Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

The Columbus Foundation 2026 Summer Fellowship application is open from November 20, 2025, to January 5, 2026!

This 10-week (400 total hours) paid Fellowship starts June 1, 2026 and ends August 7, 2026. Fellows are matched with a nonprofit based on interests, skills, and the nonprofit’s specific needs or objectives, and are required to attend five professional development sessions culminating in a mandatory end-of-summer presentation on August 7th.

Eligibility:

College junior, senior, May/June 2026 graduate, or a graduate student in the fall of 2026 and have graduated from a Franklin County high school. OR College junior, senior, May/June 2026 graduate, or graduate student attending a Franklin County college or university. Highly desired qualifications: A strong academic record (preferably a 3.0+ GPA); and strong English oral and written communication skills.

For 2026, a special partnership and eligibility extension will include Junior and Seniors from Denison, Kenyon, and Ohio Wesleyan.

Click HERE to access the application. Open from November 20, 2025, to January 5, 2026!

My last week with LifeCare Alliance was truly bittersweet. Because I actually began my internship three weeks earlier than planned, all of my blog posts have been a bit delayed, but I was lucky enough to extend my time here by those extra weeks. That meant I could dive into even more projects and experiences than I ever expected.

After completing the first Meals-on-Wheels customer journey, I began work on a second customer journey for the Meals-for-Kids program. For this, I interviewed eight staff members and one partnered YMCA site, created playback sheets from the interview transcripts, and helped craft the problem statement. I also developed two mock personas, a driver persona and a YMCA staff persona, that will be used in a future journey-mapping activity at a half-day session.

I also had the chance to create 12 different marketing materials for our Winter Gifting Program, aimed at inspiring donors to sponsor clients and encouraging volunteers to help make crafts for the annual gift bags. In addition, I developed three targeted mail pieces for the Savor and Select home-delivered meals program, designed to re-engage former LifeCare clients. Each was tailored to a specific audience: pet owners, individuals in the farmers market program, and general clients.

Outside of marketing work, I attended both the Volunteer Appreciation event and the Conversations with County Commissioner Erica Crawley luncheon at Carrie’s Cafe. I also took a memorable day trip to Camp Hamwi in Danville, Ohio, where I toured the camp, ate lunch with the campers, and assisted our head of marketing in interviewing campers for future testimonials.

This summer has absolutely flown by, and I’m sad to be saying goodbye to such an incredible organization filled with the most dedicated and kind-hearted people. Working alongside my colleagues at LifeCare has been such a joy, and I will truly miss everyone. I hope to return in the future and continue serving the community in such a meaningful way.

I want to thank The Columbus Foundation for giving me the opportunity to work with an agency I’ve admired for so long. I also want to thank my fellow interns for being such a supportive and inspiring group, our learning seminars were always a highlight. And most importantly, thank you to everyone at LifeCare Alliance for making me feel that my contributions this summer truly mattered.

See you later,
Kat

I cannot believe this week was my last at Ethiopian Tewahedo Social Services! The summer culminated in the Youth Summit this Friday, which was amazing. 

The week before the event was hectic and exciting. We placed supply orders, met with the Collaborative Board for the last time, and coordinated with the venue manager at OSU-COTC. On Wednesday I packed goodie bags in the afternoon with water bottles, immigrant welcome kits from Seeds of Caring, and age-appropriate books. We set up as much as possible ton Thursday so that the volunteers could arrive bright and early at 7:30 on Friday with no hiccups. It was amazing to see all my work come to fruition with the Youth Summit on my last day. The kids were so excited and proud of their performances. 

My experience at ETSS has taught me so much about the nonprofit sector, the city of Columbus, and myself. My supervisor Sarah Huffman has been an amazing mentor.  I kept a running document of questions and notes jotted down throughout the week to ensure I got the most out of our meetings, and that document is currently 31 pages long. 

