Fellowships & Awards
Click any of the links listed to go to opportunities in that category.
American Progress Internships – The Aaron Foundation Internship Program
One very important goal of American Progress is to inspire and educate the next generation of progressive Americans. American Progress offers full and part-time internships each summer and academic semester. All undergraduate and masters-level students and J.D. and Ph.D. candidates are eligible to apply. Successful applicants will be bright, highly motivated scholars with strong academic records and an interest and aptitude for public policy and/or political communication. Interns will be directly engaged with the Center’s policy experts and will participate in a variety of activities including research, writing, and web-based projects. They will also assist staff with administrative tasks and help organize the Center’s many conferences and events. American Progress offers a monetary stipend as well as a transportation subsidy for interns. Apply Now!
Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. We are currently accepting applications for the Fall 2006 Internship Program.
Project on Government Oversight Fellowship Program
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is looking for a Congressional Fellow to coordinate a new project designed to improve Congressional oversight and investigations. This position will work with Capitol Hill staff, former Hill investigators, and POGO staff to plan, market, and implement workshops and briefings for Congressional staff. This is a one year full-time position. The salary is $20k with a generous benefits package. Candidate should have completed a bachelor’s degree. They must be a non-partisan self-starter and passionate about making our government more accountable, honest, and effective.
Leonard M. Rieser Fellowship in Science, Technology, and Global Security
The Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Leonard M. Rieser Fellowship in Science, Technology, and Global Security in 1999. The fellowship will annually provide one-time awards of $2,500-$5,000 to between three and five undergraduate students seeking to explore the connections between science, technology, global security, and public policy (science students are especially encouraged to apply). It will be presented to students whose academic interests, extracurricular activities, and career aspirations demonstrate a significant interest in the role of scientists in formulating public policy and in addressing global security policy challenges.
Applications due in March
American Political Science Association Minority Fellows Program
http://www.apsanet.org/about/minority/fellows.cfm
The APSA Minority Fellows Program designates six stipend minority fellows each year for applicants from African American, Latino/a, and Native American backgrounds. Awards are based on students’ undergraduate course work, GPA, extracurricular activities, GRE scores, and recommendations from faculty.
Applications Due in October
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Public Policy Fellowship Program
http://www.chci.org/chciyouth/fellowship/fellowshipprogram.htm
CHCI was established as a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization dedicated to developing the next generation of Latino leaders. The nine-month Fellowship Program (late August to late May) offers up to 20 talented Latinos from across the country the opportunity to gain hands-on experience at the national level in the public policy area of their choice. Every year, the Fellowship Program brings together a pool of educated and civic-minded young individuals in an effort to shape them into the next generation of Latino leaders, serving in senior levels of the policy decision-making process, including corporate sector. The staff can be reached at 1-800-Excel DC or (202) 543-1771.
Applications Due in March
Public Policy & International Affairs Fellowship
http://www.ppiaprogram.org/programs/
The PPIA Fellowship Program is designed to prepare students, primarily from historically underrepresented groups, for graduate studies in public and/or international affairs and groom them for professional roles in public service. There is an array of opportunities under the Fellowship which span a period of development from the junior year of college to beyond the completion of a graduate degree.
Applications Due in March
Coro is a nine-month, full-time, graduate-level training program providing Fellows with a unique opportunity to develop an understanding of public affairs and decision-making through hands-on exposure to individuals and institutions that influence life in five major urban areas- Pittsburgh, New York Los Angeles, San Francisco and St. Louis. Fellows engage in field assignments, seminars, and group and independent public service projects, working closely with individuals and institutions that influence life in the public, private and non-profit sectors. Fellows spend substantial time interviewing influential women and men—from members of Congress to Fortune 500 CEOs—exploring the logic, methods and motivations behind public leadership.
Applications Due in January
The Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellowship
The Fellowship was established to provide college graduates with the opportunity to gain a Washington perspective on key issues of peace and security. The Fellows serve as full-time project assistants at the participating organization of their choice. Scoville Fellows, through independent projects and active participation with their chosen organization and the larger community dedicated to peace and security issues, have opportunities to gain experience and leadership skills and to help translate their social concerns into direct action. In addition, each Fellow selects a board member to serve as a mentor and mentor, smoothing the transition to Washington, DC.
