We often talk about systems-level change, imagining a world where our educational, workforce, and economic systems are working collaboratively and in equitable ways that finally allow for the creation of opportunity for all rather than the few. Despite
our desire for, and inherent ability to imagine change, we often struggle to build this new reality and instead merely tweak our current system over time. This work is hard and requires a great deal of collaboration and risk-taking to move away from
the status quo and re-envision the way components of the system work together.
Systems change happens when policies and their implementation shift and incorporate feedback from those most negatively impacted — particularly Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities. Elevating the voices and opinions of the folks
most negatively affected by our policies, and factoring those voices into policymaking, should innately be among the foremost practices of systems change.
At Bottom Line, a community-based college access and persistence organization with a proven track record of increasing degree attainment among students from low-income and first-generation college backgrounds, we are trying to change the system. Specifically,
we are working with corporate partners to change the way long-standing policies related to internships impact our students. What follows are a few examples of how we are navigating and facilitating systems change in ways that result in both more opportunities
for the students we serve and positive outcomes for our business partners.
1. Re-envisioning Access to Opportunities
Internships for many years were unpaid “opportunities” for college students to gain experience in their industry of interest, learn skills, and build social capital. In recent years, there has been an intentional shift to move away from unpaid internships
to ensure all students are paid. Ideally, this shift should make these opportunities for growth and learning open to all, particularly to students who can’t afford to take on responsibilities that are unpaid. However, this shift has made many internship
programs, particularly those in more sought-after fields or companies, much more difficult to attain. This has occurred because of businesses raising the bar even higher by placing emphasis on the institution of higher education the candidates attend
and, in some cases, creating even greater barriers to entry. As a result, many first-generation and BIPOC-identifying students are continuing to be kept out, perpetuating systems of inequity.
To address this inequity, Bottom Line reimagined the way we work with for-profit partners to make internship opportunities accessible to our students. Micro-internships were a new concept to Bottom Line in 2020, but as remote work become much more of
a norm due to COVID-19, we utilized this concept as a new access point for our students and many like them. Micro-internships are project-based paid work opportunities that are primarily remote and considered low risk and low investment by a
company due to the lower cost per student (about $600/student and no staff time required in the application review process). Bottom Line’s corporate and non-profit partners are offering micro-internships to students in graphic design, marketing research,
data entry, and customer service outreach to name a few.
Internship applications tend to have many requirements, including interviewing and prior industry-specific experiences. But some of our business partners will forego these traditional application requirements after they’ve had a positive experience with
our students through these micro-internships. This opens a gateway for our first-generation college students to land similar roles and be just as successful, or more so, than their more privileged peers.
2. Providing Feedback as Programmatic Input
The private sector doesn’t often give feedback on applicants because they are bogged down both by mandates from their legal departments and the professional status quo. For the private sector to fully contribute to transforming the system in which our
sectors work, non-profit providers need feedback about our candidates. Bottom Line uses this feedback as data to inform and enhance our program design and delivery, individual coaching, and the supports necessary for our students.
When establishing new hiring partnerships, Bottom Line now incorporates opportunities for feedback on individual candidates. Utilizing interview feedback practices, employers provide input on individual candidates to our Career Team. This is then utilized
for program-level improvements and shared directly with our Advising staff. The staff then incorporate this feedback into the strategies they use to coach their students in interviewing skills, specifically, and within our career-focused programming,
overall.
3. Grantees as Partners for Talent Development and Employee Retention
Many companies keep their philanthropic contributions separate from other business units. In the case of workforce development grantees (including Bottom Line), there are many valid legal reasons for maintaining a separation, particularly when it comes
to that company’s hiring and talent development practices. However, these grantee organizations, many of which place interns and talent at the company, receive feedback from their students on company culture and policies that “regular” staff may be
unwilling to share with their company due to the organization’s power dynamics.
Because of the deep relationships Bottom Line builds with our corporate partners, we have been able to have candid conversations with hiring managers. For example, when setting up an internship program with one of our corporate partners, their hiring
managers shared that the resumes of Bottom Line students were not as strong (from their viewpoint) as those of candidate resumes they received in the past. Bottom Line and the company’s Talent Team were then able to have an honest conversation about
the company’s goals around diversity, equity, and inclusion, discuss the “why” this partnership was built upon in the first place, and name that Bottom Line students will never look as “qualified” on paper as their more privileged peers due to expectations
and experiences perpetuated by systems of oppression.
As partners in this work, Bottom Line and this company jointly determined that the hiring managers should look beyond resumes and interview our students to determine candidacy. In doing so, the corporate partner hired all the students we sent for interviews
and has since hired several students beyond their initial summer internship (one was hired full-time after graduation). That company returned to us with a request to fill their summer internship slots the following summer.
These partnerships are providing candid feedback to the companies’ talent development unit about employee experiences in the workplace. Our hope is that this feedback can support their continued diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, and help them gain
a deeper understanding that will positively impact employee engagement and retention.
Taking It On
Taking on these shifts within any institution, small or large, is a challenging endeavor and not one to take on alone. If you are a funder, corporate partner, or grantee, identify one or two grantees, workforce development partners, or hiring partners
with whom who you have deep relationships already to try one of these shifts together. There will be growing pains and processes to iron out. Stay open to learning in real-time and pivoting as you work to shift the systems that impact our people.
It is only in community that we can make lasting systems level change to our work.
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