Non-Profit & Philanthropy

How to Manage Personal Bandwidth and Be More Effective - Matt Curtis

In Chapter 9 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, public affairs and communications strategist Matt Curtis answers "Where Has Learning to Say No Been Most Impactful in Your Own Professional Growth?" Over time he learns to help people in the most effective way possible. This includes saying "no", especially when asked to volunteer time for non-profit board activities. By limiting his commitments, Curtis finds himself making a more substantive contribution in the causes and groups he does support with his time. Curtis is the communications director for Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell. Curtis' charity work includes affiliations with Capital Area Food Bank, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Students of the World, the Rainforest Project and the Art Alliance. In 2011, Curtis won "Austinite of the Year" in the Austin Under 40 Awards. He earned his bachelor's degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.

How to Improve Community Service Volunteer Impact - Matt Curtis

In Chapter 10 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, public affairs and communications strategist Matt Curtis answers "Why is It Not Only Important to Participate in a Scene But Also to Contribute?" He learns that by participating in too many boards and commissions, he becomes "overboarded" and finds his ability to contribute diminished. Curtis comes to prefer helping a non-profit accomplish goals rather than sitting on boards. He advises young professionals to avoid becoming "overboarded" with volunteer commitments and to make sure that with participation comes contribution. Curtis is the communications director for Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell. Curtis' charity work includes affiliations with Capital Area Food Bank, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Students of the World, the Rainforest Project and the Art Alliance. In 2011, Curtis won "Austinite of the Year" in the Austin Under 40 Awards. He earned his bachelor's degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.

How to Champion a Community Service City Culture - Matt Curtis

In Chapter 11 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, public affairs and communications strategist Matt Curtis answers "How Has Winning Austinite of the Year Validated Your Approach to Community and Public Service?" Winning the award as part of Austin Under 40, Curtis connects his experience serving the community to promoting community service as a lifestyle option. Curtis sets a life goal to create more community service centered lifestyles by promoting the positive change volunteering creates. Curtis is the communications director for Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell. Curtis' charity work includes affiliations with Capital Area Food Bank, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Students of the World, the Rainforest Project and the Art Alliance. In 2011, Curtis won "Austinite of the Year" in the Austin Under 40 Awards. He earned his bachelor's degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.

How to Make Your Community Service More Impactful - Matt Curtis

In Chapter 12 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, public affairs and communications strategist Matt Curtis answers "How Can One Make His or Her Community Service More Impactful?" He starts by aiming to make the situation better than you find it. Curtis creates this impact by being an active contributor actually doing community service. For example, Curtis suggests volunteers not only help deliver Meals on Wheels but actually get inside and meet the people receiving the services. Curtis believes making this impact will also create a participatory culture focused more on taking action on potential instead of pointing out problems. Curtis is the communications director for Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell. Curtis' charity work includes affiliations with Capital Area Food Bank, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Students of the World, the Rainforest Project and the Art Alliance. In 2011, Curtis won "Austinite of the Year" in the Austin Under 40 Awards. He earned his bachelor's degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.

How to Create Private Sector Jobs - Matt Curtis

In Chapter 17 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, public affairs and communications strategist Matt Curtis answers "How Has Your Community Participation Allowed You to More Effectively Navigate the Political Process?" Curtis shares how by engaging the community across several levels - grassroots political groups, basic needs organizations, and non-profits - he's able to better understand needs and identify opportunities. He then connects this to larger Texas state-level relationships to get help to recruit new companies and create nearly 15,000 new jobs in Austin. Curtis is the communications director for Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell. Curtis' charity work includes affiliations with Capital Area Food Bank, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Students of the World, the Rainforest Project and the Art Alliance. In 2011, Curtis won "Austinite of the Year" in the Austin Under 40 Awards. He earned his bachelor's degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.