Applications Due in February and October
The One World Foundation of New York, Inc. – Summer 2007 International Fellowships
The One World Foundation of New York, Inc. is now accepting applications for its Summer 2007 Program. One World Foundation is a 501c(3), non profit organization whose mission is to encourage young people of color to become actively engaged in the international human rights and development arenas, particularly as they affect indigenous and minority rights. We believe that social justice, economic justice and respect for human rights can be achieved through global campaigns and coalitions of committed young people. Applicants must be between 18 and 35 years old. Visit our website at www.theoneworldfoundation.org to learn more about the foundation and to apply.
The Luce Scholars Program provides stipends and internships for fifteen young Americans to live and work in Asia each year. Dating from 1974, the program’s purpose is to increase awareness of Asia among future leaders in American society.
Applications Due in December
The Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellowship
The Fellowship was established to provide college graduates with the opportunity to gain a Washington perspective on key issues of peace and security. The Fellows serve as full-time project assistants at the participating organization of their choice. Scoville Fellows, through independent projects and active participation with their chosen organization and the larger community dedicated to peace and security issues, have opportunities to gain experience and leadership skills and to help translate their social concerns into direct action. In addition, each Fellow selects a board member to serve as a mentor and mentor, smoothing the transition to Washington, DC.
Applications Due in February and October
Amnesty International USA, Patrick Stewart Human Rights Scholarships
The Patrick Stewart Human Rights scholarship provides an opportunity for student activists to do applied human rights fieldwork. Recipients plan their own summer internship with a local or global human rights organization or develop a summer project lasting six weeks to four months to promote human rights awareness. Most projects combine development of activist skills with training and research.
Applications Due in March
The David S. Barr Award, awarded by The Newspaper Guild, is intended to recognize one high school and one college student for their journalistic achievement and to encourage young journalists to focus on issues of social justice. All entries must be of work published or broadcast between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2006, that helped to right a wrong; corrected an injustice; or promoted justice and fairness. The awards will be presented May 3, 2007, at the annual Freedom Award Fund Banquet in Washington, D.C. Barr winners will be provided with transportation and hotel lodging to attend the banquet. Entries are due by January 27, 2007.
Hispanic Link Journalism Foundation and Scripps Howard Foundation Journalism Fellowships in Washington, D.C.
Hispanic Link is currently accepting résumés for both the fall and spring 14-week semester journalism fellowships. One person will be selected for each semester fellowship. The fellowships provide a stipend of $2,500 plus housing for an undergraduate college student. Applicants will be judged on their English-language writing skills, journalistic potential and commitment to work in print journalism.
The selected fellows will be placed with the Washington, D.C.–based Hispanic Link News Service, which covers national affairs with an emphasis on their impact on 40 million U.S. Hispanics. The news service publishes Hispanic Link Weekly Report, a national newsweekly, and syndicates opinion, news analysis and feature columns to English and Spanish language media.
Send a letter of interest mentioning the semester you’re applying for, résumé and clips to: Editor@HispanicLink.org. For more information you can call Alex Meneses Miyashita or Charlie Ericksen at (202) 234-0280.
Fall Semester runs September 11 – December 17. Spring Semester runs January 8 – April 13.
Open Society Institute – Katrina Media Fellowship
The Katrina Media Fellowships will support dynamic print and radio journalists, photographers and documentary filmmakers to generate and improve media coverage of issues exposed by Katrina. Applicants should propose projects that will expand and deepen the public’s understanding of race and class inequalities in the United States. Applicants may also propose projects that will address the government’s response to problems caused or illuminated by Katrina, the use or misuse of public funds, the role of private contractors, the effectiveness of clean-up and rebuilding efforts, citizen involvement in these efforts and lessons learned that should inform the handling of future natural and man-made disasters. In addition, applicants may propose projects that draw attention to Open Society Institute’s (OSI) current or past programmatic priorities using Katrina as the frame. These priorities include access to legal services and government assistance, criminal justice reform, improving end of life care and access to health care and education reform.
