CCD: Tell us about your experience. What were your responsibilities?
JR: As a company, Hearts for the Homeless International provides free and informative heart health education events. We additionally have chapters at over 30 college campuses across the US that provide blood pressure readings and heart health information approved by the American Heart Association to the homeless in their communities. As the Officer of Financial Operations at Hearts for the Homeless International, I built and led the financial operations and compliance team. By recruiting, evaluating, and onboarding three trusted financial directors, I was able to build a solid team for my department.
CCD: What inspired you to get this internship?
JR: This opportunity has been the perfect fit for me as I am passionate about heart health due to multiple of my family members suffering from a related problem.
CCD: What was the best thing about the experience? What was the most challenging?
JR: By recruiting, evaluating, and onboarding three trusted financial directors, I was able to build a solid team for my department. As a team, we are concerned with the financial and tax compliance of our chapters as well as the collection and formatting of financial information throughout the company. This is especially difficult to keep up with as our company is in a period of mass expansion, adding 7 chapters this semester and looking to add 12-15 next semester. But to carry out these responsibilities, I was surrounded by amazing young businessmen and women in the financial department. Being a part of the finance board helps me to organize my ideas and learn to better work as a part of a team.
CCD: What is your biggest accomplishment in the experience?
JR: This semester I was able to put in place a new expense report collection system to streamline our process and inputted my system into our website. This allowed me to better organize the reports and pull specific data from each chapter as well as draw conclusions from the company’s financial health as a whole. This has been shown in our dramatic shift in health opening doors for every department of our organization, with more funding and income as a company. This has been extremely exciting for me and my department as we are directly responsible for this success and will continue to build on this in the future.
CCD: What is the biggest takeaway from your internship position?
JR: Leading my sector of the financial department has allowed me to bolster my leadership skills such as delegating tasks, leading discussions, and creating enriching presentations to give guidance to my directors, as well as the board members of each chapter across the US. Learning and experiencing the values and culture that our organization cultivates has [also] made me a better employee, teammate, leader, and person. Overall, this experience has been amazing and I am excited to continue working with Hearts for the Homeless International in the future.
BU + Beyond 