diverse alumni and donor populations, as well as encouraging graduate and undergraduate students to consider future careers in advancement, they developed the CASE Advancement Internship program.
CASE interns have collaborated with colleagues throughout Institutional Advancement in support of various initiatives including the launch of families.risd.edu, writing articles for Momentum magazine, helping staff get up to speed on how peer institutions were pivoting to virtual events, creating posts for social media, creating and editing videos, organizing digital assets and writing marketing materials for the Alumni Insurance program. They also worked with Alumni + Family Relations to reinvigorate the regional clubs program by assisting with presentation preparation and reunion marketing.
Claire Robinson, Director of Special Events, sees the internships as a learning experience for both sides, “bringing in young people who are relatively new to our field and showing them our processes, working closely with them, allows us to think more critically about what it is we are doing, while helping someone at the start of their working life assess events and/or development as a possible field.”
Amanda Wright, Director, Donor Relations, who has worked with CASE interns over the past two years, feels the intern candidates are exceptional and an asset to Institutional Advancement teams, “Both years have proven very different but also successful in their own ways. Even from reading the resumes and statements it's amazing what these young people have to offer. Their views on advancement and what diversity can offer to the profession are impressive.”
More than just developing project-based professional skills, CASE interns gain real insight into relationship building, stewardship, working collaboratively with diverse groups and how to think strategically about long-term initiatives while remaining flexible when plans have to change in the moment.
Summer 2020 intern, Zoe Smith, was thrilled to begin her internship at RISD, despite not being able to come to campus due to the pandemic, “The CASE internship gave me an amazing overview of all of the teams that make up IE—not just Campaign Planning and Strategy. Each week the other two interns and I met with someone from Alumni + Family Relations, Advancement Services and the Development team—we even met with Amee Spondike from the [RISD] Museum. All of these “one-on-one” sessions really helped us to understand how important and collaborative each team of the Division is and how they contribute to its mission. The internship allowed [myself and my fellow interns] to start gaining some professional and marketable skills and develop or find a mentoring relationship in the field of advancement early on in our professional careers.”
June Lee, who was also a Summer 2020 intern, felt that her “time at RISD was one of my most valuable and productive internship experiences. In pushing me to contribute my best work to many fun projects, the IE team helped foster my media and communication skills among others. Through this experience, I was able to walk away with an extensive portfolio—with which I landed two later internships—and a network of kind and inspiring individuals.”
Working at RISD also provides a unique opportunity to experience advancement work in an art and design setting, providing a much different perspective for interns than they might receive at other schools. For the 2020 internship class, the timing of these internships also added to the learning process.
Smith adds, “The intersection of being in this already phenomenal internship program with COVID and the Black Lives Matter movement over the summer gave me a perspective of institutional advancement that I think puts me a notch above my peers in the job pool. I don’t think these lessons are something that I would have learned or realized were so important to me at Yale or Harvard or any of the other schools that offer CASE internships.”
CASE interns leave RISD with real-world skills and a strong sense of what it means to have a career in Advancement as well as a network of professional contacts invested in their future. Says Law Blanchard, “It is a true pleasure to contribute to the professional development of CASE interns every year. Perhaps my favorite part of the experience is serving as a mentor long after they complete their time with us.”
Smith shares that working with staff has given her a real insight into the “traits that I am going to look for at every job interview moving forward. Everyone understands how important the work they’re doing is and how necessary it is to truly serve the population at RISD. I could go on about the skills and the professional benefits of the internship and all that CASE provides, but being at RISD has taught me more about myself in this past year; what I admire in others, what I value and how to have forthright, friendly and meaningful conversations with others.” They develop real-world friendships as well, says Wright, “The collaboration and kinship between the interns has been wonderful to see. Interns from our team become very close—they spend a lot of time outside work together and really come to rely on one another. This past year’s virtual experience meant that the interns' experience of one another was different, but we still saw relationships grow between them—so much so that they created a fantastic farewell video for the team!”
Perhaps Lee’s assessment sums it up best, “Interning with RISD was one of the best decisions I've ever made!”
