June 7, 2019: Weekly Communication #5
Hi fellows!
Welcome to the fifth installment of our ULF communication. This week’s communication includes a pre-reading on career development, invitations to an opening meet & greet, a calendar for the first week, and information about a second optional FAQ conference call that you can join if you have questions. As always, please reach out if you need anything not covered here!
Content: Career Development
In addition to the work with your partner organization and our elected official, we also build out a robust programmatic experience for our fellows because we want to make sure you leave at the end of the summer feeling like you’ve had exposure to a wide variety of people, experiences, and ideas! Some of these events will require you to break out of your comfort zone and network. Networking can be intimidating for people, particularly those who don’t have as much experience in professional spaces. However, we’re here to tell you that networking doesn’t have to be intimidating or something to dread. In fact, your network and commitment to networking can be a force of good for yourself and others. We’ll lead a session on this in the future, but in the meantime, check out this article about “rethinking networking”.
A few questions to consider while reading:
How - if at all - does this change your perspective of networking?
Can you think of people in your network who you would consider “super connectors”?
When have you successfully ‘networked’ by answering the question “how can I help you?” during a meeting or at an event? How was that different than the more transactional interpretation we have of networking?
Culture: You’re invited to our pre-fellowship Meet & Greet!
For those who are in town the night before the fellowship, or local to Indianapolis, I’d like to invite you to an optional, low-key pre-fellowship meet & greet to get to know each other before day one!
We will be meeting at one of my favorite spots, Tappers Arcade Bar located at 501 Virginia Ave on Sunday, June 16, 2019 from 3 pm-5 pm.
If you plan on attending please send me a message letting me know no later than Saturday, June 15, 2019.
Logistics: Adding the ULF Calendar + Week One details
Hopefully you’ve had a chance to check out the ULF calendar on our regional site. However, if you haven’t please check it out here.
It is best to add the calendar to your own personal calendar so you stay updated on all events and deliverables. Once you add this calendar, you’ll have all the info you need for week one and beyond. A few things to note:
Day 1: Opening Day of ULF - you’ll each be with your partner organizations on Monday, June 17, 2019 from 8 am - 12 :30 pm unless otherwise notified by your partner organization.
After meeting with your partner org, we will meet as a cohort at 1:30 pm at the Indianapolis City County Building located at 200 E Washington Street.
I recommend street parking (which you will need to pay for on your own) or parking in the Whole Foods parking garage which is located across the street. Once you are parked, I recommend entering through the Market Street entrance. Enter the building on the 1st floor. Once you enter, you will need to go through security. Once you go through security, use the central elevators behind the security stations to proceed to the 22nd floor. We will be meeting in conference room 2248. I will be in the lobby on the 22nd to direct you all until 1:35 pm. Please call or text me if you are running late and/or if you have any questions or troubles getting into the building.
Please call me if you get turned around or need additional parking help. I look forward to seeing you all!
FAQ Conference Call #2:
I’ve been getting some similar questions from folks, so I wanted to host an optional conference call to answer any questions and make sure you feel supported before the fellowship starts. If you are interested in attending this call please send me a message no later than Monday, June 10, 2019 EOD. I will then send along a calendar invite with the conference call credentials and date to be held next week before you all arrive in Indy.
Partner Organizations
I know many of you have received some calls from partner organizations to get placed for the summer- congratulations! If you have not heard from partner orgs yet, please be patient and know that I am pushing them to complete matching as quickly as possible. If you have any questions/concerns I am happy to help. In the meantime, continue to be as responsive as possible when you do hear from partner orgs.
Action Items:
We want to pay you! Please fill out and return the attached W9 by June 17
Please take a couple minutes to complete the Pre-Fellowship Survey. The information collected is incredibly helpful as we continue to evolve and grow as an organization. We thank you for you time!
If you plan on meeting the cohort and myself at Tappers before day one send me a message letting me know you are attending no later than Saturday, June 15, 2019.
Add the ULF Calendar to your person calendar
If you are interested in attending the optional conference call please send me a message no later than Monday, June 10, 2019 EOD letting me know you would like to join.
