Part-time Tech Innovation Intern

CIMA Part-time Summer Intern, Tech Innovation

CIMA Consulting is a small firm in Charlottesville, VA, providing clients with strategic insight and support through institutional fundraising (grant writing) and a range of other deliverables. Our team partners with nonprofits and social impact businesses to advance causes that matter. We use a customized and collaborative approach to achieve strategic, operational, and financial goals for our clients. Our clients are socially conscious organizations seeking a thoughtful, agile, results-oriented firm to assist them in achieving their mission. 

Our current portfolio includes these and other nonprofit clients: 

• Nonprofit newsrooms reporting on criminal justice and gun violence.
• A national environmental organization, harnessing science and law to protect biodiversity on our planet.
• A community organization working to support formerly incarcerated individuals through access to low-interest loans and financial education.
• Youth services organizations across the country; supporting recreation, STEM, volunteer mentoring, and more.

What you will learn/Why you’ll be interested

Institutional fundraising is a field where the adoption of new technology and data solutions has the potential to revolutionize the efficiency of day-to-day work, and allow organizations to have a greater impact on the communities and causes they serve. While some nonprofits have been early adopters of new tools, in our work we’ve also met many successful organizations that don’t yet use project management or CRM technology to manage their deliverables and partnerships, or maximize the use of integrations and automations in their workflow. CIMA Consulting seeks to disrupt this pattern by creating an environment where our consultants work on teams delivering high-value services for our nonprofit partners, working efficiently in a way that allows our fundraising professionals to achieve work-life balance while having a meaningful impact on causes that matter. Smart use of technology and data are critical to solving this puzzle. We value the adaptability, open-mindedness and insight that the next generation brings to this work, and look forward to collaborating with you to innovate better solutions for our clients.

Position Description

We are looking to hire an intern to provide technology, workflow and data management solutions for internal use among staff and for our client-specific projects. You will work primarily in Notion, Airtable, and Make to set up automations, improve the user experience, and release new features that make our consulting teams’ jobs easier. The right candidate will be one who is passionate about the latest technologies, reads up on what the best new emerging low-code and no-code solutions are, has opinions about the most useful project management platforms, and has a broad view of what emerging tech or data management solution would work best for solving a particular problem. This is an unstructured internship with flexibility to work around your other commitments; however, that also requires a high degree of diligence and self-direction from the intern.
 

Working closely with our Director of Systems and Innovation, and based on your background and relative interest in various projects, tasks may include:

• Researching emerging technology and AI, providing recommendations
• Developing Airtable interfaces/dashboards
• Developing Notion teamspaces; discovering and optimizing integrations
• Creating and troubleshooting platform integrations via Make/Zapier
• Meeting with members of CIMA consulting staff to optimize their internal dashboards
• Recording brief training videos walking staff through the use of our technology platforms
• Creating standard reports from data tracked by consulting teams
• Developing a pitch deck for clients to learn more about our tech & data offerings
• Developing integrations via API that enable us to collect information publicly available on foundations that may support our clients’ work
   

The ideal candidate will have:

• At least two years of college-level coursework toward a bachelor’s degree
• Experience coaching others through learning new skills (e.g. as a T.A., etc.)
• Experience in a fast-moving, intellectual environment; ability to listen and collaborate effectively
• Ability to organize and synthesize large amounts of information into compelling written collateral on deadline
• Experience with Airtable, Notion, and Make or Zapier (or desire to learn)
• Experience using standard office software/platforms (Excel, Word, Google Drive, etc.)
• A demonstrated appreciation for/commitment to the nonprofit sector
• Skill in organizing and drawing conclusions from data (preferred but not required)
• Experience in fundraising, grantwriting, and/or other development functions is appreciated but not required
   

Qualities we consider essential for CIMA team members: 

• Extremely organized and self-motivated, able to prioritize multiple deadlines
• Excellent interpersonal skills (communication and relationship building)
• Willing to collaborate, take direction and ask thoughtful questions, then work independently to complete tasks
• Keen writing, editing, and proofreading skills
• Ability to thrive in a fast-moving, intellectual environment, with the feel of a start-up; willingness to listen, collaborate, and seize opportunities for growth
• Flexibility, dedication, and the ability to laugh at one’s self (and others, but only in a nice way)
• An understanding and appreciation of DEI principles 
   

Location: Our team is primarily based in Charlottesville and surrounding areas, but we have a hybrid, flexible work schedule with office space available in the CODE building on the downtown mall. While our preference is for team members to be based in Charlottesville, qualified candidates wishing to work remotely will be considered.
 

Duration and Compensation: We are ideally seeking a part-time summer intern for approximately 10-20 hrs per week but are open to considering alternative timeframes and schedules. Interns will be compensated at the rate of $22.50/hr.

How to apply: Interested applicants should send a cover letter, resume, and writing sample (2-3 pages max) to apply@cima.consulting for consideration.