Courtney Spence on How Non-Profit Shifts From Survival to Growth Mode

In Chapter 3 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers "What is Enabling Your Ambition to Shift Away from How to Survive to How to Thrive?" After seven years in operation, Spence finds her organization hitting an inflection point from a small budget and staffed organization operating in a recession to a future-focused organization ready to scale. She finds conversations shift from verbal support to actionable requests to help. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What is enabling your ambition to shift away from ‘how to survive’ to ‘how to thrive’?

Courtney Spence:  It’s interesting.  So we’ve been doing this for 11 years.  This is our eleventh year.  That’s—now we’ve been doing it as a national 501c3 nonprofit for seven, almost eight now.  I’ll start at, you know, at that eight year mark because that’s really when I was envisioning, you know, a national organization, a national nonprofit, you know, especially being as young as I was, you know, you set these insane benchmarks and so this concept of where would we be in 2011.  In my mind, when I was 23, looked very different than where we are now, but what has happened and what’s something I’m really appreciative of is that we’ve really done the hard work, and we’ve really, you know, what we’ve done with such a limited budget, with such a limited number of staff, through one of the most difficult financial, you know, crisis and times in our life, and, you know, in the history of this country, like I have to say I’m really proud of our team and of our students and of our organization for having been able to last through that, and its really been in the last six months that – what happened was I know there had to have been a change internally where all of a sudden I had more confidence, and I think coming off of this summer that was so incredible, coming off, you know, being able to be in New Orleans for the fifth anniversary of Katrina and seeing our partners there, you know, the inspiration that I took from the summer, I think probably changed something internally. 

Externally, what I noticed is conversations went from ‘oh you’re fighting a good fight, keep up the good work’, “aren’t you doing so great’ to ‘I wanna help, I’m taking out my Blackberry, I wanna connect with this person, and this person, and then let’s meet in two weeks and see where you are.’  So there was just this shift and that shift has happened in so many various relationships that we have at Students of the World that you just feel this momentum and this movement that’s happening.  And, you know, as the space that we live in, which is, you know, empowering young people to tell stories of progress through cause-related media, you know, young people have been interested in traveling the world and have increasingly had the capacity, and the skills, and the knowledge, and the equipment to do this work.  And finally, I think this -- the concept of nonprofit storytelling really is coming into its own.  You know, so all of these things kind of, you know, come together, and what you realize is that, you know, you actually have an ability to see not just where are we in three months, but where do we wanna be in three years, where do we wanna be in ten years, what is the real big difference we’re here to make, what’s our BHAG, what’s our big hairy audacious goal, what is our purpose. 

When you’re just trying to survive and you’re just trying to pay the rent, and pay your employees, and get the work done, and you’re focused like this, you’re not able to think and not able to see long term, and you have – there are moments where you have to be like that, but its been very exciting to watch sort of our horizons go from here to sort of like this, and like I’m able to now see possibilities where before it was – they weren’t necessarily there or I wasn’t seeing them.  So it’s a combination of a lot of things but this point where you’re, you know, between surviving and thriving, it’s a very exciting but it’s also a very scary place to be.

 

Courtney Spence on Making Your Work More Meaningful

In Chapter 4 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers "How are You Learning to Make Your Work More Meaningful and Lasting?" She makes it a priority to enjoy the process and the journey of her organization's impact and story. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen :  How are you learning to make your work more meaningful and lasting?

Courtney Spence:  I think it’s really important to enjoy the process.  I think, for a while, there it was so much about we haven’t met these goals.  Where are we?  I was so disappointed in not being where I wanted to be.  And when you sort of – I had to let that go this last year because we were giving it one last shot, and it was, you know, making some crazy decisions, and, you know, making some risky decisions, and it started slowly, it’s starting to pay off, but what I realized is I had a great team.  I mean the women that I work with, I love, and we laughed more, and we have more fun than I’ve had in the long time, so I have really, really enjoyed the process because that’s all we have.  We have the journey, the destination is not guaranteed, and when you get there, it doesn’t look like you thought it would look, and then there’s another place you gotta go.  So if you don’t enjoy the journey, you’re not gonna enjoy your life, and the work that you do won’t be as impactful as it could be.

