Internships & Scholarships-Advocacy

With competitive hiring, changing expectations about work-life balance and high staff turnover, it's crucial for pools to strengthen existing their talent pipelines and create new ones to attract top talent.

AGRiP's internship and scholarship resources include:

• Apply for AGRiP Reimbursement for Internships and Scholarships 

• Benefits of an Internship or Scholarship Program 

• Developing an Internship Program 

• Creating a Scholarship Program 

• Building Your Pool’s Relationships with Post-Secondary Institutions
    

Benefits of an Internship or Scholarship Program

Offering a pool internship or scholarship program is valuable for many reasons, including to:

1. Develop your pool’s unique talent pipeline and attract top talent.
Connecting early in the college-to-career journey through internships and scholarships is a chance for prospective employees to learn all that’s great about working for your pool.

2. Stand out in a competitive job market.
Internships and scholarships help your pool stand out in a competitive hiring landscape among post-secondary institutions and their students, faculty, staff, career centers, coaches and more. A well-executed investment in these programs will increase awareness of rewarding careers in pooling and foster interest in the industry.

3. Increase staff capacity and productivity during a specified time or project.
A well-designed internship program is a cost-effective way to add staff support for specific projects or during peak periods.

4. Gain a competitive edge by diversifying your workforce.
Different generations bring varied workplace expectations, worldviews and increasing diversity in socio-economic backgrounds, race, ethnicity, gender identity and religion. Internships, especially, provide your pool insights into the values, expectations, norms and trends of the incoming workforce.

5. Improve hiring efficiency while investing in your talent pipeline.
Transitioning a job applicant to an employee requires significant time and costs. An internship or scholarship program connects your pool to future employees early. According to a recent article in Forbes, companies offer 72 percent of their interns full-time employment, with nearly 80 percent  accepting those offers.

6. Improve operations by incorporating new ideas and perspectives.
Internships can enhance your pool's cognitive and demographic diversity. AGRiP’s Intelligence publication shared research showing that organizations with diverse teams are twice as likely to meet financial goals, three times more likely to be high performing, six times more likely to innovate and adapt, and eight times more likely to achieve desired business results.

7. Support professional development of current employees.
Administering internships or scholarships offers existing employees valuable learning experiences. Internships facilitate the development of supervisory relationships and project management skills, while running a scholarship program helps build project management and communication skills.
 

Apply for AGRiP Reimbursement for Internships and Scholarships

AGRiP member pools in good standing can apply for reimbursement for internship and scholarships. The 2024 application period is closed. The next application period will open in October 2025 for scholarships paid in the 2025 calendar year. AGRiP reimbursement offsets your pool’s own financial contribution, creating a more sustainable scholarship or internship program. 
  

Creating a Scholarship Program

Creating a scholarship program for post-secondary students can raise awareness of your pool among potential future employees and requires consideration of three primary steps, including:
 
1. Define your “why.” 
Determine why your pool wants to offer a scholarship, which kinds of students you want to target, and whether your scholarship will be based on a student's financial need or other criteria. Ask these questions to support your work:

• How does scholarship align with your pool’s mission and vision? 

• Who does your pool wish to target with scholarships (students in any year of study, students in a particular field of study)?

• What criteria will your pool use to determine eligibility for a scholarship (grade point average, demographics, geographic boundaries, extracurricular and volunteer activities, work, written essays, letters of recommendation, etc.)?

• How will your pool budget for the scholarship and all administrative work to support the program from development to marketing to customer service to evaluation to awards? 

• Is the scholarship intended as a one-time offering or ongoing? For how long?

• Can students receive the scholarship more than once (is the scholarship limited to one award per student or can the student apply annually and receive awards annually, is there an annual or lifetime award cap)?

• Will your pool’s scholarship support tuition only, or also other living expenses? 

• What are the tax implications for your pool’s program?
    