I also worked closely with the Advancement team to do some fundraising for the Youth Department. I was nervous about this aspect of the internship because I have never thought of myself as a “salesperson” and I’m generally uncomfortable when asked to convince people to give me things. However, the Advancement team was incredibly helpful. I eventually memorized my pitch and got comfortable taking no’s. I’m proud of my contributions to ETSS this summer. I raised over $5,000 in in-kind donations, applied to 2 grants and made a list of several more that the Youth Department will apply to in the fall, organized our 2 back storage rooms and inventoried everything, which took SEVERAL days, and created a folder of template documents for planning next year’s Youth Summit.  

What has been most meaningful about this experience? 

• I absolutely loved the nonprofit environment and found it highly motivating, especially getting to interact with the people we’re serving and base our services on their ideas and feedback. The field trips with the kids were always the highlight of my week. 
• I met with many community partners to coordinate workshop details for the Youth Summit and began to understand all the amazing organizations that make up the nonprofit landscape of Columbus.
• It’s been valuable watching how our organization and our community partners have navigated the uncertainty of funding both federal and private right now, showing me the importance of flexibility and hope.
• I’ve learned so much about how nonprofits function, program administration, event planning, and fundraising through ETSS and the Columbus Foundation Learning Sessions. I’m definitely interested in nonprofit work in the future, and I would love to learn more about program development and grantmaking. 

Thank you, ETSS! Thanks, Columbus Foundation and Dr. Lomax! 

All the best, 

Sanay 

This week was very emotional for me. It was my very last week working with The Overwatch Partnership. I mainly worked on my final presentation. I also ended my time with OWP by finishing my grant research and updating my word document for the last time. I met with Eric Gentzel over a Microsoft Teams call one last time. Over this week, I did a lot of reflection. I am very proud of myself and how far I have come. I never looked at myself as intelligent before, and I never realized I could be professional. This internship taught me that I can be both. I didn’t realize how much work I actually put into this fellowship. I did a lot of researching, event planning, networking, communication, interviews, and more. I worked a lot with Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Teams. I got to know the other fellows and create friendships with them at the excursions, such as the Rick Ross concert. I talked to Dr. Lomax about being a professional musician and he gave me great advice. I took notes and gained a lot from the learning sessions we had every other week at The Columbus Foundation. I have learned so much about nonprofit work and how it functions as a business with unfortunately much less resources and funding. There is so much work that goes into running a nonprofit organization. After this summer, I am very secure in my aspirations to get a Master’s Degree in Social Work and to work in the nonprofit sector. I am so excited for the future and I am grateful to The Columbus Foundation and The Overwatch Partnership for giving me this amazing opportunity and experience. I am so excited for the future and I am thankful for those of you who read my blog every week! 

Until we meet again,

Kindall Benjamin

Hello everyone,

We have now made it to the final week of the fellowship. I cannot believe that ten full weeks have gone by already. Ten full weeks of meaningful work, lasting connections, and experiences and knowledge that will last a lifetime.

This week, I wrapped up all my tasks at the MAC and made my goodbyes. I was honestly sad to say goodbye to all the people I have worked alongside this summer and to walk away from the desk that I called mine. I switched out the last old logo sign in our ceramics room, I folded brochures for an upcoming tabling event, I made my last trip to drop off marketing materials to a business in Worthington, and I helped start the Annual Fund Back-to-School Mailing process. The new year is beginning to really kick-start at the MAC with summer programming now done, and even though I will not be there during the year as a staff member, I am happy to have contributed to work that will continue to move forward and thrive.

