Bloomberg interns reflect on an impactful summer

Our summer internship has allowed us to experience firsthand how Bloomberg employees #workonpurpose. Giving back is a big part of the company’s culture, but through this internship we have seen how much behind the scenes work goes into our philanthropic efforts.

Throughout the summer, much of our work in the Corporate Philanthropy Department involved research and reports for partnership renewals, updating sponsorship databases, or helping to coordinate and lead volunteer service projects across the city, giving us the opportunity to learn and grow professionally.

When the internship started, we were assigned a large-scale task for the first four weeks: preparing the New York Intern Day of Service to generate the greatest impact possible, in coordination with our global offices in Tokyo, London, and Sao Paolo. From this planning, we became aware of the amount of coordination required for a service day for more than 350 interns in New York. This project was no easy feat, but with support from our team, we were able to strengthen our skills along the way.

Here’s how we did it:

Week 1

One of our first meetings when we arrived as interns was at a round table with our team leaders Becca Diefenbach and Sam Shivraj. Together, we selected seven diverse nonprofits serving different parts of the City to show the depth and breadth of our programming. The three of us were tasked with research, creating one pagers, and figuring out the best way to divide and conquer. We received the roster of all 354 interns from 29 departments, as well as Bloomberg Philanthropies, with whom we work closely.

Week 2

The second week into preparation, we made project sheets and distributed information for our team projects. We thought it would be a good idea to let the interns pick their own project so we created sign up links on our internal volunteer platform, and began a plan to share the information through our intern newsletter.

We shared our plans with our managers, but their feedback was not what we hoped! Turns out, they tried that before and with this insight, we decided that the best course of action would be to assign the interns to events based on distance from where they live. This made it easier for everyone to get home safely after their projects.

We then mapped out the closest project locations for every intern, making sure that all of the different departments were represented at each project. That way, interns that might not normally get a chance to meet would have the opportunity to network and work together towards a common goal.

Week 3

After a few rounds of edits, we finalized the individual project sheets for the seven organizations that we would be visiting: the Armory and the Good Plus Foundations, City Harvest, Citymeals-on-Wheels, Habitat for Humanity, NY Common Pantry, the River Fund, and a global Mapathon with Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and Doctors without Borders. Finally, we created a logistics plan for an open-house style orientation for the interns a few days before the Service Day, in order to answer questions and make sure that interns had all the information and resources they needed for a successful day.

Week 4

During the week of the day of service, we finalized a few other logistics such as transportation, food, communication plans, creating printed materials, stuffing bags, distributing t-shirts and hats, making sure people had water. We also helped coordinate information sessions for our global mapathon in different time zones, checking and updating RSVPs, responding to questions, making sure we had enough seats, and all the last minute adjustments that you could imagine.

Intern Day of Service!

The big day came and we had incredible turn out. As part of our seven projects, we:

• Helped the River Fund pack 2,500 backpacks with school supplies for their annual Child Poverty Awareness fair.
• Collected orders, packed, and distributed pantry bags for 139 families equaling 2,690 meals at NY Common Pantry.
• Packaged 12,500 lbs of potatoes into 3,354 bags for City Harvest.
• Packed 4963 boxes equaling 14,889 meals for homebound seniors with CityMeals-on-Wheels in the Bronx.
• We helped install flooring and trim work at a Habitat for Humanity home-build in Newark.
• We collected more than 2,500 items of debris including plastic pieces in Sandy Hook with Clean Ocean Action
• Helped Armory Foundation in Washington Heights beautify the surrounding area planting 22 beds around the Armory using 520 flowers, 400 lbs of mulch, 900lbs of topsoil.

Finally, we joined our fellow interns in cities around the world to help map more than 41,000 buildings with the Missing Maps Project.