Jessica Hurtado

Professor Dave Wells

OGL 484

Monday, August 16th, 2022

Final Reflection

Overall my experience at the Boys and Girls Clubs was fulfilling. I went into this

experience imagining I would be completing mundane tasks and following Youth Development

Supervisor and Branch Director around to learn the value of their leadership in the organization.

However, I discovered that the non-profit world involves much more creative freedom. Although

this job's freedom is exciting, non-profit organizations often don't know where their funding will

come from, so the time to complete the demanding tasks required to receive the grants is short.

The non-profit world will most likely come back into my life, but I don't know how soon I will

return due to the low income and demanding job.

As mentioned, the list of job responsibilities I thought I would have would be different.

Due to the number of duties required to keep the club running effectively, there are not many

people to get them all done. So, in most of the jobs I had during this internship, although they

were impromptu, I felt accomplished and motivated to lead without anyone controlling the

approaches. At first, it was super nerve-racking because I was afraid I would fail, but once I

received positive feedback from my mentor, I felt prepared to lead in other organizations. From

my experience, I observed that their non-profit employees are either there for many years or very

few, and everyone is usually busy trying to meet deadlines; they rarely have time to provide

one-on-one training.
 Gaining the financial support to continue operations is very competitive for non-profit

organizations; therefore, non-profits need to make their organization appealing to donors to gain

an advantage over other non-profits. Then there is the stress involved in receiving grants offered

to non-profit organizations when they have to complete many tasks in short periods. One of the

most significant examples is the Doug Ducey, AZ On Track Summer Program grant, which

allowed many students to enroll in camp for free but applied additional stress to Boys and Girls

Club employees. From a scheduling perspective, all the programs scheduled months in advance

had to be changed to follow particular requirements. Additionally, every student enrolled in the

program at the end of the summer required a series of long surveys during the last week of the

summer, which is already heavily packed with many activities.

I have been open about my weaknesses and the opportunities I see at the Boys and Girls

Club; however, I enjoy showing up and finding solutions to challenges or being creative in my

projects. Additionally, there is a lot of stress involved in getting work done and making the

organization a place where students can learn and make memories that will stay with them

forever. That said, I don't think I will go straight into working for a non-profit organization, but it

is something I would like to return to in my future because I genuinely love the creative freedom

and connections in the non-profit world. Additionally, I would like to have as many resourceful

skills as possible to offer to a non-profit organization I am passionate about, so I plan to work for

a corporate company to gain experience and knowledge.