To briefly summarize how I came across my internship placement, The Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF), two summers ago I worked there for a transitory amount of time. I loved it so much that I decided to redeem my employment and become a spring intern for more experience in event managing building. This internship incorporated my love for film, artistic detail, event planning & managing, and building a great deal of publicity for their two main events: Oscar Night America (which took place February 26th the night of the Oscars), and the annual summer film festival (taking place the second week of August). My responsibilities as an intern included strategically composing marketing plans for both their main events, adjudicating & logging in past and current films while deciding whether or not they qualify for acceptance to the festival, and lastly to ensure the smaller festivals that occur yearly are just as successful as their two main events. This internship was fast-paced and kept me on my feet, all great preparation for employment after college.
When the semester first began, I developed three personal and professional objectives that would allow me to gain a significant amount of experience while executing the many tasks I would be assigned by my supervisor. The first objective was to spend the semester at RIIFF learning and understanding what working for a non-profit organization was like. Working for a non-profit was an entirely different ship to navigate, since most of the funding for our company was either from generous donations from local Rhode Island vendors, or profits we would make from ticket sales during our annual events. With the exception of smaller events RIIFF hosts throughout the course of the year, the two main events are where we hope to earn the most funding; Oscar Night America and International Summer Festival. During my first few weeks at my internship, Joanne Arnold (my supervisor) really explained to me the details of how to ask for and receive donations, since it isn’t a matter of just picking up the phone and requesting one. A lot of what she and the CEO of the company do is grant-writing, which is essentially presenting a blueprint map of our companies goals and objectives in coherence with how they help spread national awareness through the art of film, all in hopes to earn funding from wherever the grants are sent. This was an important experience for me, working with a non-profit, because I can now appreciate and understanding how much more work goes in to ensuring there is enough funding to A. keep the company up and running, and B. ensure the employee’s all receive their salaries. Since the Rhode Island International Film Festival is accredited with the ability to nominate films for Academy Awards, it means that they are pretty well established; therefore outside sources will be more inclined to support this non-profit organization.
My next personal objective and experience that I wanted to concur while interning this semester was in relation to my major (communications), and wanting to strengthen my skills as a writer and ultimately as a communicator. The objective was to learn to handle people professionally and appropriately through written-word and in person, as well as get a front row seat perspective on the many elements that are required in order to make a film festival a success. I would have to say that throughout my time working at RIIFF, I had many opportunities to apply past writing skills to assignments from my supervisor. I learned how to properly compose a donation request letter, a donation thank you letter, a congratulatory letter (for a few raffles we had), and how to sit in during an important office meeting and present my thoughts and ideas in an appropriate manner. Since a majority of what I did on a day-to-day basis was communicate with my supervisor and fellow interns (who weren’t always in the office when I was) about certain projects that everyone was working on at different times, this made completing these projects much more organized. If there was no communication that went on about these projects, certain components might not have gotten finished or even started. Communication was key to my success, in every aspect.
My third and final personal objective was for me to plan on fine-tuning my organizational skills. This was an objective I felt would not only better my work-ethic and ability to manage myself well at work with various projects, but allow me the opportunity to really ensure every component of whatever project I am working on was done thoroughly and perfectly (as I am a perfectionist). I planned on improving these skills by taking on various office responsibilities, keeping labels and tabs on all files/assignments, and micro-managing our Oscar Night America events (overseeing the catering, volunteers & guests all at the same time). It wasn’t a normal day at the office if I hadn’t left at the end of the day having worked on 2 or 3 various projects. There was so much to do, that it was pretty necessary for me to work on multiple assignments at once. One day I would be collecting donations, sending out donation requests, contacting local vendors asking when and where they would need me to pick up their donations, then actually having to go and get those items then return to the office, compose new letters to vendors that I would think of on the way, run those letters past my supervisor and then execute with the requests, etc. There was just so much going on, that it really forced me to be extremely organized and ensure no information was forgotten about or misplaced. It was pretty easy for me to remain composed and organized since I had my computer with me everyday, and made lists so I wouldn’t forget anything. When it came to being organized for office events, my staff and I would assign each other tasks and set a time to complete these then reconvene together to assign new tasks. The experience was definitely much easier when there were more hands to help, as in life; there is a power in numbers.
In conclusion, without my experience at The Rhode Island International Film Festival, I would not have gained as much insight to the concept and understanding of how a non-profit organization functions. I learned how important it is to stay in good contact with businesses around you, and provide as much support to the local community on as limited amount of means as possible. Then, hopefully the local community will see all the good work you do and decide to reciprocate the favor and provide support for your company. I also really am grateful for learning how to multi-task and oversee numerous projects at once, and how to stay calm under pressure. Not letting the mass amount of work take over your stress level is an important lesson to learn for my future, since I’m sure instances like I had at RIIFF will occur again.
