By Angy Hanon:
This summer, we are pleased to present Anthony Kucera, a Catholic Community Connection 2025 Fellow who joined the finance department of Catholic Charities, Diocese of Cleveland as the Finance Intern. Anthony is entering his final year at John Carroll University, where he is double-majoring in Economics and Finance with a minor in Data Science.
With a heart set on working in the nonprofit or public sector after graduation, he discovered the Fellows Program at John Carroll’s career fair and recognized it as a perfect fit. “It aligned with what I wanted to do and what I thought I’d be good at,” he said.
As the Finance Intern, Anthony’s work varied from vendor outreach to system reconciliation, program budget analysis to account balancing for the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), his work touched many areas of the department. “I love coming into work and starting a new assignment, not knowing what it’ll be, but knowing it will be completely different from the last,” he said.
One meaningful project involved examining and resolving account inconsistencies between the organization’s accounting and sports management systems for CYO. “It was like detective work,” he said. “It was really cool to give back to a program that helped shape me when I was younger.” As a former CYO cross-country and track athlete, the project was a full-circle moment.
One of his proudest accomplishments came when he successfully wrote a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), an in-depth guide that describes how to complete a specific task. “I had never heard of an SOP before,” he said. “So having to learn it from scratch and write something that my manager said was really well done, it gave me a lot of confidence.”
His supervisor, Bill Woods, had a significant influence on Anthony’s experience. “Bill’s been everything you’d want in a supervisor. He is available, encouraging, and willing to let me explore my interests,” he said. “When I wanted to learn more about the financial analysts’ work, he changed my projects to make that happen.”
As he looks to the future, he’s confident that this experience will shape his path. “This internship has shown me how nonprofits operate on a business scale, and what it means to work for a mission-driven organization. That’s something I’ll carry with me no matter where I go.”
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