2. Identify your pool’s scholarship and administration structure.
Your pool may wish to work with a post-secondary institution to establish a scholarship program, develop and administer a program on its own, or work with a third party provider. Each option has benefits and considerations so thoroughly exploring each is an important step.

Endowed Scholarship: Most schools offer endowed scholarship programs that are administered and managed by the school. Donors provide a minimum gift that is invested and from which a portion of interest earnings fund an annual scholarship. Donors typically are involved in naming the scholarship, determining criteria and meeting the student recipient. Donations for starting an endowed scholarship range widely, so the best thing to do is reach out to schools your pool is interested in to start a conversation. Endowed scholarships can be comparatively expensive to start, but they have long-term staying power and do not burden organizations with ongoing program administration and management. Schools may also offer opportunities for limited, multi-year scholarship programs that are not endowed.

Pool Program: Pools may opt to create, administer and manage their own scholarship programs. In this case, identifying an annual budget for the scholarship and staff time to support the program is critical. You’ll also need to think about eligibility criteria, how to promote the scholarship, review applications and make awards on an ongoing basis.

Third Party Service Providers: There are a number of independent organizations that offer scholarship management services. These groups typically help design and promote a scholarship program, process applications and select recipients, disperse funds and provide reporting to their clients. Costs for these programs vary depending upon the level of service contracted.

Whether your pool creates an endowed scholarship, manages its own program or contracts with a provider, it is critical to also understand any applicable IRS rulings.

It’s also important to understand interactions between your scholarship and the school’s own support of student tuition, as well as state and federal aid. “Award displacement” is common and happens when a student receives a scholarship that leads to reduction in other types of support.

Resources
Examples of organizations that provide scholarship management programs include Scholarship America and International Scholarship & Tuition Services.

The National Scholarship Providers Association is a membership-based organization that provides resources to support the scholarship community and has a free directory of services and products offered by its members, including scholarship management and software providers.

3. Create a program with impact. 
To attract the largest number of applicants and enhance your pool’s visibility, think about what dollar amount will have a meaningful impact for recipients. Determining this amount starts with understanding the total cost of annual tuition for a typical student at schools with which your pool wants to work.

Pool Case Study
AGRiP member School Employers Trust Schools Employers Group (SET SEG) developed a scholarship program several years ago in response to the challenges of recruiting new talent, a desire to raise awareness of meaningful careers in public entity pooling, a way to encourage students to seek degrees aligned with risk management and insurance, and to broaden diversity in the pool’s talent pipeline.

The program makes scholarships available to students at 4-year and 2-year institutions, with those pursuing degrees receiving higher awards than those pursuing certificates. Students can annually renew their scholarship through proof of enrollment. Awards for those enrolled in 4-year programs are capped at $2,500 per year with a lifetime cap of $10,000. Those at 2-year institutions are eligible for awards of $1,000 per year with a cap of $2,000.

Criteria include that applicants: 

• Be a high school senior or college student pursuing an undergraduate degree in insurance or risk management.

• Be a full-time student (college students must be enrolled in at least 12 credit hours).

• Must have a minimum GPA of 3.0 for high school students and 2.5 for college students.

• Preference given to Michigan public high school student or graduate.

• Students who have immediate family (parents, siblings, spouse, step-family, and in-laws) that are active SET SEG employees or board members are not eligible.
    

Scholarship funds are required to be used exclusively for education costs, such as for tuition and/or books and materials.

SET SEG staff describe the scholarship program as one piece of a larger goal the pool has to build a robust, diverse talent pipeline over the long-term. 

“We are in the process of tying our scholarships and internships together," said Molly Mellema, Associate Executive Director. "The goal for this work is to use scholarships to build awareness of meaningful work in public entity pooling early in the high-school-to-college-to-career journey and to then ensure students with career interest in pooling are better primed for internships with SET SEG. This model will create a stronger talent pipeline for our pool while creating greater awareness of our industry."
  

