Operations Intern Unified Champion Schools SONA

Position Title: Operations Intern, Unified Champion Schools, Special Olympics North America

Location: Washington, DC (Hybrid 2 days a week in the office)

Department: Grant Administration and Operations

Reports To: Director of Research & Evaluation; Program Development and Innovations Specialist

FLSA Status: Non-exempt

Hourly Rate range: $10-19/Hour

Organizational Overview:

Founded in 1968, Special Olympics is a global movement to end discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities. We foster acceptance of all people through the power of sport and programming in education, health, and leadership. With nearly four million athletes and Unified Sports® partners and one million coaches and volunteers in more than 170 countries, Special Olympics delivers more than 30 Olympic-type sports and nearly 50,000 games and competitions every year. Learn more at SpecialOlympics.org. 

Job Summary:

Special Olympics North America (SONA) is seeking a motivated and detail-oriented intern to join our Unified Champion Schools team. This role will provide valuable hands-on experience in event planning and management, evaluation and data collection, and administration, supporting the team in various tasks and projects. The intern will work closely with the Specialist of Program Development and Innovation, the Data Management Specialist, and other team members to ensure the smooth operation of event and data collection activities.

Key Responsibilities:

• Assist with operational tasks and systems, including event planning and execution, review of materials, development and maintaining of spreadsheets, and conducting web and files research.
• Assist in the review of all task lists
• Maintain accurate and organized records of projects

• Provide weekly reports on activities

• Attend meetings, virtual workshops, and in person events related to responsibilities
• Provide general administrative support to the Unified Champion Schools team as needed

Event Planning and Execution (SONA Conference, Aug 5-10)

• Assist and support planning for the SONA Conference to be held in Indianapolis in August 2025, the largest convening of SONA Program staff in 10 years, with 800 participants and more than 80 concurrent and general sessions
• Creating and Organizing Credentials
  • Help research templates and work with designer to create credentials
  • Assemble badges and lanyards, ensure each participant’s information is correct. 
• Staff roles and Schedules
  • Collaborate with Unified Champion Schools pillar leads to outline and assign specific roles for staff during the event; manage the staff info and task list spreadsheet
  • Assist logistics pillar in creating a staff schedule for the conference week
  • Support sending the finalized staff schedule to all team members and volunteers
• On-site logistics
  • Setup and breakdown support of staff office and meeting rooms
  • Room setup; room trouble shooting monitor

Evaluation Data Historical Review

• Work closely with the evaluation and data team, providing support and contributing to high performance.
• Organize/catalog historical files from Years 1-5 (in collaboration with Data management Specialist)
• Clean, match, organize early school lists against current school lists (in collaboration with Data management Specialist)
• Facilitate receipt of qualitative data archive from UMass Boston CSDE, establish access points for our team
• Clean and organize research and evaluation folder on internal team SharePoint
• Facilitate updating of research and evaluation page on the Hub (with Grant Management Manager)

Grant Management

• Assist the grant administration and operations team with invoice and expense processing.
• Assist the grant administration and operations team with data migration of grant data to the new grant portal.

Qualifications:

• Currently attending a local high school as a rising senior or above, preferably with club leadership experience and in a school offering Special Olympics unified programming
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Smartsheet preferred
• Interest in grant management and nonprofit work is a plus
• Experience with Special Olympics Unified Sports an advantage

Special Olympics provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. 

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training. 

**Special Olympics is an E-Verify Employer**