Political Internship a Triple-Win in Michigan

When he was only one year out of college, Mike Berkowitz was hired as the Legislative and Political Director of the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club. Charged with making the chapter more politically powerful but faced with a lack of funding and resources, Mike came up with a new and innovative idea: seek out and train college students and alumni as political organizers on the campaigns of Sierra Club’s endorsed candidates.

This idea was more groundbreaking than it might first appear. No comparable program for students existed in any chapter of the Sierra Club. In fact, there were very few entry points for students to get into political environmental activism at all, whether personally or professionally. Getting interns the training they needed to become effective political organizers and bringing them into the environmental community were two obvious benefits of the program, but not the only ones. The program would also benefit the candidates, by providing them with assistance, and would benefit the Sierra Club both by building a stronger relationship with candidates, and by having ‘insiders’ on the various campaigns, encouraging candidates to talk about environmental issues. It was a triple win, good for all parties involved.

Although the program and all-day training intensive took a great amount of effort and time, Mike says the work was immensely rewarding. He recalls receiving gratitude from the Sierra Club’s approved candidates, and had the opportunity to work with students from all sorts of backgrounds and turn them into politically savvy activists. Building relationships with the students, and bringing young people into the Sierra Club, was another huge benefit of the program.

Last election season, in the internship program’s second year, Mike trained 53 interns, more than double the number that had gone through the program in its first year. Students came from various Michigan universities and all parts of the state, whether urban, suburban, or rural. The cohort even included international students.

Amongst the interns were students who were knowledgeable about environmental issues but knew little of politics, and students who were politically adroit but knew little of environmental topics. All had something to offer, and a full day of intensive, interactive training and canvassing practice helped bring them all up to speed.

Ben A. belonged to the latter group, having worked on a political campaign previously in Washington DC. However, he found the Sierra Club internship to be more personal and impactful, despite the smaller scope. The armies of interns in DC contrasted sharply with the scale of Michigan local politics, where a single person can have a greater impact. It was fulfilling, he says, to “make my own mark on the campaign.” And in terms of gaining job experience, Ben claims he learned “enough to write a book each week.”

Kendall T., also studying in the political sphere, says that “winning the election, and being part of [the campaign], makes me feel that what I did was good for the community.” She notes that the internship also helped her to learn how campaigns work, and to become familiar with the relationship between nonprofits and politicians. Her most memorable moment was when the candidate she was working with, Kristy Pagan, was able to answer questions about wolf hunting legislation, a hot-button issue that the Sierra Club has been heavily involved in.

Tim M. was always a lover of the outdoors, and a single environmental science class was all it took for him to spark an abiding interest in the interconnections of society and nature. He learned of the internship at Power Shift, and found the experience to be “inspiring.” Prominent people like senators and the gubernatorial candidate “gave me the time of day,” he says. He learned how elections and the political system works, and saw “the disconnect that different people have…. It’s important to vote, and people don’t realize it.”

After so much early success, Mike hopes to expand the Michigan model in the future, to other Sierra Club chapters and states. The interns “went above and beyond the call of duty,” says Mike. “They did a spectacular job.”