OneCarolina summer 2025 interns. From left: Samee Ghaffar ’27, Andrea Sydow ’27, Sada Maryanov ’27, Annabel Lissade ’26 and Gabrielle Stevenson ’27 (Photo by Jeyhoun Allebaugh)
The OneCarolina Summer Internship Program is a paid opportunity for undergraduate UNC-Chapel Hill students to explore future careers in higher education philanthropy. For 10 weeks, students work on-site with professionals across Carolina’s campus, contribute tangible work to help realize Carolina’s development goals, get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of campus and make lasting connections. Meet the 2025 summer interns!
Samee Ghaffar ’27
Ghaffar is a business administration major at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School minoring in public policy and Arabic with dreams to go to law school. This summer, he worked with the University Development Office’s marketing team. His main focus was contributing stories and supporting the content team.
Ghaffar coordinated content and strategy for the Carolina Covenant, C-STEP, Honors Carolina and the UNC School of Law. Many of his stories highlight exemplary students and their hands-on learning experiences during the summer. His capstone, however, centered on developing content in support of the University’s building and renovation projects.
“I gained student and faculty perspective on iconic places around campus that could be improved through conducting interviews,” Ghaffar said. “It revealed Carolina could achieve even more excellence with improved spaces and equipment. I focused on the Student Recreation Center, featuring people in a video who had a lot of experience using the space. During the interview, I asked them what they loved about it, what’s something they haven’t loved about it, and what are some improvements that could be made and why those are important.”
Ghaffar is hoping the visual aspect of telling this story will resonate with students, employees, donors and others alike.
“I think that having that unfiltered view of the spaces that could use improvement will be beneficial and actually help make the necessary changes,” Ghaffar said.
Ghaffar is grateful for the marketing and storytelling skills he picked up. From ideation to writing to editing to even producing the content on set, he was able to learn so much. He is especially excited to use the storytelling skills in court when he is a lawyer.
Andrea Sydow ’27
Sydow is double majoring in human organizational leadership and development and data science. This summer, she used her skills on the International Fundraising and Engagement team, working with William Shuey, executive director, and Caroline Evans, assistant director.
Sydow produced two deliverables including a strategic report and an engagement tool-kit on international onboarding processes. She interviewed many alumni abroad, created a survey and benchmarked peer institutions.
“I liked the mix between gathering data and analyzing that data to see how it can actually be useful,” Sydow said.
Sydow credits her managers for her successful summer experience, calling them “mentors” instead of managers.
“Having my mentors there to listen to me, be open to my questions and be willing to make time for me made me feel cared for and like my contributions were valued,” Sydow said. “Because of that, I learned to not be afraid to speak up, even if I was confused or felt doubt. I started trusting myself more.”
Sada Maryanov ’27
Maryanov is a double major in political science and African, African American, and diaspora studies and she has an NC Scholarship. This summer, Maryanov worked with the Sonja Haynes Stone Center, focusing mostly on student-driven philanthropy.
She specifically worked to amplify the center’s 20th anniversary, contributing to the 20 for 20 campaign, encouraging a monthly recurring donation of $20 to celebrate the milestone. She did this through outreach efforts, collecting testimonials from students, staff, alumni and faculty. Her capstone project was developing a marketing campaign that reflects the Stone Center’s impact on student life.
Maryanov conducted 20 interviews that will become short form videos and testimonials to be shared on social media. She completed everything from filming to interviewing to editing footage.
“I was trying to conceptualize a way to connect people’s experiences to institutional support,” Maryanov said. “I wanted to make the case to students of why sustainable funding matters.”
She’s grateful that she was able to work on such a meaningful project.
“I’ve found a lot of purpose connecting with people over a space and showing people that you can be an active participant in the philanthropy and in the perpetuity of this space to continue impacting people in the way it has impacted you,” Maryanov said. “I’m leaving this internship understanding fundraising is deeply relational and philanthropy is about storytelling and leaving a legacy.”
Annabel Lissade ’26
Lissade is majoring in economics and political science and minoring in entrepreneurship. Lissade was charged with helping develop a new donor milestone recognition program for the UNC School of Law.
She developed this program by researching peer institutions, benchmarking and gathering data, and researching ways the law school could use new software to help improve their current milestone program. Even though Lissade’s role isn’t linked directly to her major, she used the critical thinking and analytical skills she practices in classes and her minor to help propel her forward this summer.
One part of the internship Lissade is taking with her is the donor relations aspect of fundraising and what donor stewardship entails. She’s hoping to bring this experience to the non-profit work she does back home in Haiti.
“Partnering with orphanages, we develop a two-day program for kids of all ages to play and to learn. We bring in professionals to focus on academics, lead workshops and offer career advice and sex education for teenagers,” Lissade said. “I need people to donate to be able to continue my non-profit, so learning how to sustain a relationship with a donor is something real I can bring back to my passion-project.”
Eventually, Lissade wants her non-profit to grow so that she is able to help give back to her community in a big way.
“I love giving back, and I think that OneCarolina has been a way for me to give back to a community that I am a part of because we are helping fund student’s futures.”
Gabrielle Stevenson ’27
Stevenson is a business administration major and a Carolina Covenant Scholar. This summer, she worked with the Carolina Arts and Sciences Foundation’s events and operations teams, focusing on alumni and donor engagement. Her goals were to help maximize engagement processes and increase the foundation’s ROI long term.
To do this, Stevenson created a strategy timeline to go hand in hand with the foundation’s planning timeline and a debrief template that will inform changes internally. She conducted research, gathering information from other campus units like UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, The Rams Club and the UNC Health Foundation. Connecting with these units greatly impacted her goals after Carolina.
“When I started this internship, my plan was to go into commercial real estate,” Stevenson said. “But, I have fully changed my mind, and I’m instead focusing on a career in athletics from an operations and strategy standpoint. By interviewing people at The Rams Club, I was able to see how it worked and what those jobs mean. I have found this new passion that I‘m super excited about.”
Stevenson is already on the ball! Next, she’ll be applying for a Carolina Athletics Tar Heel Ambassador role this fall to work with the game-day operations team. Then she’s going to apply for an internship with UNC Athletics next summer and finally, finish out her time at Carolina by applying to the sports administration graduate program to stay for another two years.
“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but didn’t know was possible until now,” Stevenson said.
Written by Terzah Dyer
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