For more information on how to apply, click here.
American Prospect Writing Fellowships
The American Prospect‘s Writing Fellows Program offers young journalists the opportunity to spend a full year at the magazine in Washington, DC, actively developing, practicing and honing their journalistic skills. Each Fellow will write between three and four full-length articles with the expectation that these will be published in the Prospect; the articles are expected to be in-depth reports involving original research and reporting. The Fellows will also be expected and encouraged to use the year to write for other publications, build relationships with editors and reporters, and establish rapport with contacts at think tanks and in academia. Past Prospect Writing Fellows have gone on to work and write for The New York Times, The New Republic, The Nation, The Atlantic Unbound, Slate, Salon, Mother Jones and many other publications.
Applications Due in February
Rockridge Institute Fellowship Program for Public Intellectuals
The Rockridge Fellowship Program for Public Intellectuals intends to expand the parameters of public debate on major political issues and help develop a new generation of recognized progressive experts and commentators. The Fellowship Program is part of Rockridge’s larger agenda of reframing public debate to make a progressive moral vision more persuasive and influential, and of developing public policies that bring us closer to a society that embodies that vision. By cultivating the development of public intellectuals and by linking them to networks of progressive scholars and activists, the Fellowship Program will strengthen the progressive voice in American politics and help generate the new ideas essential to a revitalized progressive movement.
Application Deadline Varies
Interns who distinguish themselves in their editorial duties are eligible to become Mother Jones fellows. The fellowship requires an additional 4 month commitment. Fellows have the same duties as interns but also have more freedom to pursue their own story ideas and work on larger projects.
Application Deadline Varies
Green Corps’ Environmental Leadership Training Program
Green Corps’ one-year, full-time, paid Environmental Leadership Training Program gives participants training to launch a career in organizing and activism. In thirteen months they turn your passion for environmental change into the concrete skills and experiences it takes to be a leader in the environmental movement. The program focuses classroom training, hands-on experience running urgent environmental and public health campaigns, and placement in permanent leadership positions with leading environmental groups.
Application Due Dates Vary by Area. Early Deadline in January
Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics
The Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics Essay Contest is an annual competition designed to challenge college students to analyze the urgent ethical issues confronting them in today’s complex world. Students are encouraged to write thought-provoking personal essays that raise questions, single out issues and are rational arguments for ethical action. Full-time juniors and seniors at accredited four-year colleges and universities in the US are welcome to enter the Contest and compete for $10,000 in prizes and the opportunity to meet Elie Wiesel in New York City. Visit the Elie Wiesel Foundation for more information.
The Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund
The Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund has applications available for student activists who are building the progressive movement and will be enrolled in school during the 2005-06 academic year.
These need-based scholarships are awarded to those able to do academic work at the university level and who are part of the progressive movement on the campus and in the community. Early recipients worked for civil rights, against McCarthyism, and for peace in Vietnam. Recent grantees have been active in the struggle against racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression; building the movement for economic justice; and creating peace through international anti-imperialist solidarity.
Applications are available through the David-Putter web site.
AFL-CIO’s Organizing Institute Training Program
The AFL-CIO Organizing Institute is a paid job training corps and placement program for people who want to fight for the rights of workers, immigrants, women & people of color. The Organizing Institute was founded in 1989, to increase the scale and success of union organizing and train the next generation of union organizers. Since its inception, the Organizing Institute has produced over 20,000 graduates. Graduates of our training program are placed in permanent full time jobs as union organizers. These newly trained organizers are on the cutting edge of some of the most important labor battles of the last decade.
Applications are taken on a rolling basis. For more information, please email Meighan Davis at medavis@aflcio.org
Echoing Green awards two year fellowships to emerging social innovators. Fellowships are available to individuals with innovative ideas for creating new models for tackling seemingly unsolvable social challenges. These Fellowships offer them the opportunity to develop and test their ideas. During the two year Fellowship, Echoing Green provides both financial and technical support.
