A look inside BSRI’s People-centered approach to intern support, university partnerships, and emerging professional development
When I first joined the workforce, I did my fair share of internships. I know what it feels like to enter a space eager to learn, contribute, and prove yourself, while also trying to figure out what support you are allowed to ask for. Some experiences were meaningful. Others made it very clear when an organization saw interns as learners versus when they saw them as free labor.
Even now, internships are often talked about primarily as opportunities for students, and they are. They can help emerging professionals build skills, gain exposure, explore career paths, and understand how academic learning translates into real work. But from where I sit, internships are also a reflection of the organization hosting them.
Employers may be tempted to see interns as extra capacity, short-term support, or unpaid help. But a well-designed internship should be more than that. It should say something about an organization’s leadership, culture, and readiness to develop people. It should show whether the organization has the structure, supervision, and care needed to create an experience that is meaningful for the intern and useful for the work.
That development also does not only happen for the intern. When an employee supervises or mentors an intern, they are stepping into a growth opportunity of their own. They are practicing how to guide someone else’s learning, provide feedback, set expectations, model professional judgment, and stay accountable to another person’s development, not just their own. For team members who are not already supervising others, this can be an important first step into mentorship and leadership. Even for those who already manage or lead, supporting an intern can require a different kind of patience, structure, and coaching, especially when the intern is building workplace skills or technical knowledge for the first time.
At BSRI, our approach to internships has been shaped by that belief. As CPO, my role has included helping oversee how we create competitive, thoughtful, and well-supported internship experiences that give emerging professionals access to applied work while also supporting our team, our projects, and our partnerships. That means thinking beyond the placement itself and asking: Are we ready to host this person well? Do we have the capacity to supervise and mentor? Is the work meaningful and skill-aligned? Are expectations clear? Are we creating an experience that supports both the student’s growth and the organization’s goals?
Those questions are at the center of our Intern Support Guidance Document, which was created to help nonprofit and social impact organizations assess their readiness to host interns or establish partnerships with colleges and universities. The resource is grounded in mutual benefit and encourages organizations to approach internships as investments in learning, mentorship, capacity-building, and the future of the social impact sector, not as short-term labor solutions.
For me, the phrase “mutual benefit” is key. A strong internship should not only ask, “What can this person do for us?” It should also ask, “What can this person learn here? What exposure can we offer? What skills can we help them build? What kind of professional experience are we creating?” When organizations answer those questions honestly, they are more likely to design internships that respect the student’s time, learning goals, and future career path.
One of the most important lessons we have learned at BSRI is that intern support cannot be one-size-fits-all. Different interns come in with different goals, academic requirements, experience levels, and support needs. Some are looking for exposure and hands-on learning. Others are completing a formal practicum, capstone, or academic deliverable. Those experiences require different levels of structure, different supervision approaches, and different definitions of success.
In our own applied work, we saw this through two different internship experiences: one intern seeking hands-on research experience without formal academic requirements, and another graduate-level intern completing a structured capstone project for school credit. For one, support focused on exposure to real project workflows, guided participation in research activities, and ongoing mentorship. For the other, support included aligning the capstone with existing project goals, setting milestones, providing structured feedback, and supporting a final presentation.
That distinction matters. Supporting an intern well does not mean lowering expectations. It means setting expectations clearly, scaling responsibility appropriately, and creating the conditions for the intern to build competence over time. In the resource, we describe this through an “I do → We do → You do” approach: modeling the work first, moving into guided practice, and then creating space for more independent contribution.
This is also where I think organizations have an opportunity to rethink how they view early-career professionals. The next generation of professionals does not need to be underestimated, over-managed, or dismissed as unprepared. They need access, context, coaching, and real opportunities to contribute. They need leaders who are willing to teach, not just assign.
The Intern Support Guidance Document was created to help organizations think through these responsibilities with more intention. It offers practical considerations around readiness, role design, onboarding, supervision, feedback, offboarding, compensation, equity, and maintaining strong academic partnerships.
Because when internships are designed well, everyone grows: the intern, the supervisor, the team, the organization, and, hopefully, the future workforce we are all helping shape.
