The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition works to promote bicycling for everyday transportation. Our member-based grassroots organization is considered one of the largest, most active and effective advocacy groups in the country. For more than 40 years, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has a proven track record of winning better bicycling improvements.
Position Overview
The Bicycle Advocacy Research Intern will gain firsthand experience in bicycle transportation planning and non-profit advocacy in San Francisco. This internship will focus on the research element to advocacy work to strengthen our knowledge base around advocacy campaigns. This internship is mostly an in-office position, with options to work from home.
Essential Roles and Responsibilities:
- Research that helps build our knowledge base around our advocacy campaigns, including
- Best practices of bicycle infrastructure and urban planning in other cities, which are relevant to our street campaigns
- Data gathering, processing and/or visualization to build a compelling narrative for our campaigns
- Surveying diverse audiences (e.g. members, non-members, local residents, merchants, etc.) to inform our advocacy
Secondary Roles and Responsibilities:
- Assist policy team with communications across all forms of media, including mass emailing, website updates, social media and print media
- Assist policy team with grassroots outreach, which may include streetside outreach or phone calls and emails to individual members
Required skills or abilities:
- Some experience in at least one of the following:
- Open source software relevant to data visualization and geographic information systems (e.g. D3, Mapbox, QGIS)
- Qualitative and quantitative data analysis
- High-quality and informative surveying
- Ability to research and create and/or edit written reports
Desired skills or abilities:
- Experience in research on urban planning and/or transportation
- Knowledge of bicycle infrastructure standards (e.g. NACTO)
Required dates for this internship include:
- January 2016: First day orientation (exact date TBD)
Benefits:
- One year’s free membership to the SF Bicycle Coalition
- Firsthand experience in one of the country’s oldest and largest bicycle advocacy organizations
- Ongoing professional development opportunities to learn project planning and strategic communications, with connections to transportation advocacy and urban planning careers. Additional opportunities include:
- Networking with SF Bicycle Coalition staff and professionals in a variety of fields, including but not limited to urban planning, transportation and nonprofits
- Training on and experience with nonprofit industry standard software (Salesforce, Basecamp, etc.)
- Presentations and trainings aimed at development of professional workforce skills
- Indoor bike parking provided
This unpaid internship offers a flexible schedule with a 10-15 hour/week minimum commitment. This is chiefly a Monday through Friday internship, with occasional evenings and weekends. Interns are expected to make a three-month commitment, which may be extended. While the position is not paid, we are happy to work with any academic requirements the intern may have to help them earn course credit for their efforts.
