Internships, reprise

Ezra defends internships against the charges levied in this op/ed by Anya Kamenetz.

I blogged approvingly about Kamenetz' article a few days ago. LizardBreath has also been blogging about all the hidden subsidies required to get an interesting job nowadays.

Kamenetz frames internship as a gimme for corporate America. However, as Ezra and others have pointed out, internships in big businesses tend to pay quite well.

The Princeton Review suggests that the opportunities for paid internship are inversely proportional to the sexiness of the work. Public interest groups and lefty magazines aren't the only employers who favor unpaid internships. Capitol Hill, Hollywood, and the Big Media also use a lot of unpaid interns because they can get away with it. Why hire an intern when you can get your lattes fetched for free?

There's nothing wrong with internships, per se. In fact, they're good for employers and the students who can afford to take advantage of them. Given the growing importance of the internship as an institution in our society, we ought to take steps to make interning more accessible to everyone. Expanding co-op education programs and work/study grants is good progressive policy. If students get good jobs in relevant fields, internships can be a boon instead of a burden.

In my earlier post, I argued that unpaid and underpaid internships are a threat to the meritocracy. Unpaid work is a luxury for those who can afford to give away their time. My fear is that unpaid internships are helping to sustain an echo chamber in the media, in politics, and the non-profit sector.

The fact that so many progressive organizations rely on unpaid interns is especially troubling. These organizations should embrace a living wage for interns and entry-level staffers as a matter of principle.

First off, it's hypocritical for progressive groups to preach social change but practice exclusion. Moreover, elitist recruiting strategies are short-sighted if your goal is helping the disadvantaged. What percentage of people who write white papers on the welfare system have ever been on welfare? I'm not saying that you need personal experience in order to write policy. However, fresh ideas and diverse perspectives are the lifeblood of progressive policy and alternative media. So, progressive groups have a strong long-term incentive to recruit from a broad cross-section of society.

It's easy to say that a non-profit can't afford to pay its interns. Money will always be tight, but that fact of life never absolves decision-makers of responsibility for setting priorities. Progressive organizations should embrace living wages for interns and entry-level staff a goal, for their own good.

Comments

[Ian Welsh]

Unpaid (or cheap) internships are just another way in which those who don't have rich mummies and daddies are shut out from ladders into the good jobs. I understand that getting labor free is all very nice, but it'd be nice if people who claim to care about ordinary people in general, actually cared about ordinary people (who can't afford to work for nothing, or for ridiculously cheap) in specific.

[bf]

It's not just "easy" to say that money is tight. Should these needy organizations avoid taking on interns out of principle if they can't pay them?

I do share the above concern, however. Elite schools actually have internship funds that help fund unpaid internships. They're not just for independently wealthy people per se, but they are easier for the academic elite (which only imperfectly reflects the moneyed elite. Ivies are getting better at being inclusive).

I think the onus, Lindsay, isn't on the organizations, but on universities to support co-op programs like the ones you proposed just the other day. This is as much about the irrelevance of the higher ed experience. I want students to hold universities accountable for their preparation for the real world (which doesn't mean just business, but also progressive nonprofits as well). They need to be much more proactive about helping students get where they want to be after graduation, regardless of means.

I don’t know. I interned at a progressive NGO 20 hours a week for nothing while carrying a full course load and a job at night. I survived. I'm paying back the debt now, but it was worth it.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

I'm not saying non-profits should suspend all unpaid internships forthwith. I'm saying that the progressive movement should make it a priority to create more paid positions.

If I were running a non-profit, I'd start by fundraising specifically to support work/study grants, internship stipends, and similar programs. This is an infrastructural problem as much as anything else. If you have a large pool of people who are willing to work for free and you fund your interns out of general revenue, you will always be tempted to rely on free labor.

My proposed public and private solutions aren't mutually exclusive. I just want non-profits to own up to their dependence on free work and appreciate why this smart short-term strategy is ultimately detrimental to our movement.

[John Emerson]

I'm repeating somewhat from the other thread, but by relying on free interns from monied families the non-profits separate themselves further from the general population, and run a risk of becoming recognizably an elite goody-goody organization.

I think that the Democratic Party has the same problem -- reliance on whiz kids from elite schools. Republican populism is fake, but Democratic elitism can be real.

Many non-profits and left groups demand that their staffs work for low pay at a personal sacrifice. (Many of these same non-profits have very well-paid execs, "ironically"). Political involvement can become a slacker time between school and grad school (or whenever you "get serious"), or a refuge for the guilt-ridden heirs and heiresses. Activists should be able to buy houses and raise families just like everyone else.

