Internships

Community Alliance for Global Justice Internships

Are you passionate about food sovereignty and local economic justice? Want to build your outreach, organizational, communications, networking, and nonprofit management skills, or your catering resumé? CAGJ is seeking strong communicators to join our team! All positions are open to students seeking internships, or CAGJ members and supporters just wanting to get more involved!

To apply for an internship, please send an email to CAGJ with your resume, and short answers to the questions below. Students are welcome to apply for one or more quarters for credit. Applicants who are not students can apply at any time. Please indicate which of the below internships you are interested in.

  • Why are you interested in an internship with CAGJ?
  • What are your current life goals?
  • Are there specific skills you want to use?
  • Are there specific skills you want to develop?
  • What are your dates of availability and how many hours per week are you interested in?

Thank you!

All internships require a weekly commitment of a minimum of 3 – 5 hours. We seek persons who possess strong communication and organizational skills, who are enthusiastic about CAGJ’s mission, who are dependable, and follow-up without constant supervision. Internships are unpaid.

Contact info:
[email protected]
www.cagj.org
206.405.4600


Current Internships | Inactive Internships

Current Internships

SLEE Gala Internships

We want you to help Community Alliance for Global Justice organize our 17th annual SLEE Gala taking place on October 14th! SLEE, or Strengthening Local Economies Everywhere, is a powerful community-building fundraiser that makes our organizing possible.

Join our team of interns to contribute to the vision of 2023 SLEE and make it even more spectacular than past years! Learn valuable skills in the areas of nonprofit development and fundraising, community engagement and outreach, communications, and event planning. We also create political education opportunities for all interns and volunteers. Organizing SLEE is an excellent opportunity to get connected to food justice and food sovereignty networks in the Seattle area.

This unpaid internship will run approximately through late October with a flexible time frame to suit your schedule. It will require a minimum of 5 hours per week. We are happy to work with students to fulfill academic credit.

The following positions are available:

Silent Auction Coordinators: Silent Auction Coordinator responsibilities include tracking donations and outreach, conducting follow-up and communicating with donors as needed, and creating packages of items received. Coordinators will work with the Publicity coordinator to highlight items and create posts about the auction and encourage participation. You’ll develop your political analysis about our food system through facilitated round-table discussions with other interns. Past interns say that this is the most enriching part of the internship!

Head Chef/Kitchen Coordinator: The SLEE head chef has two primary responsibilities: planning the menu working with Fair Trade and seasonal, locally sourced ingredients, and preparing the dinner for 300 people working with volunteers the day of SLEE. Must have experience working with volunteers of all abilities, including youth, and creating a supportive and fun environment. (Experienced chefs will be among the volunteers.) Donations will be procured by CAGJ. The chef is responsible for preparing wild salmon, vegan side dishes and salads, (a vegetarian entrée is usually donated).

Registration Coordinator: Coordinate with SLEE Organizer and Silent Auction Coordinator to set up and track online registration for up to 300 guests; track ticket payments; prepare Silent Auction systems for day-of.

Table Captain Outreach: This essential role follows up with our valued CAGJ membership requesting that they become Table Captains to provide an extra level of financial support at our dinner.

Publicity: Help create promotional materials and conduct outreach to our Community Partners to publicize the event. Assist with social media outreach. May involve leafletting or tabling at local farmers markets.

Volunteer Coordinator: Using established systems, recruit 70 volunteers to help the week of and especially the day of SLEE.  The primary role of the Volunteer Coordinator is to assign volunteers into specific roles/time-slots. Ideally the Volunteer Coordinator is available to co-coordinate volunteers the day-of the event as well.

All Coordinators need strong attention to detail, great communication skills, and experience with Google apps (Sheets and Docs especially).

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Inactive Internships

These internships are not currently offered at CAGJ, but may be offered again in the future.

CAGJ Organizational Internships

Communications Intern
The Communications Intern’s primary responsibilities include content creation and campaign amplification. This role will work to strengthen CAGJ’s narrative shift work in close collaboration with CAGJ staff, volunteers, and other interns, using CAGJ’s style and identity guides. The intern will develop activist design skills, produce visual, video, and audio content using graphic design software Canva, and will learn about managing multiple communications platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, blog accounts, website, etc. Interns will also assist with CAGJ’s online database, using CiviCRM.

Membership Development Intern
CAGJ is a volunteer run organization that believes in the importance of leadership development. The aim of membership development is to recruit, involve, retain and build the leadership of CAGJ volunteers. The Membership Development interns work with the Director and Program Co-Chairs to achieve these goals, and maintains and improves membership and outreach systems.  An intern who is able to work with CAGJ for more than one quarter is preferred, but not required, for this position.

Fundraising Intern
Assist the Executive Director and fundraising team to help ensure CAGJ’s continued financial health.  Interns may assist in grant research and writing, special events planning, monthly sustainership promotion, special gifts planning and activities to promote membership in CAGJ.   This is an excellent opportunity for anyone seeking employment or involvement in the non-profit sector.

