I have thoroughly enjoyed my internship at ProsperUs so far, even though at times, Jenny and I do not perform the most fulfilling tasks, such as capturing data from excel sheets and entering them on salesforce. Even though analyzing those datas is fun, to simply copy and paste data itself was a brain numbing process. Other similar tasks that Jenny and I had to do include troubleshooting their micro-lending/financial coaching/business service application and just copying those questions down to an excel sheet. However, going through these repetitive processes enabled me to better appreciate startups, small scale non-profits, and entrepreneurs. Recently, Joanna, our supervisor at PropserUs asked us to help her conduct research on her proposal. Since our organization is still relatively smaller in size. It is difficult to have specialized employees, meaning that all employees might need to take on duties that they are not strong at. As Joanna said, ProsperUs have a general division in which affairs are sorted, but they do not have a more specialized hierarchy to assign employees with duties. Everyone that I interacted with at ProsperUs is nothing but brilliant and conscientious. Yet since ProsperUs is a relatively small organization, someone would have to perform those prep work. I can not fathom the amount of work that a single entrepreneur needs to engage themselves in before their ideas start to materialize.
Another task that Jenny and I undertook was to compile stories from ProsperUs entrepreneurs and community stakeholders and create videos with them. When Jenny and I are done with our longitudinal research, our data analysis could mean nothing to citizens from Detroit, Hamtramck, and Highland Park, places where ProsperUs help uplift. They could look at our conclusion, but it lacks narrative. To most of them, they have just read a factual statement. However, marketing is so important for small businesses and organizations. After all the good deeds that ProsperUs has done, we wish that people could be informed of the resources that they have access to and demonstrate our impacts, for hopes of grants and other funding methods. To interact with beneficiaries of ProsperUs, we could create stories that are more emotional and personal, which increases its credibility and thus incentivizes Detroiters entrepreneurs to engage with ProsperUs
Another task that Jenny and I undertook was to compile stories from ProsperUs entrepreneurs and community stakeholders and create videos with them. When Jenny and I are done with our longitudinal research, our data analysis could mean nothing to citizens from Detroit, Hamtramck, and Highland Park, places where ProsperUs help uplift. They could look at our conclusion, but it lacks narrative. To most of them, they have just read a factual statement. However, marketing is so important for small businesses and organizations. After all the good deeds that ProsperUs has done, we wish that people could be informed of the resources that they have access to and demonstrate our impacts, for hopes of grants and other funding methods. To interact with beneficiaries of ProsperUs, we could create stories that are more emotional and personal, which increases its credibility and thus incentivizes Detroiters entrepreneurs to engage with ProsperUs