While this may simply sound like a class related trip, the information I learned will help me be more informed and productive at my internship.
Before I go into how this trip will help my internship, I must explain a bit about what I do. I have been working at Berger Hirschberg Strategies since January processing, producing briefings, and making calls for different gubernatorial candidates, Congressmen, Senators, and non-profits. I often am assigned to make a list of contributors or figure out a person's donor history.
Now how does this all relate??
At the FEC I learned how to navigate the FEC website with speed and accuracy. This will allow me to look up contributions and disbursements of fund to many of our clients much easier than other systems. While I will still have to use followthemoney.org and opensecrets.org (great sites) I will be able to use the FEC sets of information for our federal clients.
Also, the FEC officials provided a lot of documents to myself and my classmates. One of this is a packet with the title PACronyms. This is a near exhaustive list of all of the PACs (political action committees) in America. I often have to look up a lot of PACs, but I may not know what the acronyms stand for. While I could just do a google search, that is not always the best option. I will be bringing this packet to my internship so I am able to find exactly what I am looking for.
This trip proves that what I am learning does have applicable lessons! I am excited to get my research started on my final piece for this class and I will be sure to share anything interesting I come across.
Remember, please email me at kwollner@gwu.edu if you have any questions. Declarations of intent are due May 1 and there are 2 April Visit days left including tomorrow!
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