Wednesday, February 18, 2015
by Michael Hamill Remaley, SVP, Public Policy & Communications
This piece was originally published as the feature article for the February 2015 issue of the New York PhilanthroPost Policy Edition.
Philanthropy New York is accepting applications from candidates completing or recently graduated from a masters-level or Ph.D. program in public policy, government, social work or related field of study for a two-year fellowship. The Public Policy Fellowship program aims to identify early-career professionals who will benefit from learning about and networking within the philanthropic sector. It is designed to increase our organizational capacity in government relations and issue-based organizing, but also to support our commitment to growing diversity in the philanthropic community. Diversity comes in all forms: race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, socio-economic background, physical ability, etc. Philanthropy New York is interested in understanding applicants’ own definitions of diversity.
The Public Policy Fellowship application is due Friday, March 20, 2015. The first Fellow will begin her or his two-year fellowship period no later than September 2015.
Fellowship application information, which is available on our website at the link above, is also being circulated by leaders at CUNY, NYU, Columbia, The New School and Fordham. While we are disseminating the application through local universities, the fellowship is open to students from outside the New York area who plan to live in the region during their two-year fellowship period.
As Philanthropy New York’s public policy work matures, we recognize that the work to research issues, frame them for the philanthropic audience and convene funders and government officials for conversations that actually drive toward achievable solutions is immensely labor intensive. We are producing dozens of policy-focused programs, managing the work of three issue-based working groups (Education, Health and Women and Girls) and producing issue guides that often lead our organization toward taking official stands on timely issues facing the philanthropic sector. We are so thrilled that the strong response to the Fund for 2025 means that the Public Policy Fellowship will be fully funded for a decade and enable another set of hands on our increasingly fruitful public policy work.
We are not only grateful to the many organizations and individuals who contributed to the Fund for 2025 to make this Public Policy Fellowship possible, we are also thankful for the intellectual support of several of our members with ongoing fellowship or internship programs, who have come together to advise us on how we can do this well. They have been essential as we thought about how to structure the program, what to put into the application and how to nurture the individuals we bring into the Philanthropy New York community.
We’re getting lots of great advice from those folks. If you would like to join the group of foundation leaders who are advising us on how we implement our fellowship program and cross-pollenate the fellowship programs maintained by our members, please let us know. We welcome your ideas.