[bf]

It's very difficult for nonprofits to fundraise for this kind of thing. Salaries are usually counted as overhead, and very few foundations give grants that cover general fund expenses. They either need to build the costs into the grants themselves (which increases the overhead anyway, which funders absolutely hate). Funders and boards put a lot of pressure on staff to minimize overhead costs and maximize funds for direct program expenses. There are all sorts of structural problems in philanthropy that produce these outcomes. Professional development is virtually nonexistent in the nonprofit sector, especially for younger staff and middle management. It's actually starting to become a big issue , if you're interested in nonprofit accounting principles and human resources management.

Somewhat annoyingly, Heritage and AEI have great internship programs. There's also a great one at George Mason for budding libertarians. But these orgs are flush with money.

But there definitely is the element of personal sacrifice. For all the elite people I know, there are lots that scrape by on almost nothing. Americorps pays poverty-level wages, though they at least cover health and fork out education stipends.

[bf]

One other trend in the nonprofit sector that I might mention briefly is that it is increasingly becoming professionalized. Staff structures are becoming more regular across the sector, there is more government regulation, there are "industry" organizations that are big and growing powerful, and nonprofit and public management programs are growing. There's a glass ceiling for people without advance degrees. There are more and more businesses and support organizations that cater to the sector. In other words, nonprofits are becoming more like for-profits.

With all this, nonprofit work isn't just a "slacker time" anymore. It's becoming a legitimate, viable career path. While internships are rarely paid and entry-level salaries are low, but benefits are usually comprehensive.

Some predict that nonprofits will get serious about professional development and, probably therefore, (here's the punchline) internship programs as well.

As an aside (very related to this post), come to the Craigslist Foundation Nonprofit Boot Camp on June 10 at NYU. For info, visit http://www.craigslistfoundation.org/. It's going to be a great event for the NY Nonprofit Community.

Sorry for the plug. And the rant. I don't mean to fill your venerable blog, Lindsay, with asides.

[John Emerson]

BF, I can't speak for Lindsey, but your informed point of view is welcome here even -- if you're telling me I'm wrong. Don't hold back.

[ajsmith]

I cannot tell you how many talented folks I've seen leave "the movement" simply because they want or need to raise a family, buy a house, or achieve an otherwise middle class life. I've worked primarily in the non-profit world for the past ten years and at times it seems that there are too many folks - not all, by any means - in the upper ranks who are there because they didn't have the skills, drive, or personality to succeed elsewhere.

None of that is meant to discount the many many talented folks who find ways to stick it out, but not needing the money certainly helps keep many of them around long enough to run things.

The progressive funding and non-profit communities are just now beginning to look at the problem, but it is ironic that when money is tight - as it almost always is on this side - the folks who hold the purse strings have historically come to the same conclusion as the corporatist culture they are often aligned against: Save on labor costs.

It is often a self-defeating strategy, long-term. We need to recruit good people, pay them as professionals, and take an institutional interest in their careers and advancement. Period.

[Ian Welsh]

"There's a glass ceiling for people without advance degrees."

Oh good.

"They're good enough for us to work for them, but not for them to work for us."

Liberal elitism is very very real, even as Republican populism is very very fake.

[Anya Kamenetz]

A group of students at Yale, SNAP-PAC (http://www.snappac.org/) , has spent the year raising money so that other students are able to spend the summer interning for free for progressive House and Senate candidates across the country. Priority is given to students with financial need, who would not otherwise be able to spend the summer doing work in line with their ideals.

I am in full agreement that what we need is more co-operative learning and work-study, and it would be great if progressive groups led the way.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Hi Anya. Thanks for stopping by. Good for SNAP-PAC. The students are setting an example for the progressive movement as a whole.

[Philo]

The fact that so many progressive organizations rely on unpaid interns is especially troubling. These organizations should embrace a living wage for interns and entry-level staffers as a matter of principle.

I think, in principle, you're right. As an industry-wide ethic, non-profits, like political campaigns, have a horrible record for fair compensation for interns. But the same could be said for actually paying their staffs a comparable wage vis a vis experience in the private sector. Organizations that are unable to give staff members adequate compensation will hardly be able to pay interns.

Coming from the standpoint of an organization that both fails to pay interns at all and underpays its staff, one of the things we wished we could do is pay interns (at least transportation expenses) and give our staff a better wage. I imagine those two desires are fairly universal.

