ILR High Road Ithaca Fellowship
Center for Transformative Action

ILR High Road New York is statewide program that aims to teach ILR students practical methods for civic & community engagement and leadership. The High Road Ithaca Program offers students paid community engaged internships with partner organizations committed to social and environmental justice, diversity and equity, access and education in Ithaca and surrounding areas during the fall or spring semesters. Students work 5-10 hours a week and participate in critical reflection activities throughout the semester.

The Center for Transformation Action (CTA) helps create communities that are socially just, ecologically sound and that work for everyone through its educational programs and by supporting over 35 system-changing projects with incubator and fiscal sponsorship services. Projects are in Ithaca, NYC, and some that work at the national level. They address a wide range of issue areas and use different modalities, but all of them work to transform the structures, as well as the habits of mind, that produce inequities in our communities, country and the world. Their courage, innovative thinking, and heartcentered approach show us what is possible. CTA supports change makers with the tools to build thriving, inclusive communities that work for everyone. CTA serves our projects, the public, and Cornell University by offering educational programs and strategic organizational resources. CTA employs over 65 people across all our projects.

Fiscal sponsorship is a common means by which individuals and organizations can start new, nonprofit programs without establishing a separate 501(c)3 organization.This alternative allows changemakers to seek grants and solicit tax-deductible donations under our taxexempt status. As the fiscal sponsor, CTA takes on the legal and fiduciary responsibility for our projects, which means that CTA is the employer, CTA manages the bookkeeping and accounting, holds the liability insurance, develops and signs all contracts, and pay all the bills for CTA projects, and accept all grants and donations.

Fellows at CTA will work on all/any of the following opportunities:

1)Work with CTA’s HR Manager to develop a volunteer onboarding and tracking
system.

2) Work with CTA staff and our projects to develop a system that makes it easy for
projects to submit their advisory board minutes to CTA and makes it easy for CTA
to review and summarize these minutes.

3) Work with CTA’s executive director and CTA Board’s committee on communication
and fundraising to envision and establish a more effective social media presence for
CTA that tells the story of our projects and the CTA as a whole.

Successful CTA interns should be comfortable problem solving, investigating best practices as well as software solutions on their own and making recommendations to the CTA core staff based on agreed upon criteria. They should feel comfortable prototyping new processes, piloting them, and recommending protocols for further implementation. They should be big-picture thinkers who can also work through the details. Good communication skills and reliability are essential. This is an opportunity to be creative and help develop new systems that will have lasting impact. The interns should be enthusiastic about CTA and our mission. For those interested in the external communication project, they should have experience with content creation for social media and excellent writing skills.

Interns will meet with core staff weekly, working together as needed, and also working remotely to investigate best practices, recommend processes, and implement pilots.
 

The CTA office is located in Anabel Taylor Hall.