We also had a busy last week at The Columbus Foundation. On Wednesday, we had our last Summer Fellows Learning session where we talked about transformational leadership, merging nonprofit organizations, and how nonprofits are like businesses. On Thursday, we had a networking session, and then on Friday we had our Summer Fellowship Closing Luncheon at The Columbus Foundation! Our various host sites and other stakeholders got to come and help us celebrate the summer! Even though I was pretty nervous about my Pecha Kutcha presentation, I am so glad I got to share what I have been doing this summer in a broader more visual sense. I am so proud of my fellow peers and their accomplishments this summer! Everyone did an amazing job on their presentation, and they really let their talent, passion, and leadership shine through. I am so happy I was with this group of girls this summer, and I wish everyone well in what they do next. I know it will be amazing things!

I am so grateful to The Columbus Foundation for providing this amazing opportunity to me this summer. I cannot imagine not having had this experience because I know it will be pivotal for me moving forward, within the nonprofit sector and moving forward as a young professional in general. The fellowship has not only taught me the highs and lows of the sector, but it has also further emphasized the impact of good work and being a “transformational” leader. I am excited to apply my new sense of leadership and skills in life moving forward. I am also grateful for my wonderful host site, The McConnell Arts Center! I first want to thank all the people who hosted me this summer at the MAC from the Executive Director to the Front Desk Associates. Their kindness and generosity to me this summer, in letting me really get the full nonprofit experience, was such a gift. I secondly want to thank everyone I directly and indirectly came in contact with through the MAC, from volunteers, to board members, to community leaders, donors, patrons, etc. Thank you! I also want to thank Dr. Lomax for his leadership and for his commitment to our fellow group this summer. Thank you!

Goodbye for now!

Graci

Hi All,

It’s officially the last week of my fellowship, which means that today is my last day with Huckleberry House, and this is my final blog post! As I reflect on the past 10 weeks, which I still can’t believe have flown by so fast, I am in awe of how much my professional and personal life have changed and so grateful to the Huck House team for supporting me these past few weeks not only as a their summer fellow but also as a young person figuring out what I want to do post graduate school.

It was truly a pleasure to come into the Administrative Office every day and help Huck House serve the young people of central Ohio, right up until the final moments of my last day. As a result, my final week was filled with “dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s” tasks such as following up with potential partners so they knew who to contact after my last day and compiling all the SROI and individual impact data I had collected into one document. However, I also got to have some fun and enjoy one of Carol’s delicious cupcakes at my surprise last-day celebration.

Lastly, the Advancement Team and I had a meeting to ensure they have access to all the reports, spreadsheets, resources, emails, contacts, etc., I have gathered over the past 10 weeks which I hope will prove useful in the coming weeks as they wrap up Safe Place material distribution, start training our new partners, and stragetic plan for the coming years. In my opinion, how a person or organization handles a transition/exit period says a lot about them, so I wanted to make sure I was proactively future-planning for the team who have been nothing but helpful and caring to me.

In closing, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the Columbus Foundation for this opportunity and to the remarkable team at Huckleberry House for making my fellowship experience so rewarding. I look forward to seeing what the future holds for both me and Huck House in the coming years!

All the best,
Emoni

Hi everyone! I am extremely sad to say, but this is my last time writing for you all. My time at Netcare and The Columbus Foundation is officially coming to an end, but it has truly been the most incredible 10 weeks. I have learned so much about marketing, from learning how to use a CRM, to sitting in on board meetings, and I can’t wait to take all this knowledge to my future experiences. 

With it being my final week, I spent a lot of my time at Netcare just wrapping tasks up. I finished some of my mini projects that I had been working on throughout the 10 weeks and my mentors and I went through everything I had done. We talked through my accomplishments and areas of improvement, and transferred all of my material to them for a smooth transition. My extremely sweet mentors even took me out to lunch to celebrate and my last day consisted of bittersweet goodbyes with the rest of the staff.

This week was extremely active at The Columbus Foundation with a learning session, a networking dinner, and our final presentation plus luncheon! The learning session and networking dinner were both incredible experiences getting to hear from leaders and socialize with former fellows. I learned a ton from both of these experiences and I am looking forward to also taking the knowledge that I learned at The Columbus Foundation to my upcoming endeavors. 

