Immediately after graduation, Brenna O’Donnell interned at Columbia University Press in project management and publicity. Although she initially imagined a career in book publishing, after working on marketing campaigns all summer, Brenna decided to go in a different direction: “I wanted to throw myself into nonprofit work, using my writing degree for good.”
Moving back home to Alexandria, Virginia, to start a job as a production assistant for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), Brenna become an in-house journalist for the organization. She interviewed families of missing children as well as external experts to send media pitches across the country. Brenna’s responsibility was to get news of a missing child to different cities, and she takes pride helping find four children in her two years at the organization. Eventually, as associate producer, Brenna also led a project interviewing survivors of sex trafficking to better understand how NCMEC could make its work more trauma-informed and survivor-centered. Brenna’s contributions in the ethics of how to talk about survivor stories are still being used as a best practice for journalists and nonprofit workers.
Taking a break from the intensity of nonprofit work during the pandemic, Brenna now freelances for the Alexandria Times, covering local events and conducting interviews for the paper. She profiled Hala Ayala, the Democratic nominee for the lieutenant governor of Virginia, and featured the NCMEC annual Ride for the Missing, a bike ride from Utica, New York, to Alexandria, where survivors and parents raise awareness and support NCMEC’s mission. While Brenna enjoys the adventure of journalism, she looks forward to her next position on a nonprofit team. Writing about a mission that benefits a lot of people is the most inspiring journalism of all, Brenna says.