Prepare for a great first day of the fellowship on June 17 at 8:30 am!
Continue to be responsive to partner organizations if you have not been matched with an org yet
All the best,
Haley
Haley Wing-Suttle
ULF Regional Director, Indianapolis
Haley@urbanleadersfellowship.org
C: 813-482-2609
May 31, 2019: Weekly Communication #4
Hi Indy fellows!
Welcome to the fourth installment of our ULF communication. This week, we’re excited to highlight the work of a partner organization and provide some information about what to expect when communicating with partner organizations. As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions.
Additionally, thank you to those who joined our conference call this week! I loved hearing from you and learning what you are looking forward to this summer! For those of you who did not attend, in the future, please be sure to communicate if you have a conflict with a scheduled cohort event/communication.
Content: Policy Projects
With the summer rapidly approaching, we’re really excited to update you on the status of the 2019 policy projects. I have met with our elected official, Mayor Joe Hogsett, as well as our appointed official, Patrick McAlister, and we have identified the policy projects you’ll work on this summer.
I know many of you are eager to begin your work here this summer and dive into these projects. Once you arrive here on site, we’ll present an overview of these projects, answer questions, and then have a process for determining the policy teams and which projects you will work on. In the meantime, any pre-work you will need to complete will be identified in your weekly communications. Otherwise, please arrive to Indianapolis ready to get started and dive into the projects!
Culture: Highlighting a Partner Organization
As we get closer to the summer, we hope you’re getting excited for the incredible work you’ll be doing with our elected and appointed official. Equally as important to your policy work is the opportunity to spend half of your time working alongside a local organization that is doing meaningful work in our community. You’ll get the chance to learn about and hear from many of our partner organizations, but today, I want to highlight one entity we’re thrilled to be working with:
Vision
Our vision is that Central Indiana will be a community where children, individuals and families thrive; neighbors care for each other; and we are proud of all our residents’ quality of life.
Mission
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
We strive to maximize our impact on the community by creating and sustaining an environment that leverages the creativity and innovation that result from the unique perspectives that individuals bring. We believe that our community is best served when diversity and inclusion are embedded in everything we do. As such, we encourage the active participation of our team; including our employees, volunteers, donors, advocates and community partners.
Diversity refers to the similarities and differences, both visible and invisible, that exist among people. Diversity includes values, beliefs, lifestyles, abilities, ethnicities, ages, genders, experiences, thinking styles, backgrounds, orientations, behaviors, cultures, socioeconomic status and the innumerable other aspects that shape an individual’s personality and unique identity.
Inclusion is inviting and embracing the full breadth of perspectives, fully engaging those perspectives, and leveraging them to achieve our individual and collective potential. Inclusion requires action. Inclusion is more than accommodating or allowing diversity. It is about building strength through the inherent value of diversity and seeing it as a fundamental part of all we do. It requires a focus on how each of us makes decisions and a willingness to recognize and eliminate barriers to inclusion.
Logistics
Communicating with Partner Orgs
If you haven’t already heard from potential partner organizations about interviewing, or have heard you were not hired for your first partner organization, expect to hear from more partner organizations soon!
While we know you’re all professionals (that’s why we hired you!) we just want to highlight a few reminders:
Please be hyper responsive. The partner organizations are the hiring managers (and contribute to your stipend) so please be sure to respond in a timely fashion (within 24 hours).
Accept all interviews. Even if you aren’t sure about the fit – or have another interview – we encourage you to accept all interviews to learn about the organization.
If you’re offered a job, respond in 24 hours. You need to let partner organizations know within 24 hours if you’re accepting the job so that they can also make hiring decisions with others. You’re welcome to finish up other interviews (if possible) and then please respond to the offer.
Over Communicate. Offered a job? Let us know! Then we can make sure we don’t send your name along to other organizations and we reach out to finalize details with your partner org. When in doubt, let us know!
