For millions of young people, access to opportunity is becoming harder and harder.
This lack of opportunity is at the heart of the WJW Fellowship. William J. White, the father of CEO Deirdre White, was a passionate public health practitioner who was also dedicated to providing opportunities for young professionals. The fellowship selects students from HBCUs, community colleges, and minority-serving institutions, providing them with a foot in the door to the social impact sector through summer internships.
This summer, two students, Maya Blackston and Hiyanshi Patel, joined our team as William J. White (WJW) Fellows, directly contributing to our business development, programs, and finance departments.
“My father believed deeply in opening doors for young people, and I think he would be especially proud that, through this fellowship, we’re not just investing in the next generation of social impact leaders—we’re learning from them, too.” shared Deirdre White. “That’s the spirit we hope to carry forward as the fellowship grows.”
Maya, now a junior at Howard University, and Hiyanshi (Hiya), a senior at the University of Maryland, each tackled a specific project for the duration of their fellowship, collaborating closely with colleagues across the organization and creating tools that will be used to inform partnerships and increase efficiency in programmatic work.
Maya’s Fellowship Experience
Maya worked with our business development team on three primary tasks: market research, outreach and relationship building, and data management.
These tasks taught her the importance of understanding the overall market and landscape that an organization operates in.
Her competitor research analysis led her to develop a centralized competitor database and her research on outreach to potential partners highlighted the importance of being strategic about potential client needs and developing relationships.
“Building and maintaining these meaningful partnerships requires understanding an organization’s mission, values, and needs before initiating communication,” Maya shared.
Beyond the work, Maya expanded her perspective on what is possible professionally; learned from diverse experiences, backgrounds, and career journeys; and strengthened her desire to contribute to meaningful change.
“As a Junior, I’m getting started in the core classes of my degree, and this internship has really helped foster that [continued learning],” said Maya. “We’re a very technological world. Learning how to work with Salesforce and systems like that are skills that most young professionals should learn about.”
Hiyanshi’s Fellowship Experience
Hiya’s worked across finance and programs, supporting project-level budget monitoring, so the team has the most complete data to inform decisions. This included learning the budgeting workflow, meeting with programs managers and finance colleagues, reviewing existing tools, and incorporating the feedback. Hiya then produced updated trackers, training materials, and recommendations for standardization.
One of the tools Hiya worked on was the Portfolio Budget tracker. This tool enables client managers to keep track of spending throughout a project lifecycle. To make this tool even more useful, Hiya created instructions for each tab, added roles and responsibilities, recommended standard and optional tabs and created a training deck.
“Through conversations with program managers and other stakeholders, I realized that even a technically strong solution isn’t valuable unless it’s intuitive and actually fits into people’s day-to-day workflows,” Hiya reflected.
This experience led her to understanding the importance of a process and meeting with users prior to making recommendations.
“This fellowship reinforced my interest in consulting and work at the intersection of business, technology, and strategy,” said Hiya. ” Going forward, that’s something I want to continue doing in my career, working on complex problems where I can combine analytical thinking, technology, and collaboration to help organizations operate more effectively.”
The future of the William J. White Fellowship
This WJW Fellowship is just one way Pyxera Global provides a foot in the door for young professionals wanting to work in the social impact space.
“We love hearing what our Fellows gain from their time with Pyxera Global, but this fellowship has always been about mutual, meaningful benefit. Maya and Hiya brought fresh perspectives, curiosity, and new ideas that challenged our thinking and left us with practical tools that will strengthen how we work long after their fellowships have ended,” shared Deirdre.
Donations fund the next cohort of WJW Fellows, students who bring fresh thinking to our teams while building the skills and relationships to lead in social impact work.
