Social Media & Web Internship

Social Media & Web Design Internship
Application Period: August 1 – 22
Internship Period: September 2019 – June 2020
Unpaid*

Job Description
We are currently seeking a creative, versatile, and hard-working Social Media and Web Design intern to support the efforts of our communications team, including creating online content, building our social media audiences, and raising awareness of the organization and our offerings.

The Social Media and Web Design intern can expect to be researching, generating, and posting content to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as on our website (WordPress). Additional work may occur in Constant Contact and other online platforms. Intern will create graphics in Canva, schedule posts in HootSuite, and utilize a company GSuite for email and file organizing (GSheets, GDocs, etc…).

This role is for someone who is eager to stay abreast of poetry news, Chicago poetry events, follow poets online, and support an engaged, community-centered nonprofit. Applicants should enter with experience in the above platforms and programs or similar platforms and programs. Applicant can expect to expand their skills on the job, getting feedback on copy, content, and graphics, while expanding on their skills around scheduling communications for an organization and site work, like building posts with HTML.

Past Social Media and Web Design interns have frequently extended their tenure with the organization from the original one year, to a two year internship, and have ultimately gone on to careers in the industry at major foundations, presses, and organizations.

The Social Media and Design Intern will help the communications team with the following:

• Generate, schedule, and publish daily content on Chicago Poetry Center social media channels
• Engage members of the Pursuit community (Six Points Readers, Teaching Artists, Poets, Donors, Students) on social media
• Help shape and implement strategies to engage and expand our audiences on social media
• Write digital content, including blog posts for our site on Poetry Center news and upcoming events
• Design graphics for social media
• Write newsletters

Timeline
The position is for five hours per week, from September 2019-June 2020. Position includes remote and in-person work. We work out of a fun, colorful co-working space for literacy groups in the West Loop (scooters and coffee in-house). In-office and remote schedule will be determined by the Executive Director considering the Intern’s schedule, and can flex throughout the year. This is a 10 month position with the possibility to extend the position after the academic year.

Welcome, Creatives!
The Chicago Poetry Center has a small staff, but we are highly engaged and eager to welcome new interns to our team. We’re serious about what we do, but we have a lot of fun doing it. Our organization supports the flourishing of creative work across our great city, and as such, we love supporting creative minds and innovative thinkers.

Requirements

• Highly proficient writer, with an eye for organizational “voice” across different social media channels and site
• Design experience (design for personal use or in classes counts towards this experience)
• Comfort with and eagerness to research the poetry landscape and stay on top of events, awards, and news
• Experience across social media platforms
• Web design experience (especially with HTML and WordPress)
• Able to synthesize shared information and generate new copy
• Strong communicator who will ask questions when necessary and respond to emails promptly
• Comfortable researching technical questions online for any challenges that come up
• Ability to plan ahead, creating schedules for posts for multiple weeks in advance

*Internship Financial Support
The Chicago Poetry Center is presently able to offer exemplary on the job experience and skill-building, but our internships are unpaid. Through our partnerships with universities, some of our interns have been able to: receive work study, semester-long stipends, and/or course credit from their universities, or through private membership in scholastic achievement societies. While the student is ultimately responsible for securing any external financial support for themselves, the Chicago Poetry Center will be happy to provide letters of support or any other documentation the student might need to arrange for their external financial support.

How To Apply
Send a resume and cover letter that highlight the specific skills above. It’s ok if those skills come from a mix of job, volunteer, personal, and coursework—just let us know your skills! Your resume should be attached as a PDF (file name should be specific: lastname_resume.pdf), your cover letter should be the body of the email. Your cover letter is a place to share information about you that doesn’t fit in a resume—tell us why you want to work for the Chicago Poetry—what skills you bring, and what you hope to gain. Your subject line should be: Social Media & Web Design Internship Application LastName. Send to: info@poetrycenter.org We will review and be in contact after the close of the application period.

About the Chicago Poetry Center
The Chicago Poetry Center is a nonprofit cultural organization dedicated to supporting poetry in Chicago and beyond. Our roving reading series puts poetry on boats, in observatories, and in bookstores to name a few of our every-changing event locations. Our education programs hire active Chicago Poets as teaching artists to teach in long-term poetry residencies in Chicago Public Schools. HQ: West Loop (641 W. Lake St, 60661) Events & Programs: Across Chicago Online:www.poetrycenter.org