Building Your Pool’s Relationship with Post-Secondary Institutions

1. Identify post-secondary schools.
Explore partnerships with a variety of post-secondary institutions, including 2-year colleges, to meet your pool's needs and understand available options. A broader search ensures consideration for non-traditional programs and/or schools that may be a good fit.

Try not to limit your options to schools or programs that directly align with pooling or insurance — we all know that many of our best employees have surprising backgrounds. Students from the sciences (i.e. actuarial science, math, data analytics) have analytical skills to support finance and underwriting. Liberal arts students (i.e. business, English, journalism) are being primed to question, analyze and synthesize information, which are all valuable skills for claims and member services roles.

Build relationships with multiple departments at a school to bolster awareness of your pool and enhance your pooling pipeline.

Start this work with schools nearest your pool. Research by the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a not-for-profit nonpartisan independent research organization, found that on average about 50 percent of college graduates worked in the same metro area as their college while 66 percent worked in the same state. In fact, only nine states import more graduates than their colleges produce.

This insight means that your pool’s best bet for building a strong talent pipeline, as well as for retaining staff, is to invest locally with the schools in your backyard.

Resources
The U.S. Department of Education College Map and Canadian University and Colleges Map can help your pool identify schools to work with based upon school program, degree, location and more.
 
2. Connect with career centers.
Depending upon the individual school, career centers may help your pool develop and implement internships, facilitate meetings with giving offices for scholarship support, connect you with academic departments and faculty, invite participation in virtual and in-person internship and career fairs, engage your pool in student mentorship and more.

3. Connect with giving offices. 
Pools that offer scholarships should connect with school giving offices to explore the school’s unique scholarship opportunities. These offices often help develop, manage and implement endowed and other scholarships.

4. Build relationships with academic departments.
Volunteering or working alongside professors in the classroom (like offering to guest lecture)i s a great way to connect directly with departments and faculty that can support your internship goals.

5. Connect with student organizations.
Review student organizations at targeted institutions as they may align with your pool’s needs.A school might not offer a degree closely aligned with your pool’s needs, but may have relevant student organizations that are in alignment. Institutions often have clubs relevant to specific areas of study, academic department, occupation and profession, as well as related to student interest and identity.

Resources
Gamma Iota Sigma, the insurance industry fraternity, has a network of 105 chapters in colleges and universities in the United States and Canada representing more than 5,000 student members. The organization facilitates speaking and recruitment activities for students and employers, and offers a suite of online and fee-based tools including a virtual career fair, online job board and more.

Developing an Internship Program

To build your pool internship program, take these steps:

1. Align the internship with your pool’s strategic goals. 
To align an internship with your pool’s strategic goals, consider and document answers to the following questions: 

• How are our future staffing needs different from our current needs? 

• What areas of our operations have higher needs due to existing or upcoming gaps from retirements, leaves of absence, restructuring, promotions, job changes or some other factor? Are there areas of work that will be more difficult to fill?

• What departments have new or expanding needs to meet strategic plan priorities? Are there tasks an intern could perform to help set these new efforts up for success?
    

Pool Case Study
AGRiP member Public Risk Innovation, Solutions, and Management (PRISM)  aligned its internship program with its strategic needs by identifying, discussing and documenting:

• Current and future staffing needs at 5- and 10-year intervals.

• Staff on track for internal promotions, and the gaps created by those promotions.

• The busiest workload seasons for each department and how that might impact the intern experience. 

• Departments with capacity for in-person intern training and mentoring. 

• Assignments that would be easier to explain and recruit for, so the pool could pilot internships to students with little knowledge of the industry ensuring initial success.

• Risk transfer, labor-law and compliance-related questions and issues about the intern’s employment with the pool.

• Relationships needed and/or built with post-secondary institutions.
    

2. Understand the requirements of post-secondary institutions. 
Most post-secondary institutions support students looking for meaningful internships, but each may have different rules and requirements. Familiarize yourself with what your chosen school(s) expect as you develop your program. Common requirements may include that the internship:

• Be performed while enrolled in an internship course.

