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CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance (ISLG): About Us 

The CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance has a mission to improve the financing, delivery, and measurement of critical public services through research, technical assistance, and education. We lead projects aimed at reforming the criminal justice system, measuring urban inequality, expanding the reach of social service providers, and more. Each project has a dedicated team of research and policy experts who collaborate closely with internal and external organizations. For more information about ISLG, please visit www.islg.cuny.edu. 

Our Goals for Diversity and Inclusion 

We strive to foster an office environment and an approach to work that welcomes and respects different perspectives, backgrounds, and life experiences. We are working towards our goal of recruiting and retaining staff, interns and advisory group members who are diverse in terms of race, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, veteran status, socioeconomic status, disability, and justice system involvement. 

Who we are looking for

ISLG is recruiting up to 4 CUNY undergraduate and/or graduate student interns to work on a variety of projects, spanning a range of policy areas, including:

• Grassroots Policy Incubation Project – ISLG, along with New York City Opportunity (NYCO), an office within the Mayor’s Office, will develop and implement an innovative 6-month participatory policy incubation pilot in partnership with two or three grassroots organizations. During the incubation period, ISLG and NYCO will support grassroots partners in diagnosing and developing a solution for a policy problem that affects NYC communities. Interns will support the formation of the incubation community, facilitate relationship building, conduct literature reviews and other diagnostic processes for the identified policy gap, and support the development of the policy solution. Another potential project in this vein (though the funding is separate) is the development of a network of survivors of domestic, gender-based violence and other forms of abuse; and supporting the creation of domestic and gender-based violence prevention community initiatives.
• Neighborhood Navigators Program – ISLG manages a program in partnership with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office (DANY) for a network of Neighborhood Navigators. The DANY-funded program supports The Bridge, a social service agency, in deploying Neighborhood Navigators across four key areas in Manhattan. The program's purpose is for Navigators to build relationships with and provide services and referrals to people living on or spending significant time on the street. Interns will support the program by attending and taking notes during implementation check-ins and site visits, researching best practices, and identifying opportunities to expand and enhance the project.
• Community-Based Restorative Justice – ISLG is managing the Community-Based Restorative Justice Grant program (CBRJ), on behalf of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. This program aims to incorporate or expand restorative practices and approaches in New York City, offering funding to organizations that already perform restorative justice work or would like to incorporate restorative justice practices into their work, focusing investments on small and grassroots organizations that have historically faced barriers to accessing public funding. Organizations that are selected to receive funding will begin their work in April of 2024.
• Education and Leadership – Developing materials used to support elected officials and their chiefs of staff who participate in the Lindsay and Kriegel fellowship programs. Interns will support this program by conducting outreach to electeds’ offices, developing materials for the 2 fellowship programs, and designing the infrastructure needed to share resources and award microcredentials.

The core of this internship is creating community and peer-to-peer learning among ISLG interns; to foster community we will have bi-weekly in-person convenings that will cover a range of topics such as relationship building, project management, participatory policy making, etc.

We are hiring interns to work at ISLG for 10 weeks during the summer months. Interns will have a hybrid work schedule and report to a designated ISLG staff member. Interns will work on a range of tasks within the projects listed above as well as others not listed here. Interns may work on one or more of the project areas above, as well as other projects. Tasks that the interns may be responsible for include:

• Taking notes at meetings
• Providing coordination support for scheduling meetings with partners
• Assisting in the preparation of materials for meetings, policy briefs, blogs and other communications
• Other tasks as needed to support ISLG’s work