(Hybrid) We Rise Together Summer 2025 Internship (June - September 2025)

Internship Title: We Rise Together Summer Internship

(We Rise Together: For an Equitable & Just Recovery, The Chicago Community Trust)

Description: This is a summer internship in which the intern will be closely integrated within the We Rise Together team, including the Program Director, Program Specialist, Communications Manager, and Campaign Fundraising Manager. The intern will work with the team to gain a deeper understanding of the community development landscape through final reports submitted by grant recipients after opening their project. The intern will help uncover learnings and themes from our grantee reports and recommend ways we can improve our practices to best support project development and catalyze neighborhood economic impact. An ideal candidate possesses an entrepreneurial spirit, passion for innovation and a commitment to drive change and contribute to the Chicago Community Trust.

Background

We Rise Together: For an Equitable & Just Recovery is a coalition of public and private funders and communities accelerating equity in the Chicago region's economic recovery so everyone who lives here can reach their full potential. To catalyze an equitable economic recovery in our region from the COVID recession, We Rise Together focuses on grantmaking and engagement in communities hardest hit by COVID and those that are a majority Black and Latine because they are the places and people disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

The Opportunity

The We Rise Together Intern will have an opportunity to analyze the successes, challenges, and landscape of real estate development among grant recipients who have either started or completed construction through the reports submitted via our grants management platform, GrantCentral. The intern will help us identify key themes across the projects to help inform future practices to best support the project leads beyond a grantmaking role. They will note key barriers community developers encounter as well as the achievements they have met along the development process and present the findings and recommendations to the We Rise Together team to implement in future strategies.

Our Approach

Our model for community investment at scale supports coordinated, community-led commercial and economic development in neighborhoods that were hit hardest by COVID-19 and the economic recession that followed. Through strategic grants to community-directed real estate development projects that leverage additional investment, we are building thriving neighborhoods and a stronger Chicago. In addition to real estate grants, We Rise Together also makes grants to support locally owned businesses and expand employment opportunities in the neighborhoods around the real estate projects.

Expected Assignments:

- Support grant reporting management and impact measurement: Review grant reports for themes that emerge in challenges and accomplishments

• Support entry of Measures of Progress
• Research and connect with other funders on how they are effectively supporting capital projects towards completing construction
• Share learnings and recommendations from reports to the We Rise Together team via Word document and presentation

- Team Participation:

• Participate in team meetings and take on related tasks and projects as assigned.
• Additionally, the intern will support meeting preparation and development of presentations and materials.

Salary: $20.00/hour

Hours per week: up to 21 hours per week (2 days in office; 1 day remote)

Internship Timeframe: June 17, 2025 - September 30, 2025 (can be flexible)

Application Materials

• Interested candidates should submit the following for consideration:
  • Resume
  • Cover Letter
  • Writing Sample

Application Timeline

• Applications will be accepted until March 31st, 2025.
• Due to the high volume of applicants, the Trust will only contact students directly if selected to proceed to our phone interviews and in-person recruitment event held on April 28th, 2025.

Thank you for your interest in the Chicago Community Trust's Internship Program!

Ideal majors: Public Policy; Psychology, Political Science; Public Administration; Urban Planning; Sociology; Anthropology; Economics; Social Work, Computer Science; Data Science; or other related fields.

Requirements:

• Ability to work independently and collaboratively
• Critical thinking skills
• Data visualization
• Ability to use the Microsoft office suite of projects (e.g., Excel, PowerPoint, Word)
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Access to reliable technology to access the Internet and proficiency with Zoom, Microsoft Teams and other remote workspace tools
• Advanced data analysis and programming skills desired but not required