Newsletter Editor
Act as point person for our monthly newsletter. Collect materials, write articles and format the newsletter. Support will be provided. Would prefer a six-month commitment minimum.

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Food Justice Project Internships

The Food Justice Project is another of CAGJ’s primary programs.  Through community education, political action, and anti-oppressive organizing and community-building, CAGJ’s Food Justice Project seeks to challenge and transform the globalized, industrial, corporate-driven food system and promote existing alternatives as we join the global struggle for food sovereignty for all.

FJP coordinates research, organizes Teach-Outs – work-parties and visits to local farms and other key food sites – coordinates Educate for Action workshops on food politics, organizes events and actions around our Solidarity Campaigns aimed at building the movement for food justice and sovereignty. We also work to get our two publications out into the world: our book and our zine titled, “Our Food, Our Right: Recipes for Food Justice.

Main intern projects may include:

  • Organizing Teach-Outs with pre- and post- event tasks
  • Outreach for Teach-Outs, Educate for Action workshops, Our Food, Out Right, or meetings
  • Acting as a point person for a Solidarity Campaign
  • Updating the webpage, writing email alerts and correspondence, and researching new materials
  • Prepping for meetings and representing CAGJ at events in the community

The intern will work with a team of CAGJ activists and directly with the two project co-chairs (who are also volunteers).  Some office hours may be required, and the ability to work well independently and remotely will also be very important.  In general, the CAGJ work environment is casual and friendly, but expects accountability and dependability from its volunteers to get things done! CAGJ is a volunteer run organization with two full-time staff.  Interns play critical roles within and outside of the organization.

Food Justice Project Solidarity Campaign Point Person
FJP’S Solidarity Campaigns support local family farmers, farmworkers, food chain workers, the right to good food, and food justice everywhere.  Point people are needed to act as liaisons, connecting CAGJ and the Food Justice Project to ongoing mobilization for food sovereignty. As a point person, depending on the campaign and your interests, you will: track developments and actions for one of the campaigns we support; develop fliers, print pieces, newsletter articles, blogposts, or email alerts about the campaign; help mobilize members and organize actions to further campaigns led by allied organizations; report back to FJP’s organizing team, who will provide support and feedback. Minimum commitment of 9 months.

To apply, please read more about FJP’s work, and select one that will be the focus of your internship:

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AGRA Watch Internships

Background: AGRA Watch is a grassroots, Seattle-based project of Community Alliance for Global Justice that challenges the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s problematic agricultural development programs in Africa, including the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). In contrast, AGRA Watch supports African-initiated programs rooted in agroecological and indigenous farming practices, social equity, and food sovereignty – the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture systems.

The Gates Foundation and AGRA claim to be “pro-poor” and “pro-environment,” but their approach is closely aligned with the profit-driven agendas of transnational corporations such as Monsanto, as well as foreign policy actors like USAID. These programs take advantage of global food and climate crises to promote the high-tech, market-based, industrial model of agricultural development pioneered by the first Green Revolution, with the addition of GMOs. The Green Revolution model has been ecologically and socially devastating, as it has degraded the environment and forced millions of indigenous peoples and subsistence farmers, the majority of them women, off their land into urban slums. In spite of short-term increases in crop yields, the number of hungry people worldwide has increased dramatically. The solution to hunger and poverty will not be found in a new Green Revolution linked to biotechnology and big agribusiness.

African communities, farmers, consumers, and civil society organizations already have locally-adapted solutions to the problems they face. AGRA Watch works in solidarity with these groups to resist undemocratic, unaccountable projects pushed from the outside and to build food systems based on sustainability, community and health.

AGRA/Gates Foundation Grants Research
You will work as a core member of the AGRA Watch committee, conducting activist research on the agricultural development projects funded by AGRA and the Gates Foundation. This information allows us to challenge the problematic agricultural development model being pushed by the Gates Foundation while building the movement for food sovereignty in the US and Africa. This position will receive considerable support from the committee and its co-chairs, but requires someone self-directed who is able to work both independently and collaboratively and who enjoys independent research. Intern tasks will include compiling information on Gates and AGRA grants and producing critical analyses of findings. Senior students or graduate students in African Studies, Economics, Political Science, Anthropology, Geography, Sustainable Development etc, especially encouraged to apply.  Suggested availability:  5– 8 hours/week, two quarters; (it is difficult to dig deeply into research in fewer than two quarters).

AGRA Watch Organizer and Support Internship
Students will work as a core member of AGRA Watch to challenge the problematic agricultural development model being pushed by the Gates Foundation while building the movement for food sovereignty in the US and Africa. Interns will play an active role in coordinating and tracking the activities of the committee. Tasks may include convening and attending meetings, taking notes and posting them to relevant listservs, following up on task assignments to ensure progress, establishing timelines, coordinating volunteers, liaising with speakers, soliciting co-sponsorships, researching venues, maintaining the budget, working with local and national partner organizations, publicity work and outreach, and assisting in every aspect of event planning. This position will receive considerable support from the committee and its co-chairs, but requires someone self-directed who is able to work both independently and collaboratively.

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