reflections on my Internship with ELF
Over the past two weeks, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to work as a fundraising and marketing assistant at ELF, as part of an internship through the University.
I was super excited to join the ELF team, to get a feel for what working in the fundraising team of a charity is like. Though I had some previous experience working with social media for university societies, I was keen to explore what marketing work for a charity involved. Across the fortnight, I got to meet ELF’s friendly and welcoming teams of staff and volunteers, and to work on an exciting variety of projects.
On Monday, I joined Molly at the Yarty Ward office of the RD&E. As well as setting desired outcomes for the internship, I also had the chance to meet ELF’s friendly drivers and patient liaison support, Marion. I very quickly discovered just how invaluable ELF’s transport and Filling Time services are, not only offering useful support to Devon blood cancer patients but also providing important social connection at a time of stress for many people.
During the two weeks, I worked on three marketing projects at ELF. The team were very accommodating in offering me a range of briefs so that I could develop experience in multiple areas of charity marketing, and find out what it was like to work or volunteer at ELF.
First of all, I created a new flyer using Canva, to raise awareness of blood cancer symptoms and ELF’s wide variety of services that it offers haematology patients. In addition to finding out more about how ELF helps patients while researching the flyer, I also found designing it an exciting challenge, learning to condense information and use consistent colours for easy reading. Across the two weeks, I also got to work on creating a content calendar for Blood Cancer Awareness Month in September. It was really interesting to research how similar charities were choosing to use social media to raise blood cancer awareness, and I enjoyed creating Instagram and Facebook posts, videos, and hashtags to use across September. Developing a content calendar was completely new to me, so it was great to gain some experience in doing this.
On Friday 27th, I joined Andy and a lovely group of ELF volunteers to support runners taking part in the 10k River Run at the quay. Handing out water to finishers and photographing the event for social media was a fun way to get to know our amazing runners and ELF volunteers. Meeting the Windsor family, including Sophia who ELF has supported over the last few years, really helped me see the tangible impact that the charity has on blood cancer families in Devon. It was also great to get to put together an Instagram reel for the event, to post on ELF’s social media.
During my internship, I did a hybrid of in-person and from-home work. Throughout my time at ELF, I felt very welcomed into the team, including through joining the team meetings each Thursday morning at the new Clyst St Mary office. Though I completed some of my work from home, Cameron, Molly, and Andy made sure that I felt supported and could ask questions over email or Teams when I needed to.
Looking back at my internship over the last couple of weeks, I’m really pleased with the variety of work that I have been able to try, and the finished projects I’ve been part of. It’s been great to get insight into working for a local charity, and understanding how it supports people across Devon.