Advocacy/Public Policy Intern

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This is an exciting time to work in public policy and advocacy efforts related to health care! Our region’s growing program offers great opportunities to learn while making meaningful contributions to the Arthritis Foundation’s work and program infrastructure.

Internships for 2015 may include one or more areas below.

• Affordable Out of Pocket Costs Initiative

Working closely with Advocacy staff, the successful candidate for this position will support efforts to engage key partners to develop a strategic plan for addressing the high cost of specialty tier medications through legislative and/or regulatory action. Learning opportunities include coalition building, familiarity with legislative and regulatory organizations, strategic planning for public policy and research.

• Advocacy awareness and communications planning

Working with Advocacy and Marketing/Communications staff and volunteers, the successful candidate for this position will develop a model editorial calendar for implementation across a multi-state region. Using social and electronic media channels, develop a robust plan and suggested communications for off-session and in-session activities.

Learning opportunities include professional communication with diverse stakeholders, synthesizing feedback from multiple sources, planning for social media and electronic communications in support of policy change and writing for specific audiences. At the end of this project, intern will have developed a portfolio of templates, timelines and sample communications.

• Grassroots Advocate Outreach Program

Working with Advocacy staff, the successful candidate for this position will work on programming for the Great West Region’s Juvenile Arthritis camps as well as for adult consumer audiences. Learning opportunities may include working with public agencies and officials as well as planning & producing presentations, organizing & implementing events and creating follow up engagement plans. Portfolio items may include presentation deck, electronic invitations, tools for advocates and more. A stretch opportunity for this initiative could also involve work with creating short advocate training videos and/or videos of advocates’ own stories for the AF’s story bank.

Time and location details: 6-12+ Hours/Week, duration and weekly time commitment dependent on the project(s) selected. Preferred commitment timeframe is June/July through early September, opportunities for fall internships are also available. This internship opportunity is based at our offices in Seattle, near the Northgate transit center.

Qualifications/Requirements (i.e., education, technical skills):

The successful candidate will have strong communication and writing skills; strong organizational skills; flexibility; the ability to work well within a team structure of staff and volunteers; and familiarity with general office computer programs (specifically Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) and popular social media applications. Academic interests in one or more of the following areas or related disciplines are preferred: government, public policy, sociology, communications/marketing, public health, medical administration. Must be currently enrolled in school.