Apply for the Impact Fellowship

Our application process has gotten an upgrade! To start your Impact Fellowship application, create a free profile on our new hiring platform. As new internships become available, you’ll be able to apply for individual roles throughout the year.

Create a Free Profile

  • Previously, this program was only available to college seniors. We are very proud to announce that we are opening up this program to any and all that are interested! Our content and support is best suited to college students and those 0-5 years in their career, but we welcome all applicants!

    We accept applicants all year round, but ask that you are thoughtful about raising your hand for roles at a time when you have the bandwidth to intern 10-20 hours per week and participate in occasional one-hour professional development sessions.

    Am I eligible if I am an international student or study abroad?

    Because participating in the fellowship involves getting paid as an employee or contractor with our partner organizations, work authorization in the US is required. We wish that we had the capacity to sponsor folks or that US immigration law was more permissive, but we are forced to deal with the reality of current policy. DACA recipients are eligible as are folks with temporary work authorization through their school, but we recommend reaching out to your school with more detailed questions on your eligibility. You can always reach out to us with questions too, but we aren’t experts on different visa classifications.

  • You can apply all year round by creating a profile on our new hiring platform! We do intern matches throughout the year, but heavily focus on August (for fall internships), November (for spring internships), and April (for summer internships).

    If you don’t get selected for an internship, there’s no limit on applying again in the future.

  • Here’s what you can expect from the application process itself:

    Create your profile: This is the first step in getting alerted to new internship opportunities! You’ll share some basic background information, your latest resume, and videos using the platform MyInterview to share more about your passion for social impact. This doesn’t have to be immediately completed, but your profile has to be finished before you can apply for an internship.

    Submit an interest form: Once you see an internship that catches your eye, you’ll fill out the interest form that is included at the bottom of the job description to get into more details about why you’re excited about the role and what relevant experience you want to highlight.

    Second Day selects 2-4 finalists: Based on everyone’s profiles and interest forms, we select a few candidates that we think are a particularly good fit for the role.

    Employers interview finalists: Our partners conduct their own interviews to get to know each of the finalists better. We provide interview prep if this step makes you nervous!

    Employer selects their Impact Fellow!

Advice from Second Day when applying

The program is quite competitive, but we look for skills and experiences that are different than other fellowships may typically look for. Rather than just GPA or a long list of internships, we look closely at lived-experience, soft skills, and a holistic view of prior work experience. In particular, we prioritize students with these three characteristics:

  • Humility and lived experience to truly understand the nuances of societal challenges and what has been tried before

  • Ambition, vision, and courage to question the way things have been done and bring new ideas to the table

  • Optimism, grit, and a track record of getting things done 

Step 1: Review the opportunities

We’ve provided more than just a list of job descriptions and titles for you. Second Day believes in giving candidates as much information as possible about what each organization is like, and what you can expect from the role itself.

We’ve provided:

  • A description of the organization

  • The official job descriptions provided for each position

  • Additional details on how the role is structured, and what type of candidate is likely to thrive in the position from the manager themselves!

Step 2: Pick one or two that you want to pursue at a time

Here are a few tips when evaluating these opportunities:

  1. Don’t feel pressured to go after EVERY single internship. We highly recommend focusing on the ones that you think you would be a good fit for and/or align with your interests. 

  2. This is a stepping stone; it is not your forever career path! Even if these don’t directly align with your interests, ask yourself which of these opportunities could help you develop skills, network, or general professional experience for the future.

  3. Social impact is intersectional. Think about how some of these organizations work on issues you care about through a different lens or channel. For example, access to healthcare is not just about medicine. It’s about education, access to safe and clean housing, environmental justice, and more. 


To hear more from the Second Day team about how to think about these opportunities, click here!

Step 3: When filling out an interest form, be specific and confident about your passions and interests.

This interest form is one of the most critical ways you can position yourself for the internship you want! We’ve provided some examples and best practices for writing the detailed blurbs here. We also have a video you can watch with some additional tips.