Courtney Spence on Why Momentum is Fundamental to Understanding Success

In Chapter 5 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers "Why is Momentum Fundamental to Understanding and Measuring Success?" She notes how her non-profit, Students of the World, is learning to better understand past performance and translate it into milestones framing future strategy. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  Why is momentum fundamental to understanding and measuring success?

Courtney Spence:  You know, when you talk about success, you talk about, you know, where you were before and where you are now, and it’s sort of a measurement over a period of time.  For us, we’ve had a lot of momentum in this last year, and so I can look back to where I was, and I’m constantly doing this every, you know, month of the year, sort of a benchmark, at like something that I look back to whether it’s, you know, the conversation we had a year ago, whether it’s Christmas, whether it’s the Clinton Global Initiative.  You have this sort of annual benchmarks that I’m, you know, consistently hitting. 

And something that I have been able to appreciate is where – over the course of the last year, you know, where we were and where we are now, and our, you know, confidence in what we’re doing.  And I say ‘our’, because I think it’s the whole team, but really, you know, for myself, the confidence in what we’re doing, the belief that we really are going somewhere pretty great is not where I was even a year ago.  So, I’ve felt like I’ve just been sort of pushed along a little bit which has been great.  It has really helped to – helped me to appreciate how far we’ve come and the successes that we’ve had to date.

Courtney Spence on What It Means to Be a Leader in Non-Profit Executive Job

In Chapter 6 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers "What Does it Mean to Be a Leader in What You Do?" She defines being a leader as helping others find the best in themselves and using this to make the greatest contribution to the team and organization. By giving students responsibility and ownership in the organization, Spence finds she is creating a lasting support network that progressively helping make the organization and its people more effective. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What does it mean to be a leader in what you do?

Courtney Spence:  For me I think being a leader means helping other people find the best in themselves and helping other people feel that not only are they contributing to society in a great way but they’re contributing to the team, contributing to the vision, and really being able to see people grow in that role, and whether it’s our staff, whether it’s our students, whether it’s our interns, our board of directors, you know, the people that have really, you know, become part of the Students of the World family, I think there is certainly a feeling of responsibility to them to really tell them how integral they are to the organization but not through by just telling but by showing them, enabling them to really have ownership in where we are now and where we’re going.  You know, as we’re going through this process, it’s really – it’s going back to our alumni that participated eleven years ago, it’s going to our alumni that participated last year going to, you know, parents of students that participated.  

It’s really bringing in all of these different communities that this organization has touched and really trying to figure out how to bring them back into the fold and make them realize that they are a part of this greater network that is Students of the World.  So, you know, I’m very conscious of my role and all of that, and I think that, you know, it’s very easy sometimes to get caught up in your personal, ‘oh my gosh, I don’t have time, oh my gosh, I’m very stressed, oh my gosh, I have all of this to do’, but if you stop focusing on yourself and start focusing on others, I find that for me, I think I’ve become more effective as a leader, and I think that, all in all, the organization and the individuals that make it up are happier and more efficient, and it works.

Courtney Spence on How Haiti Relief Trip Teaches Commitment to a Cause

In Chapter 7 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers "What Did Traveling to Port Au Prince, Haiti One Year After the Earthquake Teach You About Commitment to a Cause?" Traveling to Haiti for five days during the one-year anniversary of the earthquake educates Spence on why and how relief efforts must be long-term focused. During her trip she meets local students, artisans and young professionals. Drawing on experiences from Uganda and New Orleans, Spence prioritizes spotlighting recovery and reconstruction after the tragedy. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What did traveling to Haiti one year after the earthquake teach you about commitment to a cause?

