We’re not sure what to make of the internship market during what appears to be a struggling economy. On one hand, interns are free or cheap labor, so they can be worth having around. On the other hand, companies like Bear Stearns are rescinding internship offers that they made to students just a few months ago. We’re not economic prognosticators, but we think that financially minded college students might want to expand their horizons at a time like this. If you’re having trouble finding an internship in finance, you may want to look to non-profit organizations or the government while the market conditions are unfavorable. You can still get great experience, make incredible connections, and have a well known name to put on your resume. Nonprofit Finance Fund is a prime example of an organization where a college student can build the foundation for a successful career in finance while waiting the market out.
Nonprofit Finance Fund helps “nonprofits strengthen their financial health and improve their capacity to serve their communities.” They do so by providing financial and advisory services as well as capital to their clients. The NFF story is actually pretty cool; they started in 1980 by providing non-profits organizations with the means to alleviate pressures from high energy costs. The NFF moved on to providing management consulting services, and then lending services. In the mid-90′s the NFF began focusing on helping organizations in the arts, and now the focus has shifted again, this time to helping non-profits meet their capital needs by offering a variety of financial products and services.
There’s an enormous amount of content on the Nonprofit Finance Fund’s website, so you’ll be able to do a lot more research on your own. Currently there are 4 internships at NFF, all of which look great. Only 2 of them are listed on NFF’s Employment page, but we found 2 others on Idealist.org. The first two internships are as Summer Associates in Advisory Services. One is in New York City and the other is in Boston. The deadline for both of these internships is March 31st, so you need to hurry if you want to spend your summer doing Nonprofit Business Analysis. The third internship is as a Summer Associate in Philadelphia, PA, with a deadline for applications of April 5th. The final internship was just posted, and it’s in Finance & Administration in New York City. The deadline is April 30th.
It appears that NFF is inconsistent about where they post their internships (and their jobs) so you might want to check their Idealist profile page in addition to their Employment page. Since they just posted a new internship last week, there’s a chance that they have more to add. In-depth descriptions and application information can be found in the links to the individual internship listings, so be sure to check those out. And we almost forgot, each of these internships is paid at the rate of $500 a week. Sweet!
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
Nonprofit Finance Fund has entry-level jobs too!
Do I Know Anyone at Nonprofit Finance Fund? - Check LinkedIn | Check Facebook
Tags: finance, Internships, non-profit
Although we mentioned Bear Stearns in this post, these internships are not related (at least to our knowledge) to the non-profit internships that JP Morgan is arranging for the Bear interns that they can’t take on.
This article describes the situation well.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2008-04-28-bear-stearns-interns-summer-jobs_N.htm?csp=34