• Span a full school term.

• Include a minimum and maximum number of hours per week.

• Have limits on the amount of clerical work done by an intern.
    

3. Know relevant laws. 
Depending on whether your internship is paid or unpaid, for credit only and whether the student is local, national or international, different regulations and tax rules may apply. Collaborate with career centers at colleges and universities to help ensure compliance with all applicable regulations and laws.

Resources

• U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act
• Government of Canada Federal Labour Standards for Interns and Student Interns
• Australian Government Fair Work Ombudsman: Work Experience and Internships
  
  

4. Develop an internship description and assignment. 
Answer these questions to help write your internship assignment:

• How does the internship meet your pool’s specific need?

• Is the internship a pathway to full-time, future employment within your pool?

• How does the internship align with your pool’s strategic plan?

• What projects and activities will the internship support?

• Will the internship focus on one large project, multiple small projects or daily departmental support?

• What areas of study best suit the internship?

• What educational level is required (second- or third-year, upper class)?

• Is the internship paid, unpaid or for credit only? If paid, what is the rate?

• How many hours per week will the intern work?

• Is the internship in-person, remote or hybrid?

• Where will the intern work and what technology will they use? What does the pool need to do to ensure all workspaces and equipment are in place?

• Who will supervise and mentor the intern? Are these roles filled by the same or different people?
  
  

5. Identify a mentor and a supervisor for the intern.
The most successful programs — for interns and organizations — include a supervisor and mentor, offering different sources for direction and questions. 

• Supervisors should expect to spend 2-4 hours per week in their role to onboard, monitor performance, give feedback and conduct evaluations. 

• Mentors can offer networking opportunities, help the intern understand pool operations and serve as a go-to resource for day-to-day queries and reinforcement of values and processes. 
  
  

Patient, flexible supervisors and mentors are critical. Almost all interns your pool hires will be unfamiliar with formal work environments and need help understanding your pool’s culture, staff and how their internship fits into the pool’s overall work. An internship is an opportunity for students to build career-specific skills while discerning their college-to-career journey.

6. Expect an intern to have more questions than a typical employee before, during, and after the internship.
According to the Sacramento (CA) Employment and Training Agency, a public agency that provides wide-ranging support to Sacramento County residents, in a typical entry-level job, an employee receives training to perform necessary tasks and is then expected to carry out duties with minimal supervision. In an internship, however, the intern and supervisor work together to establish "intentional learning goals" supporting the intern's development and career interests.

7. Recruit, hire, onboard, support and evaluate your pool’s intern and internship program.
Begin recruiting after identifying your pool’s area of greatest need and developing a detailed job description.

The steps for recruiting an intern are similar to hiring for a part-time or full-time pool position. Partner with your chosen post-secondary institution career centers to:

• Post your internship on virtual and physical career center job boards.

• Gather and review applications to identify students who meet your minimum qualifications and preferred attributes.

• Conduct interviews with those meeting your criteria, noting some schools may require on-campus interviews.

• Evaluate and rank candidates, recognizing that the majority of students are not likely to have extensive formal work experience in their career interest area.

• Perform reference checks, focusing on academic advisors or faculty, college or high school activity advisors (i.e. math club, Mock Trial) and/or sports team coaches who can speak to the candidate’s work ethic, team skills and leadership qualities.

• Make an internship offer including pay rate, work hours, start date, benefits and internship overview.
    

Onboard your intern by orienting them to your pool rules, policies and culture, but consider adapting your existing process to emphasize communication, time to ask questions and regular time to check in. Plan to communicate more frequently with the intern than with a traditional hire, especially in the first few weeks.

At the conclusion of the internship, provide formal evaluation of the intern’s work. Highlight their progress and impact, and solicit feedback from the intern about their experience. Some post-secondary institutions may require evaluations to ensure students gain appropriate career and academic skills.

Assess your internship program and adjust it to ensure it aligns with your pool’s needs, talent pipeline goals and requirements of academic partners.