Author: Aiah Kassim

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The non-profit had another campaign for their sub-platform, in which a raffle/sweepstake was held where the winner would win $4000 and would be able to donate an additional $1000 to the charity of their choice. My job was to reach out to as many people and influencers as possible to encourage more entries in the raffle, along with designing social media posts to promote the competition. I believe that I performed well in these tasks as I was able to contact many influencers across all platforms and create multiple promotional designs within the few weeks of the semester.

Since I focused my designs on Instagram, to improve my performance I believe that I could have made additional content for other platforms such as TikTok, which may have brought more attention to the sweepstakes. There is always room to improve, even though I believe I did a good job.

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I did not meet anyone in person however, I do admire both my supervisor and the company founder at my internship. My supervisor is a very kind and direct person. I admire his attention to details and attendance. He is always on top of everything and that is very admirable.

The founder is an amazing socializer and great at communication and networking. It’s no surprise that he has 25 thousand followers on linkedin and thousands of connections because of it. He is also very attentive and has a great sense of humor that makes the organization a fun environment.

I will carry on these traits from these mentors from my internship at this non-profit organization.

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One project I worked on is for a nonprofit organization for World Blood Donor Day on June 14th. There was a $4,000 giveaway that encouraged donateable entries and encouraged the audience to donate blood. My team and I worked on creating flyers and contacting influencers to help spread awareness for blood donations and donations for the non-profit partner.

The team of interns that I was a part of contained about 5 people, some of whom I recognized from previous classes. I communicated with them through Google Hangouts and Google Meet during the weekly meetings.

What was successful about this campaign was the amount of people and influencers we were able to contact, along with the designs we created to promote the non-profit and the event.

What I believe was not as successful is since we reached out mainly to social media influencers, most of the ones with large followings did not get back to us. Understandably, we created new social media accounts associated with the company and thus had just a few posts with our designs and did not have any followers. This also resulted in our designs not getting much recognition and attention.

Translation and audio generated by software.

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I am learning to enforce what I was trained to do during my classes for advertising, to be provocative, creative, and most importantly to tell a story. Using graphic techniques to express the creativity of the idea for the sweepstakes campaign I was assigned was one of roles I play diligently. I am learning about the structure and flow of marketing a campaign. First comes strategy and planning. Next, is implementing those plans and revising them to perfection. Finally, there is the release of the work onto social media, print, etc. This is the same process I have learned about through my learning of my concentration, advertising. I have followed this process in my own craft during this time. I started off with the strategy, sketching and getting ideas out then deciding which of the ideas I will use. Next, I brought it onto the computer to digitize my ideas and revised them. Last, is posting them on instagram and on the shared drive with my colleagues. Attending meetings weekly and keeping up communication with my colleagues was key. 

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Working remotely is a much different experience than an in-person job. Working from home, although convenient, does not allow for me to get a true feeling of the company’s work culture, attire, work environment, or of a typical work day. I attend synchronous company meetings weekly, one with all the company’s staff, and another shorter meeting with just my supervisor to catch up and update him on my work every week. Aside from these meetings, my work is completely asynchronous and I just make sure to complete what I am assigned before the deadline or the next meeting. 

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This semester, I am working for a nonprofit organization whose goal is to generate revenue for other nonprofits. They do this by marketing content, events, and promotions to gain attention and encouraging donations for various charities and nonprofits.

Initially, it was a for-profit platform founded in 2007 by two founding members. They had partnerships with another high profile company and over a thousand other businesses to generate donations through marketing. After raising over seven million dollars in donations, they terminated their partnership with the for-profit in 2012 and launched a similar campaign in 2013. After a few years, the founder established the company in 2019 as a non-profit organization. Now, they also own two other platforms and have partnered with many other nonprofits and charities.

Despite having made such a large difference for charities, it is quite a small company with about fifty employees and is located in New York, however I am working remotely within the design/PR department.

In the article I found on the History of the company, it mentions that before the current nonprofit, there was a for-profit organization that generated 8.3 million dollars for nonprofits with its marketing platform. In this article by eMarketing Association it mentions that if a ARV (Approximate Retail Value) for a sweepstakes over 5,000 dollars must be registered and that is why the sweepstakes campaign my fellow interns and I are working on is only 4,000 dollars.

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I am a design/PR intern that helps promote the endeavors and events orchestrated by the non-profit I work for. My professor this semester directed me towards this position and provided me with the supervisor’s contact information so that I could set up an interview. I reached out to the supervisor and explained that I was a COMD student at City Tech looking for a summer internship. I received a response from him within the next day and set up an interview with him. The meeting was online and he asked me general information about my personality, the kind of work I do within the COMD major, working with teammates, and whether I knew anything about the company or not. The job was offered immediately and the onboarding process started as soon as the interview was complete.

The articles have changed my perspective on my own design work because I now understand how much value each person’s design holds because it is one of a kind when handcrafted and cannot be replaced and is owned by its creator. You cannot use others’ works without sourcing them, this is something many of us already know. I have used online work in my own design work but never work that I would publish. It is important as a designer to respect the work of others and to give them the proper recognition they deserve if you will be using their work. It is unprofessional to do anything else. The Fairey Copyright case was a great example of why everyone’s works must be credited if being used. I think that Fairey was oblivious to the use of the AP photo for his artwork, as many of us usually are, and he did mention that he respects other people’s work and that he would not use another AP photo without a license. I believe that since he spoke up and owned up to his actions and agreed to not make the same mistake again that it is okay and that it does not change the beauty of his piece or the impact of it.

Resources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/arts/design/13fairey.html

My experience at the non-profit as an intern has been exciting and fulfilling. When it comes to sources of media. I am very careful about the ones I use.  I did not have to sign a confidentiality agreement of any kind and all my work comes from my own handcraft or from the staff Google Drive resources panel including trademarks and logos. No outside work is to be used without crediting its creators.