 | Nat Ogborn Former Intelligent Giving intern | |||
 ONCE UPON A TIME I heard that wild unhinged call and responded. I became an intern at Intelligent Giving (IG).I witnessed, and participated in, a series of IG landmarks. These included a riotous one-year-anniversary celebration and IG reviewing its 1000th charity profile. There was also a memorable charity exposé that got IG a full page in The Guardian and enabled Adam (Features Editor) to fulfil a cherished dream by being interviewed on Radio 4. Very exciting. I have had a fantastic time, mainly because the work has been so interesting and varied. Because the number of full-time employees (three) is reasonably small, being an intern entailed getting involved in all aspects of what went on in the office and being able to make a very real contribution to IG. My core job involved reviewing charity transparency by breaking down charity Annual Reports, Reviews and websites, using 43 IG criteria, coming up with a ‘quality of reporting’ score and overview paragraph and headline. I reviewed a huge variety of charities, from wildlife trusts, to international aid outfits, to charities helping ex-soldiers. It was fascinating stuff. I gained a real insight into how charities in the UK operate, and what astonishing work they do. My previous job had been working for a charity abroad. It was great now reviewing charitable work from the other side of the fence as a detached, sometimes sceptical, outsider. But my work didn’t stop there. One of the best parts of the internship was the chance to do lots of research and then write articles for the IG blog and a newspaper. I conducted research on topics such as armed-forces charities, alternative gifts, and charity Christmas cards. I then tried to mould research into user-friendly blogs, and, in the case of the alternative gifts, an article for The National Student. This was tricky. I was used to writing gargantuan university essays stuffed full of verbose posturing, not hard-hitting, easy-to-read, articles. It was a big learning curve for me to adapt my writing. But I felt I progressed quickly and my written style improved enormously over my internship. We also provided a lot of research for different magazines and newspapers. It was pretty cool knowing that the stuff that we were doing might end up decorating one of the broadsheets. I suppose I will most remember all the telephone calls I made. Most of the previous (and present) interns (and staff) are telephone-allergic. For some perverse reason, I loved it. I think it was the power surge that came from saying I was calling from Intelligent Giving and hearing the sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone. I like to think I became IG’s official ‘telephoning person’. Hmm... at least I’ve now got something to put on my CV. |