As a reminder, if you decline a job, you are still able to apply for other jobs but we do not guarantee you a position with a paid stipend. We work hard to ensure we have enough partner organizations without over-promising to organizations we can’t match with. For that reason, it strains our relationships and planning when fellows don’t accept roles. Ultimately, it’s up to you, but we won’t be able to guarantee you a stipend if you turn down a role.
Action Items:
Communicate with Partner Orgs as they reach out
Let me know if you receive an offer from a partner org
Communicate with me if any conflicts arise throughout the summer
All the best,
Haley
Haley Wing-Suttle
ULF Regional Director, Indianapolis
Haley@urbanleadersfellowship.org
C: 813-482-2609
May 24, 2019: Weekly Communication #3
Hi Indy fellows,
Welcome to the third installment of our ULF communication! This week, we’re excited to share some pre-work on individual development, highlight one of our amazing alumna, and share with you a “day in the life” and “week in the life” to help shape your understanding of the weeks ahead. Read on for all of this information. As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions. Don’t forget to continue to be responsive to partner organizations as they reach out (and contact me immediately if you’re offered a position) and to secure your housing for the summer. For details on both of these action items, see the last two communications I shared.
Quick update: Due to a number of you reaching out to share your conflict with the scheduled Monday conference call, the call has now been moved to TUESDAY May 28, 2019 at 4:30 pm EST
Number: (605) 313-4441
Access Code: 768190
I look forward to sharing more information with each of you and hearing your questions!
Content: Individual Development
Finding the change you seek is the cornerstone of ULF. Of course you’re going to get experience with a local organization and you’ll definitely build your policy/organizing experience, but most importantly, we hope you leave our fellowship with clarity not about what you want to do next, but about the change that you seek. Only by having a deeper understanding of what the change is that you hope to make will you start to build a clear path forward.
Part of finding your own change is being able to identify what experiences in your life have been most formative, and what that means for your future. Being able to articulate this - through your story of self - is an important step. We’ll be working on telling the story of self this summer, but to get you thinking about what this looks like, watch the first four minutes of Barack Obama’s address to the DNC in July, 2004 for one of the best examples of telling one’s own story.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWynt87PaJ0
While watching this video, consider the following questions:
How does then Sen. Obama tell a concise story that allows people understand him and relate to him though they’ve never met him before?
How does he make his story part of a bigger (in this case, American) story?
What parts/experiences of your life have been most formative for you?
Culture: ULF Alumni
If we haven’t told you already, we have an incredibly talented group of alumni across the country. From starting nonprofits to working for the department of Education, clerking for the Court of Appeals and holding elected office, our alumni are some of the most influential young leaders in the fields of education, law, policy, politics, advocacy, organizing, and nonprofit leadership. You’ll get the chance to meet more of our alumni throughout the summer, but until then, we want to highlight one of our alumna right here from the Circle City:
Sarah Ofosu-Ameyaw
Sarah was most recently a public policy fellow with the Zoom Foundation, working in the office of economic and community development in Milford, Connecticut. For Sarah, a typical day usually involves a meeting with the Director of the Economic and Community Development. In these meetings, she briefs her manager on Economic and Community Policy issues that she is working on or issues that are coming up in the pipeline, and then they strategize on some next steps. She often conducts research in regards to the most pertinent policy matters that needs to be addressed, and then she’ll meet with various stakeholders to hear their or to gain more of an understanding.
Read more about Sarah’s background and what’s next for her here.
Logistics: A Day in the Life, A Week in the Life
Curious about what your fellowship experience will look like? Check out this example calendar below for a sample week. We know that every week won’t look like this, but here’s a good sense of what you can expect on one of our busier weeks. Please let me know if you have questions about this.
Our Regional Calendar is already posted on this site which you can find on our Google Calendar & Drive link. Please keep in mind the dates listed currently on the calendar are tentative and may change. As we near the start of the fellowship the dates will be more secure. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out.
