McMullan Arts Leadership Internship, Revenue Systems Operations (Academic Year 2025–2026)

POSITION SUMMARY:

The Art Institute of Chicago’s Department of Revenue Systems Operations is excited to offer a McMullan Arts Leadership intern position to work with their team on the implementation of a new Constituent Relationship Management system (CRM).

The Revenue Systems Operations team administrates the Art Institute’s revenue processing applications. This includes enterprise ticketing, retail, and philanthropy systems and the infrastructure integrating this data across applications for operational purposes.

This internship will provide a unique opportunity to meaningfully contribute to the Art Institute’s migration to a new Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) system. This landmark project will have a lasting and transformative impact on the Art Institute’s ability to effectively manage relationships with its supporters and guests by implementing a new system for the storage and deployment of constituent data. The CRM Implementation Project Intern will be dedicated to this project, gaining insight into the execution of an enterprise-scale technical implementation and firsthand experience with a variety of essential project tasks.

The intern will join a museum-wide intern cohort and have access to a range of programs to support their development in addition to their placement in Revenue Systems Operations. Mentorship is provided throughout the experience and connections with an intern alumni network will be established.

Goals of the McMullan Arts Leadership Internship Program

The McMullan Arts Leadership internship program is part of a museum-wide effort to provide students the opportunity to gain experience, career awareness, networks, and skills that will position them to thrive as future art museum leaders.

This program specifically aims to support students who encounter economic challenges when considering a career in the arts. Aligned with this goal, we aim to help shape a diverse group of leaders whose actions are informed by a wide range of perspectives, varying career paths, and values inspired by their own lived experiences.

INTERNSHIP OUTCOMES:

In this position, the intern will have the opportunity to:

• Understand effective data governance;
• Develop CRM system knowledge and operating skills;
• Familiarize themselves with museum operations;
• Build project management skills;
• Gain firsthand experience in technical implementation processes such as data standardization and iterative testing;
• Hone written and oral business communications skills as part of routine operations and an enterprise scale project;
• Participate in live troubleshooting, process-improvement and problem solving in a business setting;
• Develop mentor relationships with field practitioners;
• Build peer-to-peer relationships with fellow interns.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

With guidance from the position’s mentor, the intern will:

• Coordinate and compile agendas for interdepartmental meetings;
• Maintain awareness of project tasks, assignments, and status;
• Extract, standardize, reformat, and enter data into a new Constituent Relationship Management system (CRM);
• Develop and maintain documentation of processes;
• Help troubleshoot technical issues;
• Assist in the development and implementation of new and revised processes.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Undergraduate or graduate student; recent graduates (within one year of graduation) will also be considered;

• Applicants must be based in the Chicagoland area and/or attending school in the Chicagoland area over the course of the internship term;

• MS Office and/or Google Suite Professional Suite is required with particular emphasis on Excel/Google Sheets;
• Detail-oriented mindset and demonstrated organizational skills;
• Ability to multitask and exercise good judgment to prioritize as appropriate.
• Strong written communication skills required with an emphasis on technical writing.
• Experience working with relational databases is preferred

APPLICATION:

You must upload all of the requested materials below (résumé and essay responses) into only one pdf document and list your last name and “AY 25-26” in the title of the file (example: [LAST NAME]_AY 25-26.pdf.) Please upload your materials where asked in the online application.

PLEASE NOTE: You will not be considered if any requested application element is missing.

To apply for this internship, tell us your story. We want to understand who you are, what motivates you, how you think, and where you’re coming from. Please submit the following materials:

• Résumé
• Instead of a traditional cover letter, please respond to the following questions in short essays (no more than 300 words per answer.) We encourage you to provide specific examples to support your answers or to illustrate your ideas:
  • What about this job description interests you the most?
  • With the mission of the McMullan Arts Leadership intern program in mind, what perspectives might you bring to this role that you think museums need more of?
  • How do you envision this opportunity helping you towards your professional goals?

DEADLINE: The deadline to submit an application to this position is Friday, July 25 at 11:59 pm CDT. We will not accept late applications. We will contact the candidates we want to interview within three weeks of our deadline.

INTERNSHIP INFORMATION

Duration of Position: 32 weeks / September 2025 (start date anytime during the week of September 22–26) through April 2026 (end date anytime during the week of April 27–May 1)

Compensation: Paid / $16.73/hr / part-time / Temporary

Schedule: This is a part-time, 32-week position for a currently enrolled or recently graduated undergraduate or graduate student. The intern will work 14 hours per week, for a total of up to 448 hours over the course of the internship. Work days will occur between Monday–Friday; the start date and schedule will be determined upon agreement with the candidate and the host department.

Hourlong virtual and in-person intern professional development programs will be scheduled throughout the internship term that the student is strongly encouraged to attend. These programs will occur during the week; we ask that the intern make this part of their internship schedule.

Format: The internship will be a hybrid of onsite and remote workdays. Internet access and appropriate technology will be necessary to complete this internship; technological accommodations will be provided by the Art Institute of Chicago based on necessity.

Number of openings: 1