Courtney Spence:  Traveling to Haiti and being there the anniversary of the earthquake, January 12th, I think it was 4:57 p.m., I don’t know the exact time in the afternoon it was.  It was very – it’s very hard to describe.  I was only there for five days, but those five days have certainly changed the course of my life, and I know that Haiti will always be a part of my personal life and most likely now my professional life as well, but the things that I saw and the people that I met, it was both a feeling of ‘oh my gosh, that has happened a year ago and there is still so much, you know, rubble, collapsed buildings, people living in tents.  Port-au-Prince is just – I mean the traffic and the population density that all of these people that, you know, 80% of them don’t have jobs, and you see this, it’s very, very visual, and I don’t have something to reference it from a year ago.

I have been told by people that have been there for a while that it actually looks, you know, much better than it did before, but I don’t think I appreciated the true massive event that it was because when I went I’ve never seen anything like that ever in all of my travels, and so there was a part of me that, particularly on the day, that was the anniversary, how do we understand that in, you know, forty seconds of time, hundreds of thousands of lives were lost and millions of people were displaced and are now, you know, without homes?  That – it’s overwhelming, and at the same time, you know, you – I had a really incredible opportunity to meet with individuals that are pushing along, pushing forward, that’s what you do, life is hard, and there’s this understanding that I really felt from every Haitian that I met that this is just how life is.  We got dealt this, you know, this hand of cards, and we’re just gonna do something with it.  

So it’s, you know, meeting young people that are going into IT world and helping bring wireless access to rural parts of Haiti.  It’s people that, you know, artists that have now been able through great NGOs and organizations have made a deal with Macy’s and anthropology to get their -- their vases, and, you know, their paper-mâché, beautiful, beautiful artwork sold in the U.S., and are making a living as an artist in Haiti.  It’s meeting these people, these individuals that are so positive about where they’re headed and so encouraged by what they can do and what the Haitian people can do.  It’s also staggering to see that.  Having those two overwhelming senses when I was there that happened to be on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake, and although I think it did get some news coverage, I felt that it was overshadowed by other news of the day, and it was all in all very disappointing to me in some regards because I’ve seen this in New Orleans with Katrina, I’ve seen it in northern Uganda where, you know, the LRA has left, and so we have now forgotten these people that still have to rebuild their lives and that are at their most critical moment of rebuilding their lives.  

That’s when we need to be there.  That’s when the media needs to be shining a light on the progress that’s made but the progress that still yet to be made because, you know, we have so many things that pull us in so many different directions, and we seem to really gravitate towards the massive tragedies and not really think about what is the long, hard, marathon, running work of rebuilding and reconstructing and building back better, and that’s the place that I wanna be in, not just the immediate ‘oh my gosh, can you believe how horrible this is?’  It’s ‘oh my gosh, it’s a year later, and where are they, and what can we be doing, and why don’t we feel the sense of urgency now that we felt then because they still need help and we have abilities to that?’  So it was a – yeah, it was a – it was an incredible, incredible trip.

Courtney Spence on How to Use Art Education to Create Social Change

In Chapter 8 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers "What Do You Enjoy Most About Working at the Intersection of Social Change, Art and Education?" Spence finds the continuing change present at this intersection provides a powerful storytelling platform for individuals looking to do good in the world. She finds telling stories of progress through the lens of the good happening in the world, it is more actionable. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What do you enjoy most about working at the intersection of social change, art, and education?

Courtney Spence:  What I enjoy most about working in that intersection of art, education, and social change is the fact that it is constantly changing and it’s full of individuals that really have a burning desire to contribute to society through the talents that they have been given and through the talents they wanna develop.  You know, when you’re in the education world it’s all about curiosity, it’s all about learning from others, listening to other stories, and understanding how that is your story also and what do you take from that.  So that’s when we started Students of the World, the concept of let’s go out and be ‘students of the world’ just as we are students at Duke, or at UT, or at UNC, and, you know, listen to other stories and translating that into something that can cause social activism, social change.  It’s really the power of storytelling at its best.  That’s what social media is.  We’re all telling stories.  Y’all are telling stories here. 

