PROJECT SUMMARY
For 45 years, Main Street programs across the country have brought vitality to struggling old and historic downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts. The work of local Main Street leaders is fraught with challenges and complications: supporting small independent businesses while carefully nudging for cooperation and reform, collaborating with city officials to let Main Streets remain agile while leaning on city policies to spur the activation of vacant and idle spaces, convening great community gatherings while juggling an array of other tasks and priorities, to name a few. This work can be daunting and exhausting. Main Street America survey data indicates that most local Main Street leaders leave their jobs after 2-3 years in the position. The data tells us only part of the story as to why.

The work of the Understanding Main Street Leadership Intern will focus on surveying, convening, interviewing, and shadowing Main Street leaders to learn more about the challenges they face in their work, and the factors that, if changed, might lead them to remain in their positions for years longer. The intern’s findings will be important to reframing the work of local Main Street leaders, potentially spurring longer leader tenure, and bolstering the work of Main Street organizations across the U.S.

National Trust internships are temporary experiential learning opportunities with no expectation of employment at the conclusion of the internship.

For this internship, the National Trust is offering a stipend of $4,000 to help offset expenses. The period of the internship will be from June 2 – July 25, for approximately 28 hours per week.

DUTIES

• Working with the Main Street America Research team, design a thoughtful survey for local directors that focuses on challenges that make their jobs interesting and distinguishes them from the ones that make them untenable.
• Convene virtual “office hours” and focus groups of Main Street leaders to dig deeper into initial impressions from the survey results.
• Conduct richer, embedded research with 2-3 Main Street programs to gain a deeper understanding of how Main Streets work and what can be done to make the work more sustainable.
• Summarize findings for the Main Street America staff and leadership in a presentation and discussion.
• Summarize findings for the Main Street America network in a blog post to be published through mainstreet.org.

EDUCATIONAL VALUE TO THE INTERN
The intern will gain experience under the mentorship of respected community and economic development professionals in an educational setting at one of the nation’s leading community development organizations. The intern will also have the opportunity to participate in educational programming offered via the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s organization-wide internship program. Students may also be eligible for college or graduate school academic credit at the discretion of their institution.

Specifically, the intern will gain knowledge in the following areas:

• Place-based community and economic development, in both urban and rural locales.
• The intersections of historic preservation, economic development, community development, and city/town policy and planning.
• Nonprofit leadership and management.
• Qualitative research methods, including survey design, focus groups, interviews, and participant-observation.

At the end of the project, the intern will have produced a professional presentation and blog post detailing the findings of their qualitative research which can be added to their professional portfolio in support of their future career pursuits.

QUALIFICATIONS
Top candidates Must Have the following characteristics:

• Demonstrated interest in the connections between thriving downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts and sustainable place management.
• Background and/or training in qualitative research methods.
• Comfortable working quickly and shifting between “behind the scenes” and “customer service” / “front of house” modest.
• Experience communicating research findings to different audiences.
• Basic project management and project organization skills.
• Ability to work effectively with culturally diverse colleagues.
• Availability to work remotely for a minimum of 18 hours per week and 224 hours over the course of the summer.
• Bachelor’s level studies (or equivalent years of experience).

Extraordinary candidates may have the following Nice to Have qualifications:

• Familiarity with survey design and survey software, including Qualtrics or SurveyMonkey.
• Connections to or experience helping to engage culturally diverse audiences.
• Current or rising juniors, seniors, or graduate students preferred.
• Demonstrated interest and/or studies in urban planning, architecture and urban design, public policy, public administration, nonprofit management, sociology, geography, or historic preservation.

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