I don't think, however, that you can paint non-profits with a broad brush. Some have budgets of $100,000 a year, others have $100,000,000. Sure, it's easy to demand paid internships from the likes of Greenpeace, HRC, WWF, and the ACLU [I have no clue if those orgs do], but when you're talking about groups on the small scale, unpaid volunteerism is what allows organizations (and thus movements) to function.

One thing I'd add on a slightly separate note: Almost no foundations will grant money that is explicitly destined for staff salary and operational costs. Foundations want to fund campaigns, outreach, and communications initiatives and are always hesitant to pay for staff or interns in my experience.

[John Emerson]

One advantage of recruiting for nonprofits from less-than-Ivy schools would be that there might actually be some sharp people, inegrated in their community, for whom a political or non-profit job would be a good job. The combination of raising the pay somewhat, and recruiting in local communities instead of look at Ivy resumes, might mean that you would actually get someone who would be happy to stay.

The premise of what I said is that there are smart, talented people in the second-rank colleges who didn't get into the top-ranked colleges for reasons having to do with no family money or weak local schools.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

John, I agree. I think Ivy League educations are vastly overrated for undergraduate education. Not that they aren't good, and not that their graduates aren't consistently top tier (with notable exceptions like our current president).

However, I think that our society affords Ivy League degrees way more deference than they deserve relative to other degrees. Of course, grade inflation much more pronounced in the Ivy League compared to the average famous state schools or elite Canadian universities that an average- or below-average GPA from Harvard is numerically competitive with the GPA of a comparatively superior performer from a less-fancy school.

Granted, Ivy league schools can be more selective in their admissions than other institutions, and granted that they have more resources to invest in their students than most other places (including generous need-based financial aid packages).

However, given that Ivy Leagues' acceptance rates are so low (and unpredictable), Ivy League admissions counsellors will be the first to tell you that they reject at least as many equally well-qualified students for every student they accept. These smart but "unlucky" kids end up going to second-tier schools where they are forever competing against Harvard's name-brand recognition and A- average--even if they outperform the vast majority of their classmates.

Philo, thanks for a real-world perspective on this issue. Do you think that conservatives are generally more willing to fund students/interns/sub-senior staffers than their liberal counterparts? Or is it just a matter of the cons being flush with cash, like a previous commenter suggested, and therefore in a better position to fund stuff that's a lower priority for them overall?

[Amanda Marcotte]

When I was in college, I could only take paid internships because of my constant broke-ass-ness. It was made clear to me by some that this was a bad decision, career-wise. But really, I didn't have a choice. My mom was getting divorced and there was no money. Frankly, I'm siding strongly with you.

[PhoenixRising]

Damn, I'm old. Here's another perspective:

I could never afford to take any internship in college because I was working. For money. To pay for college.

Now I'm a financially successful entrepreneur on the board of two nonprofits that serve my communities (as a queer person who is also the parent of a child with a disability, I don't expect one board meeting a month to fulfill my obligations to everybody who helps our family).

I always join the hiring committee. And I'm always the only person from a working class background on that committee. I notice that, over and over, we're interviewing professional non-profiteers who have strong paper credentials, including prestigious degrees. Who have little ability to identify the challenges faced by the working class families they have spent their work lives 'serving'. It is often my role to explain how difficult things can be if you happen to lack a network of privilege. And that's at a staff level; the interns are just insufferable.

It's only right for those of us who have drawn the inside straight of this economy to do our part to help those who are busted. It's completely dysfunctional to fight for a more progressive society using a class-based system of team development.

The reason the elite's offspring are perfect for staffing the Heritage Foundation at an intern and entry level is simple: form follows function. An organization that exists for the purpose of perpetuating class inequality is well served by an army of Simone Ledeens.

[nick s]

To the nonprofits: if you can't afford to pay an intern, then at least house an intern. Give up your spare room in DC or your couch in NYC for the summer.

Your pissboy or pissgirl will probably survive on shared portions of comped food and coffee from the office machine. That's student life in a nutshell. It's having to find somewhere to sleep at night which creates a huge barrier to entry.

[Joseph]

OK, so this isn't the best application of this whole dialogue, but I was flipping through the stations last night and happened to catch a few minutes of the terrible new MTV "reality" show "The Hills". In it, a young woman from their other terrible show "Laguna Beach" heads to Los Angeles to break away and start living her life. Point is, she was accepted to be one of a few interns at Teen Vogue. Journalism internships, even though what she was doing tilted heavily toward the PR/Lizzie Grubman/party planner end of things, are extremely difficult to get.

