Community Leadership Portfolio

Moderate Expectations

Learning this method of creative storytelling taught me the importance of honing a narrative to communicate key concepts. I can implement these skills in a workshop for a community organization to tell a shared, collective story about the mission and vision of the community, or for the purpose of creating an outreach or advertising product.

This digital storytelling video demonstrates my skill learning an audio and video editing tool, as well as workshopping a story for high impact themes.

"Nothing About Us Without Us"

While researching a new content area, I increased my awareness around a particular marginalized group. This affective learning approach informed my understanding of working with Boards for non-profit organizations, with a renewed dedication to accessibility and representation.

This work highlighted the importance of confirming that resources are from primary sources: the individuals who are directly impacted, rather than a self-appointed spokespeople on behalf of a community. Remember to leverage your positional power by passing the microphone.

“Nothing About Us Without Us” Board representation for advocacy organizations

Mission-Driven Fundraising

For this community partnership, I worked with the organization to learn about their values and the unique problems they faced in engaging with their core audience. We discussed the importance of tailoring development efforts to their supporters in a way that does not feel exploitative - either to the community or to the staff.

I used my professional expertise to provide feedback for a grant application. I also created a template calendar for year-long fundraising agenda as well as an example campaign schedule breaking down projects into tasks covering one fiscal quarter.

Sample Annual Fundraising Calendar

Sample Fundraising Campaign Schedule

Strategic Plan and Engagement Process

Using my current workplace as a case study, I implemented my skills to conduct a SWOT analysis and investigate current department strengths and weaknesses, as well as to determine possible opportunities and threats to the organization. This process helped assess future actions to improve outcomes by shoring up current assets while also moving the unit in a new and exciting direction. Following the narrative is a proposal for a Strategic Plan with goals, strategies, and actions. In addition, I created an Engagement Plan to help the organization's leadership see a clear path for implementation of any goals they found useful.

This analysis could serve as a primer for incorporating frontline staff into a SWOT and Strategic Planning process, to ensure the recommendations of those with the most knowledge are heard and valued.

Strategic Plan and Memo - Engagement Plan - E Trusz.pdf

603 capstone: 501(c)(3) Business Plan

Placeholder for final product :)

Helping this community organization through the process of defining their priorities, mission, and vision, learning about setting up a Board of Directors structure, and creating and compiling the necessary documents to file for 501(c)(3) status. We partnered with 3rd party organization to seek legal counsel and ensure all processes were ready for submission.

This process was quite lengthy for this organization because they wanted to take the time to do it well with full input and support of their membership.

Toolkit of Resources for Boards

Reviewing related materials and resources, I built my knowledge base related to non-profit boards, and developed a toolkit to help boards start on the right path, or to redirect a board that needs support and direction for further guidance and development.

Many board directors want to be helpful to their NPOs, but need a bit of direction to learn the basics of their duties, and the general and specific expectations of their roles

Annotated bibliography - SOCY 681 - E Trusz.pdf

More than Camping:
Reproductive Care Post-Roe

Reproductive care post Roe

When choosing the best method for political advocacy and policy change, I considered the audience I was planning to reach about a current hot button issue. I created a persuasive presentation as a jumping off point for future projects, which could be adapted to a social media video, such as a TikTok or Instagram reel.

After trying to partner with NPOs that were overwhelmed with a flood of support and donations, I recognized that some grassroots efforts were need to get the word out to interested but previously unconnected potential supporters

Data Coding

Working with a publicly available dataset, I learned how to utilize a statistical software program (SPSS), to interpret the guidebook and survey questions, and to understand the methodology behind the process.

This process affirmed that statistics can be manipulated to demonstrate a variety of outcomes, and built my skills on how to critically analyze report utilizing statistics as the sole support for a decision or policy.

Appendix for final paper - Recoded data - E Trusz - Degree SatFin Sex with Crosstabs.pdf

Volunteers as Members and Partners

Blue Water Baltimore Presentation

As a leader who is new to an organization, sometimes you just need a sounding board, a curious and conscientious person to ask the right question (or a completely different question) to help hone your personal philosophy, or to help you consider taking a new direction for your organization. In this community partnership, I served as a "thought partner" to a new leader who was eager to work with the community her NPO served, while being cognizant of the historical and cultural complications of such interventions.