Surprising new lesson

I started an internship at a non-profit organization called Barakat, Inc located in Cambridge, MA. It truly has given me a new outlook on the work involved in promoting a mission. I have always believed that if your mission was good enough, people would listen eagerly and join in. But this experience has showed me that it doesn’t matter how inspiring, heartfelt or important your mission is, it is all about the moolah. I’m literally working for hours on end trying to find and finagle the best strategy towards reaping in major donations. And, at first, I detested this. I mean, I wanted to do humanitarian work! I wanted to learn about the people, their issues, their cries! I am not a business person. PUH!

Soon, I found myself intoxicated with the idea of infiltrating the “business field.” This spectrum that I have so desperately ran in fear from, feeling it be some kind of “dark side.” So, I began to write pitches to big and small businesses in and around the area, presenting information about Barakat’s work, offering sponsership options and thanking oh, so, graciously afterwards. And throughout, I had a slight grin on my face. I felt like I had cracked the system. Figured out a way of connecting the world of flowy-skirts-and-flowers-in-your-hair to the prestine, right-angled world of the suit-and-tie. Few businesses seemed interested, most sounded annoyed but either way, I knew I was doing something right. I was using integration as a means of getting what I needed to achieve my goal. I was not dismissing the importance and place businesses have in Barakat’s work.

Moral of the story: We are one world and we all need to fix it together.

“We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

– Benjamin Franklin