Program Operations Intern

Position Overview

*Please note this is a paid internship role with a hybrid approach for the possibility of both remote and in office work.  See below for specific details regarding applicant location eligibility.

About Rare

Rare inspires change so people and nature thrive. For over 45 years, across 60 countries, we have inspired and empowered millions of people and their communities to shift their behaviors and practices to protect our shared planet.

We are a global leader in driving social change for people and nature. We facilitate solutions that help individuals, their communities and their local leaders tackle global environmental challenges, manage their resources, and take charge of their futures. And we believe that the cumulative power of individual and community action is a vital pathway to safeguarding and restoring our shared waters, lands, and climate.

Rare’s organizational culture is results-oriented, entrepreneurial, and defined by our five core values: Courage to Take Risks, Commitment to Accountability, Mindset of Solutionology, Investments in People, and Spirit of Celebration. We are working toward ambitious goals and creating measurable social change

Position Overview

Rare is committed to evidence-based practice: ensuring that our program implementation both draws on and adds to the existing body of evidence connecting behavior change with lasting conservation. We are also committed to using the results from scientific research, data collection and experience in the design of our conservation interventions integrating scientific principles with local information and community knowledge.

Rare’s Fish Forever program is an innovative global movement to transform near-shore fisheries (www.fishforever.org). Fish Forever has ambitious objectives to combat chronic overfishing: recovering fish stocks; increasing the economic value of local fisheries; ensuring food security to vulnerable communities; protecting the most biologically diverse marine habitats; contributing to climate change resilience; and building local leadership capacity to ensure sustainability. Fish Forever focuses on implementing managed access areas that give tenure to local fishing communities and within these areas establish fully protected reserves to enable fish populations to recover and replenish surrounding fishing areas.

The Fish Forever Program Operations team works to support country teams around data management, MEL, grants and program management, and budget/financial management. We seek an individual with strategic thinking skills to work with our staff on three projects: a) update Rare’s safeguards policy to ensure alignment with global best practices and findings/recommendations from existing safeguards assessment  b) assist with streamlining and moving our Fish Forever data discussions around the program’s scale strategy forward, and c) re-organizing our document library in Egnyte.

Core responsibilities:

Safeguards

• Conduct a desktop literature review of safeguards related information and best practices from other credible organizations, and from internal policies, grants, etc
• Collect information from country and central teams on existing practices around safeguards understanding and monitoring
• Summarize literature review in the form of a report
• Update Rare’s safeguards policy based on the above
• Develop slides that can be used for training staff on updated safeguards policy

Data Scale Strategy Management

• Develop and distribute online questionnaire to assess the technological and data management related capacity of Fish Forever partners and countries
• Compile findings into summary report
• Assist in developing action plan and roadmap based on findings
• Coordinate meeting logistics, agenda preparation, and other meeting materials
• Draft, distribute, and file meeting minutes upon request
• Document, track, and follow-up on action items
• Overall: streamline, track, and organize project related efforts

Document Library

• Gain an understanding of Fish Forever’s Operations’ current document library housed in Egnyte
• Re-organize relevant folders into a simpler architecture
• Design a standardized site map that demonstrates the new folder organization. Create a video with a demo of the re-organized folder and site map
• Develop a standard guideline for future creation, uploading, naming of folders and files

Targeted Education, Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Degree in or working towards a degree in international studies, public/business administration, conservation/environment, or other relevant areas
• Professional, upbeat, energetic attitude someone who takes initiative, is dependable and takes pride in their work
• Exceptional attention to detail, ability to establish priorities and meet deadlines, which may be dependent upon completion of tasks by others
• An extremely high level of interpersonal and problem-solving skills
• Proven ability to think strategically and streamline information from diverse sources
• Capability to develop solid working relationships which includes understanding of the dynamics necessary to work efficiently and effectively within the context of a global organization
• Ability to effectively manage time to complete various tasks on short timelines
• Extremely skilled in use of the Internet for both research and dissemination of information
• Rudimentary understanding of data management concepts
• Experience with web conferencing platforms (Zoom, Teams)
• Ability/willingness to learn new programs and/or systems as required

Application and Selection Process:

Rare’s Talent team will contact candidates directly for interviews and finalize hiring decisions between the end of April and mid-May. Please keep in mind that not all candidates will be contacted for interviews. Due to the volume of applications, we do not confirm receipt of applications. You can confirm submission of your application by logging back into iCIMS via our Career Page.

*The selected candidate must have current residence in the following states:

• Virginia
• Maryland
• DC

Rare is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes all to apply. EOE/M/F/D/V