The foundation's staff is comprised of dedicated people use their talents to help the blood and bleeding disorders community.
A new member of the team is Chloe Fellwock, a communications assistant who joined began her tenure in June 2022. A member of the communications team sat down with her to talk about working this role as her first job out of college, what she's learned, and her favorite moments with the team.
Watch the interview or read the full conversation below.
Tell us a little about yourself and your role at NHF!
Chloe: My name is Chloe Fellwock and I'm the communications assistant here at the National Hemophilia Foundation. I've been here for nine months. I joined in June of 2022, and that was one month after I graduated from Ball State University in Indiana. So, this is my first job after college!
Why were you interested in working for a non-profit?
Chloe: I've always been a really big fan of a well-told story. So growing up, I was always super interested in reading and writing and the fine arts and things like that. And as I started going through school and getting to later high school and early college, communications kind of just seemed like a natural translation point to bring all those skills into the workforce.
I started out in college as an advertising major. I intended to be on the creative side of like writing ads, directing them, things like that. And as I kind of got into the nitty gritty of my concentration, which was actually public relations, I realized I liked a lot more of the kind of working with people and helping to cultivate an organization's relationship with people a lot.
So that's how I got here!
How has it been entering the workforce out of college and coming directly to a non-profit?
Chloe: It's been really interesting. So honestly, you know, the, the principals you learn in school are not that different whether you go from a non-profit or a for-profit organization. I was sort of used to it. A lot of the internships that I had taken and companies that I had worked for prior to kind of entering the workforce were nonprofits themselves or like, smaller businesses, so I was already kind of used to like the scale on which we operate and just kind of like the general structure. I did internships with different health care nonprofits. I worked in tourism; I worked for a small magazine; I worked for a company that, you know, tried to give students career advice for the resumes and things like that.
So when I came here, it was sort of that experience, but like magnified and, you know, being more involved in an organization really just kind of shows you like how intricate the whole process is.
What is one highlight from your time here?
Chloe: One of the biggest highlights I've seen so far, this was about two months into my time at NHF, and I was already going off to my first BDC, and that was just such a cool experience because, you know, while I was still kind of getting used to like, you know, how does this normally go? What kinds of things do people actually do at this conference?
Everywhere you looked, whether it was like a symposium or some kind of a talk, or just people sitting around socializing, they were people from like literally every age group and like all over the country and everybody just had this sense of you know, breathe out, you're around people who like get what you're going through even if they don't have the same bleeding disorder as you or you know, not the same family situation or whatever.
It was like everybody just had this general understanding of like, you know, you're understood here and that was so cool cause like, working, especially working remotely, you understand that these are like real people and real experiences that your work is affecting, but at some points you can kind of get used to it.
And that kind of just helped me visualize like, holy smokes, the copy that I'm writing, the graphics I create, the data that I'm pulling and analyzing and everything in between, that's affecting like real lives and it matters a lot. And you can tell just like by the, the way people act at BDC, like it does matter a lot to have that kind of community and the resources that we're able to offer, which is really cool.
Thank you, Chloe, for sharing your story! Visit the careers section for more information on open roles.
