Center for Social Innovation

Summer internships in public, nonprofit, or social purpose for-profit organizations serve the dual purpose of helping you make critical decisions for your career midway through your MBA program, while leveraging your skills for the benefit of humanity and the planet.

A short-term experience to help you make long-term career decisions

While you are thinking about long-term career plans, your MBA summer internship is a critical checkpoint to confirm your choices or try something new. It will help you answer critical questions such as:

• Is a transition from the corporate to the nonprofit world the right thing for you?
• What insights can you gain to prepare for your next social venture?
• How can your business skills make a difference?

An opportunity to make an impact

Internships in social purpose organizations give you a chance to address strategic challenges in areas such as:

• Education
• International development
• Poverty alleviation
• Environmental sustainability
• Philanthropy
• And more …

Examples of summer internship projects for social purpose organizations:

• Business planning for importing and marketing sustainably harvested rainforest products
• Research and analyzing financial packages for affordable housing projects
• Writing a marketing plan for an international relief agency
• Building a partnership between city government and business in support of local economic development
• Developing an evaluation system for a social service agency
• Creating recommendations for restructuring an international development organization.
• Designing a new strategy to help a national mentoring program expand its activities to new cities

A well-rounded learning experience

Regardless of where your career path will take you, internships in the social innovation field offer not only important management and leadership insight. They will provide you with unparalleled opportunities to:

• Complete a project of critical importance for your summer employer
• Work side by side with social sector leaders—your mentors during the experience
• Translate you experience into relevant lessons for your peers at the GSB upon returning to class in the fall

Stanford Management Internship Fund (SMIF)

If, like most MBA students, you are counting on a summer income to balance your budget, an internship in a social purpose organization could present a financial challenge. To help students willing to apply their skills for the greater good, the entire Stanford Graduate School of Business community came together three decades ago to create the Stanford Management Internship Fund. Today, the Center for Social Innovation, with assistance from generous donors, supports 25-30 fellows who are selected through a competitive application process during the spring quarter of their first year in the MBA program.