The Secret Life of an Intern: Episode Two

This week has proven to be quiet interesting for the charity industry with Starlight Children’s Foundation announcing a slash in its services due to the economic downturn. I’m currently interning at Make-A-Wish® Australia and I found that this was constantly confused with Starlight as they both grant wishes for children with serious/life threatening medical conditions (this is Make-A-Wish’s sole purpose). Starlight announced that as part of the cut back it 200 of the planned 439 wishes are likely to be funded. Any parent with a child enrolled in this program would have been in panic and Make-A-Wish is now trying to ensure the public that this is not the case with our organisation and we are more than capable to take on any wishes which Starlight cannot fulfill to ensure no child is left out.

We used the (at the time) upcoming Easter weekend to reassure a few contacts that we still have a strong structure and would like to help in any possible way. The marketing assistant and I traveled around to close businesses where there were established relationships, taking a moment to drop of some Easter eggs and talk to contacts. We went to Princess Margaret Hospital and spoke to one of the social workers who liaises constantly with parents and I think this special touch reassured everyone of the organisations abilities.

The experience highlighted how developing relationships is necessary to any company and the occurrence also emphasized how outside factors can affect the business.