Students, you know, are telling stories as they write essays.  Our students are going out and retelling the stories that they have been told, and, you know, social media has really – we all know it has just exploded over the course of the last, you know, seven to ten years, but what’s really exciting is we’re starting to see so much more often that people are using that for good, for, you know, the Do-gooder Awards that YouTube does.  You know, the Ford Foundation just announced a really, you know, 50 million-dollar grant for cause-related social documentaries.  There is really this understanding that the power of storytelling can be best used when it’s a force for good, and it’s telling the stories of those who are doing great work across the world.

I think that there is really so much momentum to use social media for, you know, in a more creative way for the education of others, to really inspire people to take action, and there is this concept that we have always believed in at Students of the World is the importance of telling stories of progress.  Problems paralyze people and they make them feel that, you know, they can’t contribute because it’s war, it’s poverty, it’s famine, it’s all of this.  But when you tell stories of progress when you show problems through the lens of the good that is happening in the world it’s not only inspiring to others but it’s hopefully inspiring to a point of taking action.  And so being in that space you find that you have, you know, people that are able to educate through media, through art, to create change, and that’s – it’s just a really exciting place to be in.

 

Courtney Spence on Social Documentary Film Production Tips

In Chapter 9 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers how she applies her media production experience to teach students storytelling. Spence notes the importance of proper planning before the shoot and attention to detail during the shoot to ensure all shots are captured. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How has your own media production experience impacted how you teach storytelling?

Courtney Spence:  First of all, you can’t tell the stories you don’t have, I think, especially when you work in our model where, you know, you have four weeks, which is a long time, but we’re not going back to Tanzania, we’re not going back to Costano in post, and if I don’t have, you know, the foundation – the foundational pieces of the puzzle to the story, it’s gonna be really hard to go back and recreate that.  So the importance of true planning but also evaluating through the production process and not just ‘oh isn’t this is great, we had a great interview’, but actually going back and listening through it.  And did they actually say what the organization does?  They didn’t. And, you know, we need the executive director saying what the organization does, let’s go back and do a second interview because we have learned the hard way when we weren’t as thorough in sort of the evaluating through production coming back to Austin and not having what we needed to tell the story is quite frustrating.  So, you know, that’s a technical thing, but I think it goes back to being very disciplined in both pre-production planning and also disciplined in the field, and, you know, you’ll sleep later but for now you need to review tape and do that before you go to bed.

Courtney Spence on How to Tell a More Impactful Emotional Story

In Chapter 10 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers why being succinct is fundamental to telling more impactful emotional stories. When trying to tell stories of progress using viral media, compact stories work best engaging and inspiring audiences to take action on an issue. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  Why is being succinct fundamental to communicating an emotional and impactful story?

Courtney Spence:  People have limited time, people don’t have time to sit and watch a 30-minute documentary or a 20-minute documentary, people – the way that we think and the way that we interact to these days is 140 characters on Twitter.  It’s watch this two-minute video that’s just amazing and it makes you cry and forward it onto others.  That’s how the viral world works.  And when you’re trying to impact and tell stories of progress through storytelling, through media, it needs to be emotionally compelling enough to elicit action and, therefore, is impactful. 

To get that, you have to be succinct because if you’re trying to tell every aspect of the story, the ultimate purpose gets lost, the ultimate message gets lost.  It’s so much more powerful to hear, you know, one really incredible story that might be a testimony for the larger vision of the organization than for me to sit down and explain to you every single thing that an organization does because that’s just telling you all of this information that you could go find in an annual report, find on a website.  What I want to show you is the emotional impact, the lives that are changed through, you know, the power of this organization and because you might not have the opportunity to travel to Kenya or travel to Haiti. 

And to tell those stories, it’s really best if you can be as succinct as possible and not try and get caught up in the superfluous details and all these other things that you want to say.  And sometimes there are great aspects of a story but you really have to distill it down into what is the true change that is happening here, and where does, you know, the rubber meet the road, and where is the life that has been changed, and where is that human story that will really inspire other people to take action for this cause whether it’s donating, or voting, or signing a petition.

