Tuck 'encouraging, collaborative, and empathetic' essay.
In February 202x, I was volunteer team lead on Citibank’s pro bono project for North Philadelphia Legal, which provides free legal services to domestic abuse victims, the homeless, and military veterans. We were six weeks away from delivering the organization’s new financial model when everything ground to a halt: it was “crunch time” in the banking industry – earnings season. Suddenly, we were all working 12-hour days, Monday through Saturday, on our Citibank deliverables.
One of my volunteers, Aretha, asked me for an extension on her part of the North Philadelphia workstream. She was up for promotion and wanted to prioritize her upcoming deadlines to win her manager’s support. I knew what it was like to be in her shoes: last year, when I was vying for a promotion, I remembered spreading myself too thin trying to differentiate. But while Aretha was thinking about her short-term promotion, I was thinking about her career long-term: the skills she would build volunteering for North Philadelphia Legal — communication, influence, and leadership – could expand her profile in Citibank and enhance her professional success.
We sat down together to figure out how Aretha could meet both deadlines at the same time. The biggest problem was timing: when could she and the team meet, when everyone was already working six days a week? I proposed Sunday mornings for the next month, just until the organization’s financial model was completed. It was a significant time commitment, for her as well as for us, but she agreed. We met every Sunday morning from then on, and right on schedule, we delivered a fully functioning model to North Philadelphia Legal. Three months later, when Aretha was promoted to Senior Associate, her manager cited her commitment to our pro bono project as a major factor in her promotion.