Meet-A-FLiP: Kat Walsh

Good morning FLiPs! A bunch of you have asked for more information on the background of our new favorite college internship program - DSIP! So, in keeping with FLiP-style, we went to the brains behind the project, Kat Walsh.

Before we start the interview, I wanted to congratulate Kat and DSIP for winning the CASE gold Circle of Excellence award for the Collaborating Programs category AND the CASE Grand gold award for overall Fundraising Programs!

Future Leaders in Philanthropy (FLiP): So Kat, we know you run a very cool program for the University of Michigan…and we’ll get to that. First things first though, tell us a little more about yourself. Where did you grow up and go to school? What was your major in college? How did you come to work at Michigan?

Kat Walsh (KW): I graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2003 having majored in both Theatre and History. Upon graduation I moved back to my hometown of Brownsville, Texas to serve as the Director of Alumni, Coordinator of Admissions, and a part-time teacher at Saint Joseph Academy (Go Hounds!). This was my first introduction to development and the “real world” and what an introduction - it was both exciting and terrifying at the same time. Luckily I had wonderful work colleagues to guide me as I helped build these programs. After two years I decided that I wanted to further my education so I left the warm and humid south for the University of Michigan to pursue a Master of Public Policy through the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and an MA in Higher Education through the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education. While I was a student I was hired (along with two of my fellow graduate students) through the Office of University Development to create an internship program that would introduce current U-M students to fundraising as a viable career option. This program is known today as the Development Summer Internship Program (D-SIP).

FLiP: Let’s talk a little more about Michigan. What is your job there exactly?

KW: I graduated this past December and came on board full time as the Assistant Director for Student Philanthropy. I dedicate half my time to coordinating D-SIP and I dedicate the other half to creating a culture of philanthropy for students at U-M alongside our partners in each of our schools, colleges, and units. This position is new to U-M and very exciting for me personally. U-M students are, for the most part, philanthropically-minded, but they do not necessarily view U-M as a philanthropic vehicle. More specifically, they are not necessarily aware of the impact philanthropy has at an institution of higher education (particularly at a public institution) and why it is important to give back to their university/college through time, talent, and financial resources.

FLiP: What’s it like working for a huge higher ed institution? Are you sick of football?

KW: Sick of football? I am from Texas, went to Notre Dame, and now work at Michigan. My uncle played for Odessa Permian (the team from Friday Night Lights). Football is a way of life for me. Working for a larger, decentralized institution of higher education is actually a lot like football…a lot of different players with various talents working together for a common goal. It’s all about that Michigan Difference.

FLiP: Okay, let’s get to the good stuff. What is D-SIP about? How did it come to be, and how is it funded now?

KW: I just have to say that I love this program. We created this program to address a variety of needs: How do we recruit talented, young, and diverse people into a field which they are not necessarily aware of? How do we help current students understand and appreciate the impact philanthropy has at U-M and at institutions of higher education across the country?

We took these questions to our colleagues in the development community and asked them what their thoughts and ideas were around using an internship program to address these needs. We held focus groups, created an advisory group, and met individually with development officers and our partners in the Career Center, Alumni Association, Athletics, and Student Affairs. We asked them what this internship program would look like: Should this program be limited to U-M students? Should they live in a house together over the summer or should they live on their own? How do we make sure the work they do is meaningful? Should they be required to take a class in philanthropy? Would that class be for credit? Should our interns get paid? Should we provide our interns with professional development opportunities? How do we make this program “Michigan”?

So after lengthy discussions (and, let’s be honest, sometimes heated debate) we created what is now the current structure for our program. D-SIP was piloted in 2007. I cannot stress enough that our partners were integral in the creation and current success of our program. They are our investors and contributors!

FLiP: So what does our program look like?

KW: Well, D-SIP consists of three main components:

1. Work Component: Placement in a Development Office (32 hours a week) Each department develops a project plan for its intern, identifying learning goals and strategies to achieve them. Unlike other internship programs where student interns are often given low-priority work, our interns engage in challenging, project-oriented work specific to their assigned department and/or unit for 32 hours a week. The interns’ salaries are provided by each unit. Paid internships are essential for most students, who must spend their summers working to pay for college and other expenses. We continually look for donors to share in the continuing program costs such as instructional salary support, marketing and recruitment materials, classroom supplies, and funding for our retreats and workshops.
2. Classroom Component (8 hours a week) Our interns spend 8 hours a week in the classroom, an experience designed to provide a theoretical understanding of philanthropy to complement their work experience. The interns receive 3.0 credits through the School of Education. The curriculum focuses primarily on the role of philanthropy within institutions of higher education, but also explores the role philanthropy plays within nonprofit organizations and within the global community.
3. Additional Programming (After work hours) Our interns participate in a variety of additional programming, including, but not limited to, learning from donors and alumni to the U-M, participating in an etiquette dinner, attending a Career Q&A Session (led by FLiP!), participating in a donor event in Northern Michigan, visiting Michigania (the U-M alumni camp), creating an electronic portfolio (a new initiative at U-M led by our partners in Student Affairs), and participating in mock interviews (led by our partners in the Career Center).
    

FLiP: Do you think the program is working? How do you measure success for your donors?

KW: Yes, yes, and yes! We are continually evaluating the impact of our program so as to identify what needs to be improved. The instruments we use to measure the “effectiveness” of our program are one-on-one interviews, surveys throughout the summer, evaluating each intern’s electronic portfolio, and tracking our interns’ continued involvement with U-M and their future career choices. Some key outputs and outcomes from our first summer (2007) include:

• Our application pool increased 59% in its second year.
• Of our original 17 interns, 15 are interested in development as a profession (2 have been hired into the profession and 5 are currently interviewing for positions).
• Of their own accord, our interns decided to raise money amongst themselves for the 2008 program. A donor was so impressed by their initiative that she decided to match the gift. With the match, the 2007 interns made a gift of $2010 for the 2008 program.
• Nearly 100 people attended our Closing Ceremony, including the parents of our interns, community members, donors, alumni, and U-M development officers.
• The supervisors consistently rated their interns’ performances as “superior” and as contributing to needed work that current resource and staff capacity did not allow for.
   

These checks are more for internal purposes rather than for our donors, but our donors are actively involved in our program and share in our successes with us. In fact, one of our donors just hired a D-SIP alum to work for her this upcoming summer!

FLiP: Where do you think the program is going? Would you like to see other schools adopt a similar model? 

KW: We would love for other schools to adopt this model and it’s for this very reason that we created a program that could be replicated. There has been a lot of discussion surrounding the “leadership crisis” in the nonprofit world. Well I believe that there are young professionals willing and able take on these positions if they had the right training and if they are aware of the opportunities available to them within the nonprofit sector. We are currently fighting over the same group of talented professionals, but if colleges and universities across the country have similar programs we can begin sharing professionals. We are currently looking into the most effective method for sharing our best practices with colleges and universities across the country.