Nonprofit leaders often have a range of responsibilities within one role. Naturally, those internship roles can, too, making transferable skill development and career exploration subsequent perks.

Authored By Gabby Rivera, Marketing and Content Specialist

Amelia Baskin, a marketing analytics and operations & supply chain management student, has spent her summer as an operations intern with Teach For America (TFA). As TFA established a rebrand this summer, old materials needed updating to match the organization's new look.

Going into the summer, Baskin had the expectation of organizing data and spreadsheets, but the internship rarely stayed in its own job description. Leaving, she has redesigned email templates, built rebranded slide decks and sat in on meetings with candidates during the hiring process.

"A huge part of my role is getting these new graduate students hired into different schools," Baskin said. While her core tasks never changed, her roles varied day by day. 

The variety wasn't unmanaged, though. Early in the summer, Baskin felt the size of the assignment ahead of her. She remembered thinking about how she was going to complete all her tasks when her supervisor, Dr. Christa Flood, instead broke the summer into defined phases, which she said made the workload easier to track. From there, Baskin was trusted to work independently, with support always available if she needed it. That balance gave her confidence that she could be trusted to manage her own pieces of the process.

Baskin picked up side objectives almost by default, building email banners and slide decks for the new branding, even though marketing wasn't in her title. She credits the range to culture rather than understaffing. 

"Everyone's gonna come up, say hi to you, hug you," Baskin said, describing the office as a family where colleagues cover for one another without being asked. If someone runs late to a meeting, another staff member sends the follow-up email. Everyone is passionate about being a helping hand.

Her two favorite parts of the internship ended up being near-opposites. She expected to enjoy marketing since it lines up with her major, and the rebrand let her see the strategy behind decisions rather than just the execution. Operations were the surprise.

She sees the marketing work as the piece most likely to shape her career, and she's already connecting it back to the classroom. 

"You learn a lot in marketing about why branding is important [and] what it can do," Baskin said. "I think it relates a lot to what I've learned in class."

By the end of the summer, Baskin wasn't just an operations or a marketing intern. She was both, plus a communicator and an event coordinator, a range of experience that we see often in positions at nonprofit organizations. 

The SECU Public Fellows Intern Program connects UNC Charlotte undergraduate students with paid, community-focused summer internships across the Charlotte region. Supported by the SECU Foundation and administered by the Career Center team, the program offers meaningful, hands-on internships while strengthening community impact.