Applications Due in December
AmeriCorps Volunteers In Service to America (VISTA) works to help bring communities and individuals out of poverty. AmeriCorps*VISTA members serve one year in hundreds of nonprofit organizations and public agencies throughout the country — working to fight illiteracy, improve health services, create businesses, increase housing opportunities, or bridge the digital divide.
Application Deadline Rolling
Teach for America seeks graduating seniors to commit to two years teaching in low-income urban or rural areas. The program seeks applicants from all majors and backgrounds. The program began in 1990 and has expanded to over 22 sites across America.
Applications Due in December and January
Wellstone Fellowship for Social Justice
The Wellstone Fellowship for Social Justice is designed to foster the advancement of social justice through participation in health care advocacy work that focuses on the unique challenges facing many communities of color. The goals of the Wellstone Fellowship Program include addressing disparities in access to health care, inspiring Wellstone Fellows to continue to work for social justice throughout their lives and increasing the number and racial and ethnic diversity of up-and-coming social justice advocates and leaders.
Applications Due in January
Open Society Institute (OSI) New York City Community Fellowship Program
OSI established the New York City Community Fellowships Program to support a growing network of activists creating innovative social justice projects that address critical community issues. The fellowship program invests in viable grassroots projects that promote social justice and human rights within marginalized communities. Interested applicants may propose work in a wide range of social change strategies including, but not limited to, advocacy, organizing and/or direct service.
Applications Due in April
New Voices Fellowship Program
The New Voices Fellowship Program is a capacity-building and leadership development grant program that assists those who wish to enter the fields of justice and peace. Sponsored fields of work include international human rights, women’s/reproductive rights, HIV/AIDS, racial justice and civil rights, migrant and refugee rights, international economic policy and foreign policy/peace and security.
For additional information please e-mail newvoice@aed.org.
The Academy Fellowship Program
The Academy Fellowship Program is an annual leadership training program for multi-ethnic students who have at minimum completed their undergraduate studies and want experience working on low-income and minority economic development. Fellows conduct research, write reports and position papers, help organize community events, and interface regularly with multi-ethnic community, corporate and government leaders.
Applications Due in April
Jane Addams-Andrew Carnegie Fellowship Program
The Jane Addams-Andrew Carnegie Fellowship Program at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University advances and renews interest in public service by engaging recent college graduates in intensive study and voluntary service. This comprehensive 10-month program is an opportunity for students to explore numerous levels of service, social action, and leadership in the government, philanthropic and market sectors.
Applications Due in February
The Foundation is committed to social change activities that expand and protect civil liberties and civil and human rights, increase opportunities for the poor, the disenfranchised, and people of color, and enhance and expand community involvement in, and control over, economic and environmental decisions affecting community members. Grants support activities such as community and grassroots organizing, action research, and advocacy.
Applications Due in January and June
Points of Light Youth Engaged in Service Ambassador Program
The Youth Engaged in Service (YES) Ambassador program places community-minded young people between the ages of 18-25 with statewide "Partner" organizations for one year to provide technical assistance, training, advocacy and program development around youth service, service-learning and youth leadership. Each year YES ambassadors serve around the country, and have served in the past in states such as Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.
For more information on this program, please e-mail YouthAndFamily@PointsofLight.org.
Samuel Huntington Public Service Award
Graduating college seniors who wish to pursue public service for one year are eligible for this $10,000 stipend. Applicants are encouraged to develop their own proposal for public service in the U.S. or abroad. The project can be undertaken by the student alone or working through established charitable, religious, educational, governmental, or other public service organizations. Awards are granted on the basis of the quality of one’s proposal, one’s academic record, and related personal achievements. For further information, please visit www.nationalgridus.com/education or call or email Amy Stacy at 508-389-3390 / amy.stacy@us.ngrid.com.
The Hearst Minority Fellowship is designed to engage more minorities in the study of philanthropy through one of the graduate degrees offered by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Administered by the Center, the Hearst Fellowship is funded by a grant from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. The Hearst Minority Fellowship welcomes applicants from traditionally under-represented groups in organized philanthropy who are recent graduates, scholars, active volunteers or nonprofit practitioners.
Applications Due in February