Innovation internship

Riley Kenney, who is studying anthropology and business at the University of New Hampshire, spent part of the summer working with the Charitable Foundation through the UNH Social Innovation Internship program. Riley assisted senior strategic learning and evaluation officer Yulya Spantchak in analyzing data from the Foundation’s Student Aid program and creating a survey for scholarship recipients.

Riley wrote this reflection on his experience:

The New Hampshire Charitable Foundation was the perfect place for me to intern over the summer. As an anthropology student, I wanted to gain more experience working with nonprofits. The Social Innovation Department of UNH helped bridge that desire by matching me with the  Foundation. Over the course of my internship with the Foundation, I was given the task of learning more about the impact that the scholarships awarded by the Foundation have for students. I worked with my manager, Yulya Spantchak, to learn more about the organization and the students. I built a survey to reach out to current and former Foundation scholarship recipients to discover how the scholarships awarded to them by the Foundation affected their lives. In addition to conducting the survey, I also helped analyze and sort student application data from the past three years. The work I did will help the Foundation further focus their efforts to provide scholarships to students who need financial aid the most.

Working with the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation was an amazing experience. I learned so much about social innovation and how a nonprofit organization is operated. I was able to do extensive work in Excel and PowerPoint, gain a comprehensive understanding of how to construct surveys, and learn how to sort and analyze data. In the future, this experience and knowledge will be very valuable as I navigate my way through the workplace. At the end of the summer, I am going to be working in Boston with the Semester in the City program with the Strategies for Youth Organization. The skills that I have gained this summer will prove invaluable.  I would like to thank the Charitable Foundation and the Social Innovation department of UNH for allowing me this amazing opportunity. I very much enjoyed working for the Foundation and the wonderful people who work there.

Want to learn more? Read this recent article about the Social Innovation Internship Program featuring Riley and Yulya.