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Profile
of Molly Panning, Intern, Corporate
and Foundation Relations, Office of Institutional Advancement, University
of Pittsburgh, 4/06
by Jamie Cortazzo Sterling
PPW/Writing Center Publicity Intern
 Senior
Molly Panning, a Political Science major pursuing certificates in
Public & Professional Writing (PPW) and Latin American Studies,
has successfully embarked on her second PPW internship this fall.
After interning at the Carnegie Library this past summer, Molly
decided to pursue another internship. Tom Crawford, an employee
of the Corporate and Foundation Relations Division of the University
of Pittsburgh’s Office of Institutional Advancement piqued
her interest when he spoke to her Persuasive Advertising and Fundraising
class. She spoke with him after class about available internship
opportunities and later followed up her inquiry with an email containing
her resume. When this effort scored Molly an interview, she was
soon pleased to learn that she would be interning with the office
this spring.
The Corporate and Foundation Relations Division of the Office of
Institutional Advancement is an umbrella organization used to solicit
high dollar gifts from repeat high-end donors. The office mainly
concentrates on donations over $10,000, but occasionally will solicit
lower gifts from the same repeat donors. At her internship, Molly
has had the opportunity to hone her fundraising writing skills.
She wrote a letter to Pitt staff, thanking them for their involvement
in a recent fundraising campaign, as well as other fundraising acknowledgement
letters. She has worked with her grant writing skills, researching
potential donors. Furthermore, Molly has had the opportunity to
tag along on some work events. For example, she attended a lecture
given by IBM on applicable new research and technology and she was
one of the first to tour the new science annex addition to Crawford
Hall. As Molly said, in her office, “you need to know everything
that’s going on at school if you want to be able to solicit
funding.”
Molly believes that her internship has been excellent for networking
within Pitt, which has actually helped her with her post-graduation
plans. She recently applied for and was interviewed vfor a position
on the College of Arts & Sciences development staff, which would
be very similar work to what her office currently does, but limiting
the fundraising to CAS efforts only. Molly is also planning to apply
to the Peace Corps, so her future is not yet set in stone.
Molly feels as if the PPW program and her internships have given
her a heads up on her career, since she has acquired skills that
will take most students a few years in the workforce to acquire.
Although Molly believes this internship has been beneficial, she
also realized that she might not want to spend the rest of her life
working in front of a computer screen. Ideally, she would like interaction
that is more personal and a more relaxed work environment. In fact,
her perfect job would allow her to use her development skills working
abroad. Pittsburgh is a bit too cold for her!
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