Fundraising & Development Internship
Check with your internship coordinator BEFORE accepting to determine how you might do this internship for credit.
Fundraising and Development Internship
Overview
The Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI) is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization dedicated to renewing and advancing the values of liberal democracy in the U.S. and around the world. We promote intellectual humility and an empathetic approach to disagreement.
We have a small, tight-knit executive team, so interns will have the unique opportunity to learn all aspects of how to run an organization and make a personal impact on America’s democratic landscape. Because we are a start-up organization, interns should also be ready to play multiple roles as we have an “all hands on deck” mentality. All roles will have a mix of substantive and administrative responsibilities.
Interns will have nearly unprecedented access to our Board of Directors—including renowned chess champion Garry Kasparov, Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Senator Bob Kerrey, Pulitzer Prize winner Bret Stephens, former head of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, and many others. Check out our website for more info!
About the Role
Responsibilities will include some of the following. Candidates should have interest in some of these, but do not necessarily have to have experience in all of them:
- Working closely with the Executive Director and the development team to ensure RDI’s long-term sustainability;
- Researching current/potential donors and philanthropic foundations;
- Updating the long term development strategy and expanding RDI’s development techniques;
- Assisting with the planning and execution of fundraising events;
- Conducting outreach to donors;
- Drafting messaging for outreach including email templates, phone scripts, and social media postings;
- Working with RDI’s Customer Relationship Management tool (CRM) - EveryAction to manage relationships with RDI supporters;
- Supporting fundraising administrative tasks.
Qualifications of an ideal candidate:
- Exceptional undergraduates, graduate students, and recent grads are encouraged to apply;
- Detail-oriented to a fault;
- In full support of RDI’s mission and values;
- Experience in the fundraising and development space;
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills;
- Open-minded and willing to interact with a broad range of often-conflicting political points of view;
- Social, articulate, and a self-starter unafraid to take initiative;
- Experience with Google Suite (especially Google Sheets), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools (especially EveryAction), and other development databases strongly preferred.
Logistics & Benefits
- An ability to work remotely due to the current crisis and, if/when it’s safe to return to the office, an opportunity to work at an exciting start-up with unlimited snacks, coffee, and other perks.
- Our internships last 3-6 months. Interns can either work full time (40 hours/week) or part time (15-25 hours/week);
- Hours are flexible and we are willing to work around your academic schedule;
- An opportunity to work closely with senior organizational leadership, including the Executive Director, as well as access to members of the Board of Directors, and other individuals from RDI’s extended network.
- This is an unpaid internship.
- A typical day could include spending a few hours executing on a fundraising campaign using RDI’s CRM,, a lunch-and-learn with a prominent political figure, a world champion poker player, or a business leader, time researching significant philanthropic donor prospects, and a team meeting to update & improve upon our development strategy.
We are recruiting on a rolling basis. Please send a resume, brief cover letter, and short (<500 words) well-written writing sample on a social, political, historical, or educational topic that offers a strong coherent argument to info@rdi.org. Please also indicate your desired hours per week and start date in your cover letter. Only complete applications will be reviewed.