Focus on the Family internship

372 hours
June – August 2025
Podcast Programming Intern, onsite in Colorado Springs, CO

During my 10-week internship for Focus on the Family, I worked an 8-5 in a cubicle (see photo) Monday through Friday to support my supervisor, the podcast producer for three Focus podcasts: The Boundless Show, Focus on Parenting and Focus on Marriage.

My daily tasks consisted of researching authors and potential guests online and by reading their books to determine if they would fit our show, pitching podcast ideas based on my findings, attending programming meetings with the existing team and writing scripts for existing programs.

My daily tasks consisted of researching authors and potential guests online and by reading their books to determine if they would fit our show, pitching podcast ideas based on my findings, attending programming meetings with the existing team and writing scripts for existing programs.

Although I primarily worked behind the scenes of The Boundless Show, I wrote eight scripts for the Focus on Parenting Podcast as well. These preps were for episodes that would release twice a week during August 2025 and outlined two hosts’ conversations according to clipped segments of the Focus on the Family with Jim Daly broadcast.

The Boundless Show

Anatomy of a Boundless episode:

• Roundtable: 20-minute conversation with three guests
• Culture: 30-minute in-depth discussion with one or two guests about their book or a specific topic
• Inbox: 5-10-minute segment, in which one guest answers a listener-submitted question

And here’s a brief summary of everything I did for the show. See my script-writing artifacts here.

• Scheduled 23 segments — Contacted publicists to book authors for Culture segments, coordinated schedules between four people for Roundtables
• Wrote 15 Roundtable preps — Gathered background information from all guests participating in the episode and compiled six to seven questions for our podcast host to ask during the Roundtable
• Read 14 books — Wrote preps for 12 of the books, which mean researching each author’s background information, writing a two-page summary of the book, compiling six to seven questions for the podcast host and organizing my findings for our host
• Participated as a guest on-camera in two episodes, including one titled, “What We Love About America“
• Attended an offsite to grow as a team and collaborate on ideas for future episodes
• Coded a new workflow in Google Sheets with automations and filters

Although my official job description didn’t include administrative tasks, I noticed my team had an inefficient workflow in Google Sheets during Week 3 of the internship. I asked my team questions about the workflow’s origin, purpose and performance, then began to code my own podcast programming system in Google Sheets that could potentially replace the team’s current one. That next week, I officially asked and gained permission from my team to create a more efficient spreadsheet, began testing it on my own to find bugs, used ChatGPT to help me code and automate functions and eventually presented it to my team. I adjusted certain functions to their preferences and built out a “Tutorial” tab to explain how I created the Sheet for their future reference.

More internship highlights

Three mornings a week, the audio department at Focus (producers, engineers, camera operators) met to share a devotional thought, read a chapter of the Bible together, pray for constituents or pray for each other. During these times, I connected relationally and spiritually with my coworkers.

I attended seven intern seminars covering:

• Mental health
• The Working Genius assessment — I’m an E (Enablement) and a T (Tenacity)
• The Reactive Cycle
• Male and female sexuality according to a Christian anthropology
• Crucial conversations in the workplace
• Generational differences in the workplace
• Resume and professional development post-grad

The internship also provided opportunities to grow professionally and personally.

• Screened a new Focus documentary and participated in a focus group the next day to share comments openly and respectfully
• Modeled for a Bring Your Bible T-shirt and tote bag photoshoot
• Visited two national parks, hiked over 2,800 steps on “The Incline” and explored many other parks in Colorado
• Collected portfolio work on an aesthetic trifold display to prepare for the Intern Expo, a two-hour fair that showcased our impact on the ministry for other Focus employees, volunteers and intern host families to see. Highlighted the Google Sheet I coded, number of episodes written and books read, and download numbers and donation amounts for episodes I’ve worked on that have been published.