Fundraising & Events Internships

The Human Rights Campaign is America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve LGBTQ+ equality. By inspiring and engaging individuals and communities, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and realize a world that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

The Human Rights Campaign envisions a world where lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people plus community members who use different language to describe identity are ensured equality and embraced as full members of society at home, at work, and in every community.

Fundraising & Events Internship Teams:

Federal Club team:

HRC’s Federal Club is an industry leader when it comes to mid-level giving programs within non-profit organizations. Our generous donors provide the resources that help fuel HRC’s nationwide legislative and advocacy work. The Federal Club program:

  • Funds HRC’s political work, fieldwork, and electoral work, and helps keep the lights on at the organization
  • Hosts exclusive area leadership briefings, social events, and activities with other HRC Federal Club members and leaders
  • Utilizes our Federal Club Co-Chairs as the faces of the local Federal Club to engage with our current members and help the board of governors in recruiting new Federal Club members. Federal Club Co-Chairs are a backbone for local HRC communities

Online Strategy team:

HRC's Online Strategy team helps our community make history for LGBTQ+ equality through the development and execution of online advocacy and fundraising campaigns via email, paid social recruitment and text messaging. Our Digital Organizing, Advocacy, and Fundraising Intern will gain valuable hands-on experience in digital communications and have a direct and lasting impact on our movement for LGBTQ+ equality. Some of the intern’s ongoing tasks will be the daily development of email communications and related engagement collateral, analysis, and reporting for HRC’s various national and local online campaigns; troubleshooting HTML coding for HRC email communications and other online strategy projects. The Digital Organizing, Advocacy, and Fundraising Intern should:

  • Have familiarity and interest in the latest technological aspects of email communications, notably experience in HTML coding.
  • Desire to learn industry-leading tools and strategies
  • Assisting with editing and producing graphics
  • Assisting in measuring analytics
  • Organizing and mapping content

Membership Outreach (Pride) team:

Membership is the lifeblood of the Human Rights Campaign – our members are the reason we can accomplish so much in the fight for full LGBTQ+ equality. The Membership Outreach team is tasked with expanding and diversifying HRC’s membership and supporter base through several key fundraising programs: Pride, Community Events, Honorary Gifts, Athletes for Equality and other special projects and initiatives. The Membership Outreach team:

  • Facilitates HRC's attendance at over 200 Pride events nationwide each year
  • Raises funds and builds people power through premiere Community Events across the country
  • Creates pathways to engage with HRC's work in new and diverse ways, including Gift Memberships and Athletes for Equality
  • Supports and uplifts businesses serving the LGBTQ+ community through the Queer to Stay program

Communities & Volunteer Relations team:

The Communities & Volunteer Relations (CVR) at HRC helps to achieve LGBTQ+ equality by keeping HRC strong, funded, and fighting through our management of an impactful volunteer leadership program. We empower the volunteer leaders in 32 steering committees across the country to engage and expand support for our mission locally. The CVR supports the work of our national network of volunteers by:

  • Providing coaching and training for our Board of Governors and Steering Committee Co-Chairs in developing team culture and leading the Steering Committee
  • Partnering with the Volunteer Engagement Co-Chairs to attract, engage, develop, and retain volunteers locally and mobilize them in pursuit of HRC’s organizational objectives
  • Creating leadership development programs and resources for volunteers to grow their skills in leadership, ambassadorship, fundraising, and diversity, equity, and inclusion competencies
  • Guiding Steering Committees in setting and reaching their annual programmatic goals

Major Gifts, Planned Giving, & Foundation Relations team:

HRC's Major Gifts team is responsible for identifying, recruiting, and stewarding donors who give $5,000 and above annually to the HRC. The Major Gifts program has more than 1,000 members, whose annual pledges help to fund the work of the HRC Foundation, the community and education-focused branch of the Human Rights Campaign. The Major Gifts team works to make sure these committed individuals have a strong and lasting relationship with the HRC. In addition, Major Gifts members enjoy special benefits, such as complimentary tickets to dinners, as a result of their membership. The intern on this team primarily interacts with the Major Gifts team but will also get experience with various projects tied to HRC’s Planned Giving and Foundation Relations teams. Major Gifts is pivotal to the work of HRC Foundation and gives us the ability to focus on lasting relationships with some of our biggest contributors.

Consumer Marketing team:

The HRC Consumer Marketing team oversees all merchandise created on the online shop, Provincetown store, and other departments. Our online retail store promotes HRC branded merchandise, brings in new HRC members, and puts a face on the fight for LGBTQ equality. The Consumer Marketing Program:

  • Has produced election, heritage month, and protest merchandise.
  • Creates and monitors ads across Meta, Google, and TikTok.
  • Is a leading source for new HRC members.
  • Generates rapid response merchandise that emphasizes HRC’s stance on current events.

Membership team:

The heart of the Human Rights Campaign is its membership — over 3 million members and supporters strong. They make our critical work for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer equality possible. The Membership Team engages with members and supporters in a number of ways to advocate for equity, fairness, visibility and representation for LGBTQ+ people and to raise funds to fuel our mission. It is responsible for the following:

  • Advocacy: We ask members and supporters to contact elected officials and federal agencies to support pro-equality laws and policies and guide them through the process of doing so.
  • Fundraising: We raise money to support HRC and HRC Foundation programs through email, direct mail, SMS messaging, street canvassing, and phone banking to current and prospective members
  • Direct Response: We monitor current events for rapid response moments, informing the membership of critical news and developments pertaining to the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement
  • Cultivation: We foster good relationships with our membership by welcoming new members and sending acknowledgment and thank-you letters, postcards, emails, and, phone calls
  • Member Services: We provide best-in-class customer service to members, supporters, and donors, helping to resolve membership, payment, and, premium-fulfillment issues and to address messaging and policy concerns with a critical eye toward problem-solving and relationship-building.

Internship Outcomes:

  • Opportunities to learn the multi-faceted work of the Human Rights Campaign across many departments
  • Gain a better understanding of event planning, fundraising at multiple levels, membership, and volunteer outreach
  • Gain transferable database management, office, and interpersonal skills applicable to future employment opportunities
  • Experience handling competing responsibilities in a high-energy environment
  • Gain experience working with highly experienced and dedicated staff members working towards full LGBTQ+ Equality

Other Information:

  • Please visit our intern FAQs.
  • We strongly encourage people of color, transgender, and non-binary people to apply. HRC is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes everyone, including non-LGBTQ+ people, to join our team.