A few weeks ago I wrote a post about a questionable internship proposal by the Northeast branch of Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (NEPARC). In the interim, I’ve had a couple of great conversation about the topic, including hearing from folks at PARC (NEPARC regional and national). With just one exception, these conversations have been super supportive and understanding of the issue. I’ve republished (with permission) a response from PARC’s Executive Committee at the bottom of this post.

I’m really impressed with their position. It’s clear that they’ve already thought about the problem of unpaid internships a lot.

I especially want to highlight that I completely empathize with PARC in that these issues are moving targets, especially from the perspective of large, all-volunteer organizations. That PARC is actively working on fixing the problem is to their credit.

I also want to make a strong point that I failed to fully articulate in my last post: the responsibility shouldn’t fall solely on the organizations to fund internship—all of us that appreciate and benefit from the work of those organizations do should feel responsible, too.

The responsibility shouldn’t fall solely on the organizations to fund internship—all of us that appreciate and benefit from the work of those organizations do should feel responsible, too.

I feel really fortunate that I landed a paid internship (shout out to Sitka Conservation Society) right out of undergrad. When that internship rolled into a salaried position, I was already inculcated into the stance that if we couldn’t afford an intern, then we couldn’t offer an internship. But I’ve also served on the Board of Directors for a couple of non-profits and have struggled with the desire to get work done on a slim budget and the temptation to seek willingly free labor from unpaid interns.

The root of the problem is that all of us undervalue the important work of non-profits. If our nonprofits were well funded, this issue would never arise. Unfortunately, environmental organizations receive the least philanthropy of any sector (grouped with animal groups, the sector receives just 2.8% of total charitable contributions annually).

I fear that my first post came across as more of a call-out of NEPARC than a general call-to-action. I’m not a fan of call-out culture, so I hope you will join me in this call-to-action to support PARC. I decided to pony up on my offer to support PARC. I really hope you will make a donation too. They suggest that the best ways to support them are to donate to their non-profit partner, the Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy, or buy some sweet PARC swag.

Or, just take a minute to donate to your favorite environmental non-profit, and feel good that you are helping to end the need for unpaid internships.

 

Here is the response from PARC, in full:

“Dear Andis,

I’m writing to you on behalf of PARC‘s Executive Committee with regard to your recent blog post: The problem with unpaid pseudo-internships.

First, I’d like to thank you for sharing your perspective and for highlighting actionable steps that PARC must take to ensure equitable and just practices within our organization. I’d also like to apologize for the delayed response; PARC is an all-volunteer organization and it often takes a few days (if not longer) to gather and address feedback from all of the appropriate entities.

We (the National PARC leadership) agree with your views on the issue of unpaid internships in ecology/conservation. This is an issue we have been working to address for the last year. In fact, we have restructured our internships at the national level of PARC (i.e., within the Executive Committee, which oversees the regional and state chapters) to reflect some of the key points addressed in your blog post. In some cases, we have opted to hire contractors rather than creating internships. In other cases, we have opted to provide hourly compensation to interns and to intentionally model the positions in a way that provides the intern with clear learning- and skill-based objectives and opportunities for professional development. With this updated model, we hope that our interns gain as much value from us as we do from them.

As this is a relatively new approach for us, we have not yet developed guidance on this issue for PARC‘s regional and state chapters (again as a volunteer driven organization, these things can take some time). Our extensive discussions were put in place at the national level but never translated into policies and/or guidelines. This, we believe, is a failure on our part. We hope to remedy this shortcoming by taking the following actions:

1 – We will provide time/space for discussion regarding the points you’ve raised in your blog post on our Joint National Steering Committee (which includes regional co-chairs and external partners) and National Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion task team (DEITT) monthly conference calls. Following these discussions, we will work with NE PARC to ensure that appropriate adjustments are made with regard to the social media position.

2 – We are currently developing a best practices document for engaging members and recruiting leaders at the regional and state levels. We will include a section on internships that will provide guidelines for creating equitable and ethical internships.

3 – We will ask the DEITT to provide feedback on our internship guidelines to ensure they reflect PARC‘s goal of providing an equitable platform for our members, partners, and stakeholders to engage in the conservation of amphibians and reptiles.

Thank you again for taking the time to bring this issue to our attention. We are hopeful that in the future, with the assistance of the DEITT, we can be more proactive in addressing these kinds of issues. If you are interested in joining PARC‘s DEI efforts, please consider reaching out to the DEITT co-chairs Neha Savant & David Muñoz (copied on this email). I’ve attached a document that highlights the team’s recent projects/accomplishments.

Best,

Alex Novarro (on behalf of PARC‘s Executive Committee)“