Week Two: Striped Towels, the Euro, and NICRA
This week I worked on a couple of projects. IBJ is in the process of developing stronger corporate partnerships. The first phase of this process is the launch of what we are (for now) calling the “Global Partnership Council.” I went through a spreadsheet of organizations IBJ has partnered with in the past to compile a list of organizations that are good candidatees for the partnership council. I also drafted a concept note explaining the commitment and benefits involved with membership that will be sent to organizations as an invitation.
Early in the week John (another legal intern) and I were assigned to do research for IBJ’s Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement (NICRA). Indirect costs are the costs that do not directly apply to a nonprofit’s main goal. For IBJ, these costs include rent and utilities for our Geneva office. The U.S. government repays nonprofits receiving grants a certain percentage of their indirect costs. Our job was to figure out how to get the highest percentage possible of our indirect costs back. This involved a lot of scouring government sites and reading through obscure code sections, subsections, and sub-subsections.
The end result of our research was a memo suggesting that IBJ use a particular type of indirect cost rate based on IBJ’s past proposals. We also helped define all the costs that could be considered indirect.
Outside of Work This Week:
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- It got above 80 degrees, so three days this week all of the interns went down to the lake after work for a swim. A bunch of us got matching striped beach towels last week, so we set them up on the beach in a row.
- Kristen and I went thrifting, then met John in Old Town and walked around to the various installations for the music festival happening throughout the city. We saw a heavy metal band and a classic oldies band in the park, an orchestra playing in a courtyard, and a marching band working their way around Old Town.
- It’s been a very soccer-themed (forgive me, football-filled) week. Earlier in the week, a group of us went to Itana’s house to watch the Switzerland vs. Scotland game. Tonight we went to the Fanzone to watch the game against Germany. Basically, half the city gathered in one the larger city squares to watch the game together. Everyone is invested.
- We walked around Old Town, and it started pouring rain. We ran to our favorite coffee shop and got some hot chocolate. We waited out the rain in the old 15th-century armory for a while.
- On Friday, we got drinks and food down by the lake and watched the sunset.