Now, she's 19 (I think) and in the driver's seat at this much sought-after position. And it represented to me everything Lindsay and the others were talking about. I'm not sure if the internship is paid or not, but I'm guessing that it's not. But she can afford to take it, because she comes from a life of privilege, and it instantly gives her a leg up on other, potentially more qualified people simply because of her background. Plus, I'm sure her background with MTV didn't hurt.

But there you go, another individual afforded breaks few ever have the chance to take advantage of. Now, who knows what she'll do with it, but I'm guessing being a former Teen Vogue intern isn't too shabby on one's resume. And I don't see any way someone less well off than her could have afforded it. That's just not fair, on television or in the real world far away from Los Angeles.

[John Emerson]

One change I've seen over the last 40 years or so is the rise to dominance of the idea that the way to success is a.) connections and b.) making a good first impression -- with ability running a poor third. This has always been true for some people and in some fields, but I now find it dominant also among nice, liberal, politically-aware, culturally-sophisticated people.

People think that way because it's mostly true, of course. (The reality shows reinforce this POV, I think),

Whether it was less true when I was young, I don't know. I didn't think so, but my success strategy didn't work very well either.

I think that this situation is least bad in technical fields where good work is more easily and unambiguously recognizable. It's most true in humanities-tye fields and in the arts, including entertainment, and in any field where "personality" is important.

My gues is that the non-profits work this way, possibily with the added stigma that people working in non-profits are martyrs to virtue who have lost their chance at the big time.

All these things reinforce the influence of wealth, I think. People tend to advance people they "feel comfortable with". There was an MLA-type publication awhile back explaining how important it was to know what kind of wine to bring to an event, or to dress well, or to vacation at the right place.

[Joseph]

John, whether you knew it or not, you touched on something I failed to mention from "The Hills" episode I watched. Specifically, with regards to connections and making a good first impression. When the two new Teen Vogue interns were shown their desks, the first person they met was one of the magazine's stylists. What did she do? She critiqued their outfits, going so far as to change the belt the other woman was wearing. I was amazed. "Now," she said and I paraphrase, "you're more Teen Vogue."

But you're exactly right, I've noticed that trend, too. In my last two jobs, one at a university's communications and marketing group and the other at a city's convention and visitors bureau, I've noticed the deciding factor (and, most often, the only determining factor) were either A. Who the prospective intern knew or B. What they looked like. Talk of whether or not they could actually do the job was rare.

But, then again, I started to notice this when I was in journalism school. My program, regarded as one of the top in the nation (so they say), witnessed an explosion in the PR and magazine journalism sequences while I was there, while my program, news writing and editing, withered. Populating those two growing sequences were, and I'm sorry for using a stereotype here, mostly the fraternity and sorority types. The people who placed A and B on your list, John, far above C (if C was considered at all). So it wasn't surprising to see the overall quality of work decline, too.

[John Emerson]

I should say, though: conservative groups PAY their little heirs and heiresses, because to them money is everything. No idealistic vows of poverty -- conservative internships are well-funded and lucrative.

While the conservative movement does hire a lot of second-generation insiders (e.g. Jonah Goldberg), I believe that they are always on the lookout for new talent too.

My partner Dave Johnson has done research on liberal funding practices. Liberal groups tend to be stingy, the funders tend to interfere too much, and they don't invest in media, message-development, or "human capital" development.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

I agree that if money were not a scarce resource, non-profits should pay more. But money is scarce, and paying some people more necessarily means hiring fewer people. It's a zero-sum game, is it not? Why do we think non-profits aren't doing their level best to strike the best balance, given their resources and goals?

[John Emerson]

"Why do we think non-profits aren't doing their level best to strike the best balance, given their resources and goals?"

We're making a specific criticism based on specific reasons which we have stated.

Nonprofits are obviously not under market discipline, and they have always been criticized for various sorts of inefficiency (and sometimes corruption), so the presumption doesn't have to be that they're doing things for good reasons.

Nonprofits' goals are less-defined, and in effect we're suggesting that they change their priorities in several respects.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

I missed any acknowledgement above that spending more to pay interns -- surely a worthy goal -- will mean that non-profits will have to spend less on other things. Non-profits are under market discipline in the sense that they have finite funds to spend on inputs, even if their outputs are not being bought and sold as with for-profit enterprises.

[John Emerson]

Well, duh. You seem to think that this is the decisive factor and the end of the argument.