Action Items:
Continue to be responsive to partner organizations as they reach out (and contact me immediately if you’re offered a position)
Secure your housing for the summer
Plan to attend our conference call on TUESDAY May 28, 2019 at 4:30 pm EST
Number: (605) 313-4441
Access Code: 768190
All the best,
Haley
Haley Wing-Suttle
ULF Regional Director, Indianapolis
Haley@urbanleadersfellowship.org
C: 813-482-2609
May 17, 2019: Weekly Communication #2
Hello! Welcome to the second installment of our ULF communication. This week, I’m excited to share a pre-reading on team development, help you get to know each other (and our team!) through short bios, and let you know about a kick off phone call I’m hosting to answer your many questions. Read on for all of this information. As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have questions at Haley@urbanleadersfellowship.org
Content: Collaboration Pre-Reading – Why Diverse Teams are Smarter
Note: if your spring is busy, you don’t need to read these now; however, all of these pre-readings are resources you’ll need to be familiar with during the fellowship so we suggest digging in now to get ahead and get a sense for what to expect.
Collaboration is one of our four competencies of the fellowship and something we value incredibly highly. Being a part of, and eventually building and maintain a high performing, diverse team is what sets apart organizations that are good from those that are great. Additionally, it can be a critical factor to job satisfaction and result in better outcomes and impact. For that reason, we strive to ensure all ULF policy teams are high performing and hope you’ll take this summer experience forward into your future leadership roles. This article, “Why Diverse Teams are Smarter” is a text that underpins much of our organization’s approach to team development. We firmly believe that there is value in diversity, and also that “non-homogeneous teams are simply smarter.” For that reason, we ensure that all groups we bring together - whether full time hires, summer fellowships or advisory groups - represent many different viewpoints.
As you read this article, we ask you to consider the following questions:
When have you seen the benefits of diverse teams? Does it match with the research outlined in the article?
Can you think of an example where you/a team would have come to a better perspective or solution if you had had the representation of a specific viewpoint(s)?
How does this make you think differently about your current team, your summer work, or future job prospects?
Culture: Meet your team!
Speaking of amazing, high performing teams… it’s time to meet your team for the summer! Take a few minutes to check out the bios of our staff and fellows so you can familiarize yourself with our team!
ULF family (national) - connects you to all of the fellows from around the nation from the beginning of time (request to join & we’ll approve you!)
Logistics: Kick Off Phone Call
Based on the emails coming in, I know you have a lot of questions! For that reason, I will be hosting a kick-off phone call on Monday, May 27th at 4:30 pm EST to answer your questions and proactively share some information on what to expect with partner organizations, policy projects, and more. Even if you don’t have any questions yourself, you may find it helpful to listen to the questions of others. Please find conference call information below:
Number: (605) 313-4441
Access Code: 768190
Action Items:
Housing and Follow-up
Many of you have begun the search for housing, but for those who haven’t, this is a gentle reminder that – while we’re here to help – it’s up to you to secure housing for the summer! Please utilize this housing exchange as well as Craigslist, Airbnb, and other connections. Please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions.
Also, please continue to be responsive to partner orgs, and if you haven’t sent your bio/resume, please send that along asap!
All the best,
Haley
Haley Wing-Suttle
ULF Regional Director, Indianapolis
Haley@urbanleadersfellowship.org
C: 813-482-2609
May 10, 2019: Weekly Communication #1
Dear Indy Fellows,
Welcome to our ULF Indy website and first installment of our weekly communication! In each weekly communication, we’ll cover: Content [info you’ll need to read/know for your fellowship experience], Culture [getting to know each other and your city], and Logistics [the important information to support your transition to ULF]. The expectation is that you read through the communication posted to the site, and follow up with me, your regional director, with any questions. I will be posting our weekly communications to this website in order to provide you with the most up-to-date information, with the next update coming next week. In the meantime, you can always reach out to me at haley@urbanleadersfellowship.org. I am looking forward to an amazing summer together!
PS - take a minute to click around our regional website. We’ll use it all summer, and it’ll have things like: bios, resources, our fellowship calendar, communications, and more. Please bookmark the site so you can find it easily.
CONTENT: WELCOME TO INDY!
