ERB
CORPS CONTINUING THE PURSUIT OF
SUSTAINABILITY IN DETROIT
I
n response to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on summer internships, the Erb Institute has Erb Corps. This program aims to connect Business and Sustainability students with community needs and financial support to turn their summers into meaningful impact and learning within local Michigan communities. The Erb Institute will provide student stipends and will help students source their own summer internships with organizations in Detroit (and SE Michigan) or connect students to organizations among Erb’s local network who have expressed interest in support from an Erb student. All internships are expected to be virtual throughout the summer of 2020. The purpose of this program is to leverage Erb student skills, experience and networks to help Detroit preserve recent health, human and environmental gains in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Erb staff will conduct a matching process to connect students with organizations based on needs and skillset. Students will be assigned a mentor and a point of contact within the organization. The student will work together with their direct contact in the organization to design and scope the summer project. These positions are intended to be designed and leveraged by the student with support from the mentor and the Erb Institute. Students will be expected to work 40 hours/week from June-August.
ERB.UMICH.EDU • ERBINSTITUTE@UMICH.EDU
MAKE AN IMPACT TOGETHER STUDENT INTERNS Each student will be responsible for sourcing their own specific individual or team internship with a partner organization in Detroit (or SE Michigan). Erb will facilitate contact with organizations in the institute’s network that have already expressed interest in a student internship. The students will agree on their contractual relationship (volunteer, intern, employee, etc.) with their partner organization before beginning the internship. The expected level-of-effort from each student will be approximately 40 hours per week for 8-10 weeks during the period from mid June through the end of August. Students will be eligible to work individually, or in teams of 2-3 students per internship.
PARTNER ORGS The partner organization will provide a dedicated internal champion for each internship, with 8-10 hours per week available to guide the students during the internship. This guidance will include regular check-ins with the students, access to data sources, connections to internal staff, and introductions to community organizations.
ERB INSTITUTE Institute staff will coordinate administrative, financial and program support for the internships. Staff will check in on internship progress with each organization twice during the summer, but will not be able to provide in-depth supervision of each internship’s design, implementation and deliverables.
EXECUTIVE MENTOR An experienced business or nonprofit leader will provide 1-2 hours of mentoring per week for each internship to help students with internship scoping, project management, external communications and relationshipbuilding with the partner organization. For more information, contact: TERRY NELIDOV, Managing Director, Erb Institute tnelidov@umich.edu erb.umich.edu