Courtney Spence on How Clinton Global Initiative Empowers Young Filmmakers

In Chapter 11 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers how the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) matches her non-profit student filmmakers to story opportunities in the field. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How does the Clinton Global Initiative act as a matchmaker connecting your students to stories?

Courtney Spence:  So, the Clinton Global Initiative is so many things, but one of the aspects of the organization is the fact that they have just a wealth of relationships, friendships, organizations, and stories to tell that touch upon everything from climate change to health, to women’s empowerment, to financial inclusion.  I mean the issues that are out there, you name it, it’s discussed, and not just discussed as a problem, it’s discussed as solutions, and you bring in organizations, and thought leaders, and innovators, and social entrepreneurs, and heads of state, and executive directors, and CEOs, and I mean you get this group together and it is a powerful force for change. 

So what happens there is you have all of these individuals and these organizations that, you know, within them have just layers, and layers, and layers of stories that are, you know, that need to be told.  And so, you know, we have been so fortunate in, you know, having CGI as a partner that we can say ‘okay, we want – here is what we offer, here is the service that we offer, here, you know, we have four projects this year, you know, let’s talk about various organizations that you think would be a good fit for this.’  And that’s always a really fun process to go through that with them because there are so many organizations and so much of it is also about timing and approaching people in the right way, but, you know, for us, what has been really exciting is to see organizations that weren’t necessarily on our radar  just sort of pop up and be, you know, end up becoming a lifelong partner, and it’s really – it’s an incredible network, and the stories, you know, that come from that are just absolutely inspiring.

Courtney Spence on How to Manage Non-Profit Client Expectations

In Chapter 12 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers "How do you balance retaining artistic control over a final story product with client expectations around what they want to see in the post production process?" Spence shares how she balances maintaining artistic - or final cut - control with meeting client storytelling project expectations. She tempers potential hurdles by setting expectations up front, including tone, shots, interviewees, etc. Once her team hits the ground, often the stories or project elements change. This is where continuing communication, coupled with confidence based on experience, help manage and evolve client expectations. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How do you balance retaining artistic control over a final story product with client expectations around what they want to see in the post production process?

Courtney Spence:  So part of what we really try to do with our partners is do a lot of work upfront.  So it’s a media assessment, it’s a production proposal that is a back and forth, you know, basically, tool or conversation through a proposal that we have with our organizations to outline, here are our final products that we will deliver, here is the tone that we’re taking, here is the shots that we’ll be getting, here are the interviews, I mean we get very detailed in that.  Of course, then you get on the ground and everything changes, and you meet people that you didn’t expect, and all these great stories pop up in ways that you weren’t expecting to see them.  And sometimes the stories that you thought you were going to find that would be great just don’t translate very well through, you know, through film, through photography.  So when we come back, you know, a lot of it is just sort of internally looking at the footage and really seeing where are the strongest stories for this organization, where are the strongest proof points that this organization is making a difference at the human, individual, family, community level, and let’s go after those. 

So we have definitely found times where we present a rough cut to a partner and they’re like ‘but you didn’t talk about the fact that we also do microfinance levels to women over the ages of 60 in this community’ and I’m like ‘we love it, we think it’s great, it’s a great program, but either we didn’t find -- we didn’t have an opportunity to tell those stories or we feel that this one story will elicit an emotional response in the viewer enough to where they will go to your website and read about the program that you have for microfinance for women over the age of 60.  You want them to go read more about your project because you can’t tell everything in a two-minute piece.  And so a lot of what we have been able to do in the last couple of years is really, you know – there has been certainly a desire from organizations, we want a 15-minute piece, we want a 20-minute piece, and there are sometimes when those, you know, documentary films really work well, but more often than not, we specialize in and really, really encourage organizations to tell – let’s tell your story in three minutes or less.  Let’s tell it in 90 seconds or less. We have such a limited amount of time, we’re gonna have to sacrifice certain elements.  So there’s usually a back and forth that happens. We have to internally say ‘okay, we’re gonna fight for this, this, and this; we’ll give them this, this, and this.’  It’s not like a one versus the other, but it’s just, you know, organizations bring us on because this is what we do.

