Mary Caroline Funk

Informational Interview 1 - Kaitlyn Ranney - Director of Marketing and Communications at

Friendship Force International (FFI)

1. What you learned about that person’s career path, job, field, education and the nature of their
work?
- Kaitlyn talked about how she has worked for Friendship Force International for 4 years
now, and started as a program manager, after getting her master’s in communication.
Then not too long ago, she moved up to the Director of Marketing and Communication
role. She told me the company is 42 years old, has 15,000 members, and works with 60
countries around the world. She works with a lot of people and does a lot of different jobs
because this company is a nonprofit.
2. How does a typical day or week unfold for them at work?
- She kept mentioning that she wears many hats and has to do a lot of things around the
office. She manages a 2 person department, but also works very closely with the graphic
designer. She uses email as her main source of marketing, as she manages the external
and internal communication between the people outside the company and in the 60 other
countries around the world. She manages the websites, makes brochures, videos, updates
and runs the social media feed, makes forms, does training for other parts of the job, and
creates logos. She works closely with a public relations consultant, as well. A constant
part of her day is brand management and making sure she has good quality and stays
consistent with the messages she is sending with her marketing.
3. What makes their career meaningful for them?
- She likes working for the nonprofit even though it does not make a ton of money. She
said her work is meaningful because she works with a lot of people, wears a lot of hats,
and ultimately is positively impacting people and places around the world.
4. Which jobs or career steps preceded their current position?
- She has worked a lot of different places, but has been here for 4 years, and has worked
her way to the director of marketing.
5. What pieces of information/advice were most valuable for you (i.e. what you took away from
this experience)?
- I asked her for advice if I wanted to do a similar job to hers at a nonprofit and she said to
familiarize myself with the nonprofit world, to know how to use Photoshop and other
graphic design websites because that can be helpful when you have to do a lot of stuff on
your own with a small group of people to help you for a big company. She said taking an
intercultural communications class is good because it helps you understand different
cultures, and in a nonprofit, you work with a lot of other cultures, languages, and people
groups.
6. How does this information impact you: does this job or field intrigue you or is it different
than you imagined? Does this sound like a possible area of interest for you or not; why?
- Her job and skills that she said were important were something that made me very
interested in what she did. She said it’s not hard to get an internship with a nonprofit
because they need help and can’t pay a ton of people to do the job. I want to start getting
involved now.
7. Did this position align with what you know about yourself: values, beliefs, personality and
interests?
 - Yes, very much so. The nonprofit world and mindset was very similar to mine, which
made it easier to talk to her.
8. Was this person a solid source of information for you? Did you sense that you had
similarities in terms of interests, values, beliefs or lifestyle expectations?
- Yes. She was very willing to talk to me and told me so much information after I asked
only a few questions, which was great. She loves her job and is very knowledgeable
because she has been there for such a long time.
9. What additional information do you want to find now after this experience?
- I want to get an internship or volunteer with a nonprofit to continue seeing if this is
something that I would want to do when I am older.