We ended this week with our celebratory luncheon! It was such a fun time having both of my mentors there to support me and it was so fascinating to see what all the other summer fellows had been up to. I loved getting to gush about Netcare and tell everyone about all the exciting things I have been up to with the organization.

Overall, this summer has been such a phenomenal experience. My mentors have been the sweetest and most inspirational leaders and I am leaving this internship with a new desire to work in marketing and in the nonprofit sector. I hope you all enjoyed reading these as much as we enjoyed our experiences with our host sites.

Best,

Anaika

This week was quieter in terms of events and programming at Zora’s House, which gave me space to focus on presenting and planning. One highlight was presenting the Library Project to the ZH staff. It felt rewarding to share the categorization system I’ve been developing and explain how it can make the collection more accessible and meaningful for members. The staff was receptive, and it was exciting to see the project come full circle.

I also met with the Program Manager to share feedback and suggestions for key ZH initiatives: Wealth Builders, Leadership Fellows, and WoCo Market. Drawing from surveys, interviews, and my own observations, I offered recommendations that could help strengthen participant experience and impact.

Building on that, I created a Strategic Impact Assessment Timeline for both the Wealth Builders and Leadership Fellows programs. The timeline outlines key moments for data collection, evaluation, and reporting designed to help Zora’s House assess how these programs are meeting their goals over time.

Toward the end of the week, I had a meeting with my supervisor to reflect on what I’ve accomplished during my internship. It was a meaningful conversation about growth, contribution, and what’s next. As I begin transitioning out of the intern role and into becoming an active member of Zora’s House, I feel proud of the work I’ve done and excited about staying involved with a community that continues to inspire me.

