WRI’s Global Restoration Initiative (https://www.wri.org/initiatives/global-restoration-initiative) informs, enables, and invests in people that restore degraded land. The team’s flagship investment program for locally led enterprises and community non-profits, TerraFund (https://www.africa.terramatch.org/), currently finances, trains, and monitors 200+ growing organizations across Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. Aligned with this broader vision, the Restore Local initiative supports locally led restoration efforts – with a growing portfolio of 60+ million USD of projects in selected priority landscapes in Africa, Brazil and India. Built through the TerraMatch platform, this includes grant-funded projects, as well as debt and equity investments in small and enterprises and first loss investment tranches in blended investment funds. In the next phase of our strategy, WRI’s Restoration team aims to harness technology innovations built with our partners and the growing network of locally led restoration implementers financed through TerraFund. It is developing replicable finance structures and partnerships that crowd more public and private capital into restoration that delivers proven outcomes for people, nature and climate.

This is a hybrid position which requires 8 days per month in the office. You can be based in our office in Washington DC Office. Existing work authorization is required at the time of application submission as WRI is unable to sponsor any visa work sponsorship for this position. To be eligible for this position, you must be a resident of DC, Maryland or Virginia at the start of employment.

You will be responsible for integrating equity into your work. In this role, you will learn about the rapidly maturing land restoration sector. You will connect with innovative, localized restoration businesses and nonprofits, gain familiarity with the financial mechanisms that support them, and gather data and conduct research to support the team’s learning agenda with regard to our programs’ impacts. You will also provide programmatic support to our diverse funding portfolios by attending team calls, preparing materials for training sessions, and drafting communications and articles. You will contribute to gathering data from restoration champions, cleaning and organizing it into our unified database, and analyzing results, and you will support with user research, product updates, data entry, and other related tasks for the TerraMatch Product Team.

This internship supports work across the Global Restoration Initiative’s Invest and Motivate pillars, which focus on investing in restoration projects, influencing the sector, and communicating key messages. The activities of this internship will be shaped by your learning interests and the needs of the team. You will be supported by GRI staff with expertise in research, data analysis, restoration finance, and product development. You will report to the Restoration Finance Project Specialist and the TerraMatch Product Specialist.

• We seek interns with diverse backgrounds and who are passionate about land restoration for people, nature and climate.
• Languages: Verbal and written proficiency in English. Working proficiency in French or Portuguese is desired but not required.

The pay for this internship opportunity is $20/hour for undergrads; $22/hour for graduates and $24/hour for PhD students.

This is a full-time, 3-month internship with a flexible start and end date.

• This is a hybrid internship that will be based out of our Washington D.C. office.
• You will be required to work in the Washington DC office at least 8 days per month.