Role
During 2023, I was selected to participate in the Coro Fellowship for Public Affairs.
Coro's mission is to train city leaders in systems thinking, public speaking, and critical thinking — all with the ultimate goal of bringing forth individuals that can collaborate in solving pressing public issues.
Placement projects included:
- Conducting a competitive analysis for CRM and advocacy softwares and pitching actionable steps and strategies to organizational leaders at the National Council of Jewish Women;
- Researching the funding, structure, and function of a sustainable jobs program at Great Rivers Greenway and pitching the program to organization and board leaders (please see my pitch here and my PowerPoint presentation here);
- Researching and designing a communications directory at Washington University in St. Louis and pitching to university leaders;
- Interviewing city and state leaders in government, including Missouri State Senators and the St. Louis Mayor Tishuara Jones, to understand systematic processes and approach to democratic governance
- Completing ten presentations and “focus weeks” on city problems ranging from housing to food access to safety and gun policy.
As a culmination of Coro's ten-month leadership training program, fellows are required to secure $4,000 of funding for an independent project. Due to my passion for writing and storytelling, I decided to work with the Prison Education Project at Washington University in St. Louis.
I led the design of the manifesto for the cohort, which can be found here.
Final Writing Project
By facilitating inclusive listening sessions and focus groups, I identified a gap between the students’ literary ambitions and their publishing resources (please see my survey here). I ultimately worked towards creating a 90-page publishing guide and 2-hour literature course, which allowed the 30 students to publish their own prose in national journals.
Click here to view the Publishing Toolkit. Click here to view my PPT presentation for my 2-hour course.