Until next week,

Asia

Good afternoon Fellows,

While I do acknowledge that this posting is now two days delayed, I wanted to give my recent update on how I am doing at Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Central Ohio. This past week was casual yet fulfilling as always. I completed close to forty quality assurance match cases on MatchForce, something that I’ve never done before. Typically, my supervisor will have me complete roughly five or eleven at most. But, he allowed me to take on this task as it is typical that a member from the impact team that is quality assurance for one case for each match support specialists every month. My supervisor asked me to do this past month quality assurance assessment for the match support specialist. I’m not going to lie to you, it was challenging and very time-consuming. With just getting over a stomach virus a couple of days prior and a bit of food poisoning, I tried to focus as much as I could on getting these cases done before the hard deadline. My supervisor was very lenient and flexible with me during this time of recovery. He even assisted me in the end by formulating. All quality assurance reports into the newly developed AI template made for QA and submitted all of the cases into MatchForce for me. Nevertheless, while there was flexibility, given, I did learn a very hard lesson that both my colleague and my supervisor taught me. That while there is grace, I must remembered to still do my job. In the real world outside of this internship, once I enter into my actual career, that I have to be responsible and be held accountable when something isn’t done at the right time. Even as I’m writing this post and knowing that it has been delayed for two days, I need to be held accountable and acknowledge that I must submit things at the hard deadline that they’re due. Why? because life isn’t so nice and you you’re not gonna always have a nice supervisor. So, we must ensure that as adults, we have to take responsibility, and if we are leading a team one day, we want to uphold the same standards to our team as much as to ourselves. Next on the agenda that was completed this past week was that all staff submitted the responses for for they getting to know you survey that I will be implementing for this month learning session’s game activity, which will be a mixture of family feud and are you smarter than a fifth grader. I was very surprised to see all the responses and all their commonalities. With a total of over twenty responses, I was able to structure the game to the best dynamic that compliments, Big Brothers, Big Sisters as well. Additionally, I ensure to add some trivial questions regarding the organizations, history, organizational culture, and some every day items that you would expect to see on a specialist desk. Now, of course I couldn’t have done all of this without the special support I got from my team. They have been so helpful throughout my entire experience here at this organization, and without them, I would honestly say that I wouldn’t be the intern that I am today. While my time here has been short, there have been so many things that have impacted me more than I feel like that I’ve brought to the table. My team would say otherwise, but truly this is not my humility speaking, it is my humanity saying that everyone always needs a helping hand and it’s okay to ask and receive support from someone else. One thing that stuck out to me about this valued service lesson the most was during this week when our cohort received the privilege to hear from Dr. Tracy Nájera during our regularly scheduled personal development sessions with The Columbus Foundation. One of the things she spoke on was being grateful, stating that it doesn’t take much to say thank you and express that to people, kindness goes a long way. When she made the statement, it reminded me of all the times that I received help from my team and all of the gratefulness that filled my heart that even words could not describe. Nevertheless, I knew that my thank you would go a long way. Actually, it was very nice to see her again as I have worked with her in the past during my graduate program. She spoke to my group and I while we were working on a project for her regarding child-focused governance. Dr. Nájera reminded us that every issue is a child issue. As working with big Brothers and Big Sisters of Central Ohio, this notion goes a long way with all organizations that are here to service children. We see a need, we see an issue, and we as adults believe that the issue can be solved by our own solutions, but that is not true. We have to recognize that when it affects one, it affects all of us, including our little ones. Therefore, I am grateful for her having the privilege to see her again and remembering those words. Another word or piece of advice that I will always keep dear with me is what she actually learned from one of her previous supervisors. That when doing good work, money will follow. Being on purpose, and having a servant, heart, doing good work work work is needed, you will begin to see opportunities, align themselves and present themselves in many forms, including funding for the services. Lastly, be on time, and be respectful of your time and others. Well guys, here we all are about to begin our final week at our host site. If it is one thing that I can leave you all with is that you must finish strong. I once heard this story about this father and son who were racing one another. They both started at the same starting line, prepared and ready to go. The father then yelled, “On your mark… get set.. Go!”. The young boy immediately took off and ran as fast as he could, while the father ran much slower. Once the young boy got to the finish line, he turned to his father and began to express how he was faster than his dad and that he beat him. But, the father turned to the son and said “Son, let me tell one valuable lesson”. He stated, “ it doesn’t matter if you’re the first in line, the last in line, or in between, but as long as you have said… I have finished.” Therefore fellows, it doesn’t matter if you were the best at your organization, or if you were the last one to complete the blog posting for this week… Just as long as you have said I have completed the course and I have finished my fellowship well is all that matters. Finish strong everyone and I can’t wait to see all of you on Friday! Upward and onward to the best of them… Let’s finish strong with week 10!! 

Steward it well ladies, 

Courtney Moore

This week, I did a lot of researching for Overwatch. The first thing I did was research places in Columbus that we could get a custom poster board and poster stand from. I found that Staples and Office Depot had easy processes that weren’t super expensive. They also had poster stand add-ons. The delivery fees varied based on how quickly you wanted the poster board to get delivered, but none of them took very long. Amazon also had some quality poster board stands that we could buy. I created a list that included all of the prices and relevant information. 

Next, I was tasked with researching how a nonprofit can create a Venmo account. Overwatch currently has a Paypal account that they use to collect money, and Eric wants to add Venmo because a lot of people use it. It is also very easy to use and setup. The instructions said that a Paypal business account was required to setup a nonprofit Venmo account, so it is good that Overwatch already has that. I then looked for the best and least costly point of sale systems for OWP to use. I narrowed it down to Paypal and Square card readers/terminals. I listed the prices, donation and transaction fees for each of them and sent that to Eric as well. 

Other than what Eric has had me working on, I’ve started creating my presentation that I will share at our closing luncheon next Friday. I am nervous to present in front of everyone but I am also very excited to detail what I’ve been doing all summer. Despite being a huge extrovert, public speaking is still hard for me. I will do my best!

Until next time, 

Kindall Benjamin