Rural Opportunity Institute Small Bets Lab Summer Associate

Rural Opportunity Institute (ROI), a startup nonprofit based in rural Eastern North Carolina, is seeking a Summer Associate to join our Small Bets Lab team for the summer. Modeled after corporate innovation programs like Google X, Bell Labs, and IBM Extreme Blue, the ROI Small Bets Lab is a container for exploring early-stage, promising but risky ideas that show incredible potential to transform the toughest challenges that rural communities face.

As part of this team, you will explore a promising new idea that has emerged from our grassroots community engagement work, and conduct low-cost research and design activities to help us decide quickly if this is an idea to pursue or kill. Your work will guide the future projects that ROI invests in, and generate insights and solutions that can serve as a model for rural communities across the country to learn from.

This is a remote position that lasts 10-12 full-time weeks during Summer 2021. There is the potential for continuing part-time work on a contract basis after the Summer concludes.

ROI supports people’s healing process by educating, reshaping systemic practices, and fostering deep-rooted connections. We know people are not to blame for the trauma and stress that impacts them. Resilience is an inner strength in all humans, regardless of background, and we as people are wired for connection and healing. We strive to end generational cycles of trauma and poverty by preventing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress for the community in rural Eastern North Carolina. We are a social innovation lab that disrupts the distinct separation between urban versus rural, especially in technology and innovation. Often, social innovation processes leave out rural communities of color. Rural Opportunity Institute believes in and knows the deep assets that exist in rural communities like ours. We seek to smash together disparate worlds and change the narrative commonly held about rural communities.

What do we look for in a Small Bets Lab Summer Associate?

• Experience with design thinking and/or innovation processes or a strong desire to learn and adopt this process

• Comfort working in grassroots community environments, interacting with diverse stakeholders in a respectful manner

• Interest in working with an early-stage nonprofit on a very small team

• Comfort with ambiguous and unpredictable work timelines & environments

• Commitment to racial equity and social justice

• Openness to failure, giving and receiving critical feedback, and learning along the way

• Must be authorized to work in the US

Examples of Small Bets you might work on:

• Measuring, modeling, & predicting the impact of ROI’s grassroots, distributed social change work on the long-term future of our community

• An organizational policy for auditing our funding streams / revenue sources for equity / anti-racism / sustainability (think of this like creating the the “B Corps” standards for nonprofit funding)

• Exploring technology solutions that promote nervous system health / healing from trauma, and their potential for use in rural spaces and institutions

• A model for supporting grassroots, rural community leaders to enact informal solutions that provide healing to the hardest-to-reach residents

• The intersection between climate change and trauma in rural, coastal communities like Eastern North Carolina, and emergent opportunities for impact and innovation

These are examples, but not a complete list, of the Small Bets we are interested in exploring. Based on your unique interests and skills, we will work to scope the Small Bet project that you will work on.

To apply

• Submit your application by completing this form: Link to Application Form. The deadline to apply is April 15, 2021, and applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis as they are received.

• You will be asked to submit:

• Your resume

• A cover letter, which answers

• Why are you interested in working with Rural Opportunity Institute, in particular?

• Why do you feel you are well-positioned to deliver the needed results for this internship?

• What is an example of a time when you have worked on an ambiguous or unstructured project? What were your key results/accomplishments, what was a challenge you faced, and what did you learn from the experience?

• What are your goals for this summer (what do you most hope to get out of it)?

• What is your bigger “why” for yourself now and in the near future & how does this position fit into the vision you have for yourself?

• Please submit either a link to your video or a link to a written cover letter when you apply. Do not submit both.

• One reference who can speak to your professional competencies.