Agency Summary:
Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) is a community-based, local economic development organization which has engaged individuals and small businesses in community-building strategies for over 40 years. Our mission is to achieve economic justice for San Francisco’s low and moderate income Latino families through asset development.
Program Learning Outcomes:
Internships are designed to expand the depth and breadth of academic learning for you in your particular areas of study. It is an opportunity for you to receive experience in applying theories learned in the classroom to specific experiences in the community and workplace. An internship can also heighten your awareness of community issues, motivate you to create opportunities, embrace new ideas, and give direction to positive change. A successful internship can give you valuable information in making decisions about the direction of future studies or employment.
By the end of the internship our hope is that the you will be able to:
- Demonstrate leadership skills and gain confidence entering the workplace.
- Demonstrate the fundamental behaviors of cultural competency.
- Evaluate your fit within a career field and understand career pathways.
- Describe your knowledge about working in a mission driven, high performing environment.
- Create a network of peers and professionals to help you in your career path.
- Add your internship experience, skills gained and goals accomplished to your resume.
Internship Objectives:
Internship objectives are goals established to ensure the intern’s productivity and growth as part of his or her experience within the organization. These objectives are project and training based, aligned with the job description, and/or provide structure to the student and supervisor for the time spent at the internship.
- Interns will gain familiarity with office structure and field-specific knowledge through an orientation, job shadows with staff members not on the team, observing all staff meetings, and participating in community events.
- Interns will be exposed to all facets of a high performing service providing organization by adding capacity to a program and participating in weekly assessments, database training and updating, researching, writing blogs, staff socials, mentor lunches and monthly Lunch and Learn sessions
- Intern will gain understanding about the culture of our community and clients by attending community events, working with clients at the office and on various projects.
- Intern will follow professional, safety and confidentiality standards by arriving on time, following the dress code, learning about time management, how to work independently and in a team and customer service standards.
- Interns will gain a professional network by participating in a cohort of interns, job shadowing, cross training with at least three other programs, and work on projects with their cohort.
Program Specific Duties and Responsibilities
The Evaluation Intern will work on special projects for the Department, including analyzing data, designing surveys, metrics, and mapping. Projects are developed to meet student learning needs and skill sets, as well as support department objectives. Projects may include:
- Reviews of literature and writing reports. Help evaluation team understand the differences between the clients we serve, and what is seen in other communities and populations.
- Data collection and entry support on key research projects, including, but not limited to, conducting surveys with program participants to gather information on service delivery, entry of collected information
- Learn and practice of analysis techniques
- MA-level interns could expect to work on expansion of evaluative framework, including literature review, identifying data sources, schedule for data collection and help team plan for new additions.
Examples of recent intern projects:
- Conduct over the phone surveys with clients, enter collected data and conduct analysis of 2 areas of interest to the student. Student presented findings to programs team together with the evaluation department.
- Develop Executive Summary and short-form reports to supplement large organizational reports, to support Development and Communications departments