Courtney Spence on How to Make Student Filmmakers Non-Profit Advocates

In Chapter 13 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence shares how to leverage the passion of college student program participants to help non-profits non-governmental organizations (NGOs) thrive. Spence notes how student energy and enthusiasm complements a sense of mission and purpose working with the NGOs, ultimately becoming a champion or advocate of the cause. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How has the college student perspective advanced the cause of your NGO program partners?

Courtney Spence:  I think one of the really wonderful things about working with college students is this ‘can do’ spirit and this sense of optimism and a real desire to contribute. You know, college is a time where you are being inspired consistently through courses, through new friendships, through professors, through internships.  At its best college is, you know, it’s four years of incredible inspiration and stimulation in ways that – and challenging you to think in ways that you haven’t thought before. 

So when you take people that are in this moment in time, in their growth as a person that we’re they’re, you know, they’re able to apply things that they learned in theater class to what they’re, you know, learning in their public policy class, in ways that they wouldn’t have seen overlap, they’re seeing it, and when you apply that kind of person and throw them into a program where their whole purpose is to go listen, partake in stories, and then kind of regurgitate those in ways that can make a difference.  It’s a perfect match because what happens is these students come in, they are willing to rough it.  Will sleep in barns.  Will sleep on floors.  I wanna work with the family.  I wanna plant beans.  Just throw me, I will do anything.  I wanna learn.  I wanna be a part of this.  And there is just this sheer enthusiasm and energy, and then yet, there’s a real sense of like mission and purpose, and here is what we’re here to do. 

But what happens is, you know, the relationships that I have seen that our students have forged with the organizations and the individuals on the ground are really, really profound because, you know, they’re not worried about a gazillion other things that they have to do.  More often than not, they know more about the organizations than a lot of the volunteers and staff that they’ll meet on the ground because, for three months, they have been so excited in preparing and reading everything that they can get their hands on. 

So what we’re able to do for our organization is to say we’re not just sending you a team to come in for a week and do, you know, a five-minute video for you, we’re sending you seven, very optimistic, very energetic, very talented creative young people that wanna come in and more or less dedicate a year of their life to your organization, to understanding it, to telling your stories, and then being a champion and advocate for your cause, and that’s not found many other places, and, you know, we’re lucky that we’re able to do that because, you know, this is how Students of the World started.  It has been a very organic growth as an organization, but that, I think, is something that we’re able to give to our organizations that I really only in the past year have started to really appreciate.

Courtney Spence on How to Improve College Internship Programs

In Chapter 14 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers "What have you learned about designing a more impactful college internship program?" Spence shares what she has learned about designing more impactful college internship programs. Using training, benchmarks, deliverables, and feedback interviews, she creates a more structured and measurable 10-week internship program. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What have you learned about designing a more impactful college internship program?

Courtney Spence:  I have learned a lot.  So you know, this year we went, you know, and formalized the Students of the World experience to be a ten-week internship and really formalized it more so in the spring and in the fall, so in the spring our students have deliverables and benchmarks, both research and creative that they have to hit every month. You know, last year was the first year we did, you know, three-, four-day trainings with each team, and that was tremendous. You know, we invested so much more in the student experience last year because we made that hard decision to go from seven to three teams and really had to trim down, but, you know, by doing less we were able to do so much more.  And we were able to do exit interviews with our students when they left at the end of the summer, and it was – it was really incredible because I think, you know, our students, the feedback that we got was overwhelmingly positive, the work that we got was overwhelmingly positive.  Problems that we would have encountered every year prior to last year in the field weren’t there as frequently.  There were still problems but they weren’t there as frequently.  

