An organization I would like to work for is School’s Out Washington (SOWA). School’s Out Washington is a Seattle-based non-profit focused on funding proposals that benefit the wellbeing of underserved children across the state. I’ve worked with SOWA as a consultant for a few projects related to summer programming.
SOWA has a four person communication department. SOWA’s PR team is also in charge of helping fundraise for the non-profit. Their PR team plans and organizes fundraisers, publishes blog-style articles to their website and creates engaging content for their social media pages.
School’s Out Washington is present on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
There is no formal/ traditional communications intern program-(unlike the Bellingham Bells). However, I have worked for SOWA on about four projects, and two of their board members used to be my bosses back in Yakima. So, it never hurts to ask.
Based on my experience working as a consultant for SOWA, they have a rather larger network of charitable agencies across Washington. These more localized charities also have systems in place to reach marginalized populations in a community. When SOWA wants to send a message it usually start as an email to their local partners who then spread the message within their communities using built-in connections and social capital.
If to intern for SOWA, I would like to know if it’s in-person or remote? I probably wouldn’t live in Seattle unless I had to. I’d also want to know if there’s the potential for upward mobility within the organization. Lastly, I would want to know the hours. I’ve recently found my values shifting towards raising a family and so it’s important to know what my schedule would look like and if I’d be required to be on-call.