I am so incredibly excited to meet each and every one of you, and welcome (most of) you to Indy! As of now, there is a lot of momentum for change in Indy, and therefore many opportunities to impact policy. We have partnered with Mayor Joe Hogsett, as well as with partner organizations doing meaningful work throughout our community.
Check out the following videos to learn more about what makes Indy a great city to live and work! To help introduce you to the city, I’ve also included multiple links under our "Resources" tab where you can learn more about what’s going on in Indy!
CULTURE: STAFF/FELLOW BIOS
By next week, I want to have all of your bios posted to our website. Therefore, please send me your headshot by May 12th. Thank you to those who have already sent this to me!
LOGISTICS: HOUSING EXCHANGE & PARTNER ORG HIRING PROCESS
Housing Exchange: In order to help facilitate a transition to Indy for those of you currently living out of town, I have created a document with local partners to help you identify and secure low-cost housing. Here is the link to the document. On this page, friends and partners of ULF have listed their apartments / rooms available for rent during the summer. Keep in mind that this is updated as more individuals reach out to me so please keep your eye on it if you are still searching for housing. It’s first-come-first-served, so please don’t delay in reaching out to the people who have listed rooms. It should be noted that you are ultimately responsible for securing your own housing, so we suggest that you also utilize personal connections (if applicable), Craigslist/Airbnb, and any other resources at your disposal. Wonderfully, Indy has affordable housing options. Please keep in mind that we will be working together each afternoon either at or close to downtown Indy. Unfortunately, Indy does not have the most robust public transit system. Those who have cars and are able to bring them should do so. There may be times you will have to pay for parking. If you do not have a car, it would be best to live somewhere close to a bus stop or bike route to get around the city. If you have any questions about neighborhoods and transportation, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Partner org hiring process: I have already confirmed the majority of our partner organizations for the summer where you’ll spend your mornings working on mission-critical projects. Soon, you will start to hear from partner organizations who are interested in hiring you. In order to facilitate a smooth process you MUST complete the partner org survey (thank you to those who have already completed this!). Additionally, I’ve added some information below:
1. Partner Organizations make decisions (not ULF): Because partner organizations are the ones who design the project and pay your stipend, they are the ones who make the final hiring decision. While I will work with them to ensure that they are connected with fellows who are a good match for what skills and experiences they need, I do not directly place any fellows.
2. Partner Organizations will receive resumes, and determine who they would like to interview. Some POs may just want to offer you a position, while others may request one or more interviews before making an offer. Please accept all interviews within 24 hours of being contacted.
3. If you are offered a position by a PO and you’re excited about it, please respond within 24 hours of the offer being made, and accept it! If you are offered a position and you’re concerned about the fit, please reach out to me immediately before declining an offer. If you choose to decline an offer, ULF cannot guarantee that you will get another paid offer from a partner organization, so we do not recommend that you do so. If you choose to decline, we will continue to support you in getting hired, but you may not be eligible for a paid position, so please keep that in mind. Once you've accepted an offer, please let me know so I can let other partner organizations know you've been hired.
4. Finally, please operate with a sense of urgency and respect with these partners. Many of them have worked closely with ULF many years, so please remember you’re representing our organization in your interactions here. Please refrain from reaching out to partner organizations directly; they have access to all resumes and will reach out if they are interested in speaking with you.
Our goal is to have all fellows hired by the end of May; however, it’s common to have fellows hired closer to the start of the fellowship.
All the best,
Haley
Haley Wing-Suttle
ULF Regional Director, Indianapolis
Haley@urbanleadersfellowship.org
C: 813-482-2609
ACTION ITEMS:
Send me your headshot no later than May 12th
Complete this partner org survey no later than May 12th. I’ll share your answers with partner organizations to help them make informed hiring decisions
Share any questions, concerns, or thoughts with me regarding the partner organization matching process
Start looking for housing options. If you would like to sublet a home/apartment find the link to the document I have created and continuously update as more individuals reach out to myself
Prepare for a tremendous experience this summer! :)