And I think one of the important things that we have learned is really, you know, at the very beginning, the way that you communicate with students is extremely important and understanding that you need to set goals and benchmarks, and here are our values, and here is what we do, and here is what we don’t do, and communicating that all up front, and being able to say this is what we – at minimum, this is our best hope for you guys in terms of the work that you’ll produce, but we know you’re gonna, you know, shoot for the moon.

And, you know, one of the things that we did this last year, which was sort of a learning year for us was, you know, we had all of these expectations of what we could do in post production and, you know, you hear six weeks of work, and our students were like ‘what are we gonna do for six weeks?’  You know, and then what happened was – at like, you know, five-and-a-half weeks, they’re like ‘I can’t believe we only have three days left,’ you know, because there was just so much more work that they wanted to do and that we could have done, but really kind of setting those goals from the beginning and being able to be realistic in what we can achieve but also giving students the flexibility and creativity to work within sort of some broader frameworks means that they’ll come back with really creative products that are very effective for the organization.  You know, we had students do stop-motion animation, which was not even anything I knew anything about until last year, but because, you know, we were able to give our students some creative freedom, an expression of how they wanted to tell the stories, we got some really, really great work out of that.  

And then I just think really constantly, you know, checking in with the individuals as well as the team, and what we did last year is we had each -- the producer of each team wrote us a weekly report of here’s where the team is at and we wanted both in terms of the work that they were doing but also in terms of the emotional, where is the team at, and it was really nice to empower our producers to take on that role and then come with us, and, you know, and talk with us as they were having, you know, issues and problems throughout post production.  I think it’s important when you work with college students to empower them to take leadership within projects that they’re, you know, they’re involved in, and not just talking down to them, but actually saying we’re all in this together, so let’s find a way to work in effective ways.

 

Courtney Spence on How to Teach College Students to Take Criticism

In Chapter 15 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers "How do you teach your students to embrace feedback without taking it personally?" Spence shares what she has learned about teaching creative college students how not to take criticism and feedback personally. She teaches students to embrace feedback by grounding the work in its fundamental and positive purpose, complementing it with a continuous improvement mindset built on giving back by making art. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How do you teach your students to embrace feedback without taking it personally?

Courtney Spence:  I think there’s always a challenge of – in any job that you do is taking criticism and feedback without taking it personally, especially if you work at a company or the way that you personally work is to take things personally, is to be emotionally invested in the work that you’re doing.  So, you know, that’s something that I still struggle with myself but that is certainly, you know, as we work with young, creative talent, young, you know, college students that, you know, are used to producing work for a grade or producing it for, you know, creativity for creativity’s sake, there is sort of a process that we have to go through with them, and not all of them. 

Some of them understand it, but some of them don’t, and it is ‘how do you take feedback and criticism on the work that you have done, the artistic work that you have created, and take that feedback, and then refine it to make something better?’  And I think what we always start with is the end goal, so we’re there to give back through media.  Some people build houses, some people teach English, some people provide, you know, aid and service. Our service is through storytelling, it’s through media, and if it’s not the best story it can be if it’s not accurately reflecting the organizations and the individuals that were on the ground, then we’re not doing our job.  And it’s really easy for people to get stuck back in to ‘but it would be so much more cool if we could do this’, or, you know, really getting into the creative element, but you always have to go back to that fundamental question, that fundamental purpose, and that is we are here to make a difference, to make a positive difference through our work, and through really focusing on the positive aspects of things that are going on in this world. 

So if you aren’t interested in telling stories of progress and if you’re more investigative, wanting to uncover what, you know, all the bad in the world, this organization isn’t for you.  And so, what I think we have done through our application process has really found students that do believe in the mission of giving back through art.  And so when we do get, you know, feedback or criticism of the work as we’re going through reviews, you know, we always kind of huddle together, and it’s like okay, listen, we’re here to make these stories to help make a difference for this organization to help them fundraise and they have to play an active role in how those stories shape up.  So it’s just trying to level it up to, you know, what is our greater purpose, and I think that has worked pretty effectively for students to understand okay, this is how – not only this is how the real world works but this is how I can contribute in the most effective way at this organization.