Academic Credit: Offered upon the school department’s approval

About the role

This role will involve working on some combination of the below:

• 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;
• Working with senior staff to conceptualize and implement an RDI ambassadors program;
• Regularly communicate with subscribers;
• Building a community of people committed to democratic norms is a key goal of RDI, so we will be looking for someone who can help build out this community in the US and around the world through regular communications, event ideas, etc. This person’s goal should also be to move people through the marketing funnel and get them more involved with RDI projects. Ultimately community management will involve maintaining and maximizing people’s engagement with the organization.

Please be sure to review our social media presence (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Youtube) , past events, as well as examples of our work including our newsletters, Defining Democracy narratives, & videos prior to applying!

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;
• A real “people person” who enjoys interacting with a diverse group of individuals
• 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 (25+ hours/week); but can be flexible depending on applicant’s circumstance;
• 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, development and events team, and other individuals from RDI’s extended network;
• This is an unpaid internship;
• A typical day could include spending a few hours on RDI’s brainstorming ideas for events; working on a donor outreach strategy; participating in a lunch-and-learn with a prominent political figure, a world champion poker player, or a business leader; time spent working in RDI’s customer relationship manager; and informing RDI’s community about an upcoming event series

We are recruiting on a rolling basis. Please email apply@rdi.org with a resume, brief cover letter, and short (<500 words) writing sample that is in some way relevant to development/events/community management. This can be a description of an event series you’d like to organize at RDI, a fundraising appeal you’d written in the past, or something else entirely. Feel free to be creative. Please also indicate your desired hours per week and start date in your cover letter. Only complete applications will be reviewed.