● The Internship Institute (501c3) Targets Job Creation & Standardization ●
- LAUNCHES UNPAID INTERN RELIEF FUND & ANNOUNCES PHASE II PILOT OF INTERNSHIP SEEDING INITIATIVE –
NEWTOWN, PA – JULY 7 2013 – As TII’s Founder and Chairman-elect Matthew Zinman describes it, “The internship market is like a ‘Wild West-like frontier’ with vast unchartered territory, rough terrain and unpredictable dead ends. Avoid the sinkholes and landmines if you can. He advises an industry-driven approach and a ‘slow play’ of the higher education market saying, “They’re culturally adverse to playing nice in the sandbox. It’s all-too-easy to step in something unwanted in the academic landscape,” he warns knowingly. “I’ve taken my licks. Surely had the wind knocked out of me more times than I care to recount, but the trick is to keep getting back up and persist steadfastly toward that vision!,” Zinman exclaims.
Bootstrapping from one year to the next and also marked by a journey with great success - including a federally funded $375,000 program - Zinman switches metaphors and equates the experience as being much like solving a ‘10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.’
“Once you get the outside and corner pieces, the middle takes a long time to solve,” he says. “But I recently got to the point of seeing the center image more clearly, so the rest of the [strategic] vision becomes easier to see and solve. Given TII’s mission, there will always be more puzzle pieces to turn and place, but we’re really at a good place to assert credible thought leadership and take immediate action.”
He first established TII as a 501c3 non-profit social impact organization in January 2007. While his experience with internships dates back to 1984, his entrepreneurial journey began in February 2002 with founding his communication management/PR firm - Z Communication, Inc. – also credited with his launch of a virtual internship program. He made the full-time career leap to an internship expert in Summer 2005 by self-investing [including his personal inheritance, savings and ‘sweat equity’] to create the ‘missing link’ that can help revitalize America’s economic engine and opportunities for individuals to “Make Internships Matter.” Zinman estimates he has more than $2 million of personal skin in the game.
Timing wise - Zinman explains that, “Today's job market demands more than a degree. Graduates need work experience to be competitively employable. However, there are far fewer quality [paid] internships among employers than the many students that need them. The questionable legality of unpaid internships threatens opportunity. Everyone needs to take internships more seriously. We're here to help!” he says.
His vision is for a non-profit social impact organization that will solve big problems at once as it fulfills The Internship Institute’s mission to bridge the "experience gap" between classroom learning, workplace performance and graduate employability. TII’s core goal is to foster opportunities for The College WorkforceTM and their current [and future] employers to fully utilize interns’ talent and skills, increase productivity, and nurture future successful and loyal employees. 
Another brainchild of Zinman’s besides The Internship Institute is his Blueprint for Internship Success® and employer training curriculum he branded under “Z University.” He’s already established himself as a leader in this burgeoning field of work-based and service learning (a.k.a. "Internships"). Zinman himself had four, has managed and mentored more than 200 college interns, and relentlessly pursues his vision for systemic development and social impact. Organizations implementing TII’s proven Blueprint model will result in cost effective [preferably paid] internships that restore rungs along the ladder of opportunities for individuals, organizations and economies to prosper while revitalizing the American Dream itself. 
The Internship Institute's best practices Blueprint model was successfully proven through a [$375,000] U.S. Department of Labor-funded grant. The industry-driven "Internship Seeding Initiative" and Certification Program" makes internships matter and remedies numerous societal ills - such as unpaid internships - by standardizing program quality through certification and ripples effects that cultivate organic job creation for college graduates and U.S. veterans among others. 
The Internship Institute advocates, educates, collaborates and innovates. At the ground level, TII aims to employ U.S. veterans to implement its certification programs with military precision and assure the quality, integrity and success of internships everywhere. At the systemic level, TII’s Learning Experience Access Program (L.E.A.P.) involves establishing regional technical assistance centers for employers, supervisors, mentors and The College WorkforceTM alike. 
The grand vision is for L.E.A.P. to scale across regional hubs and spoke out to campus-based centers to prepare and place students among other services and functions. The national network of L.E.A.P. Centers would also provide the infrastructural foundation for more ‘connective tissue’ along the micro- and macro-economic fabric itself and solve BIG problems all at once. Join Us! Q&A ‘SoundBite’ RESPONSE STYLE TO Q’s YOU CAN INTEGRATE (also from my current LinkedIn) –
“It's taken this long 'in the [proverbial] incubator' to arrive at the right time and place to get it off the ground. I believe then to be right now with the market need, confusion among employers about legalities and compliance of unpaid internships, and an ever-widening skills and experience gaps.
“The thing about non-profits is that they also typically rely on everyone else to support themselves - and that's a BIG leap to take from being in business for yourself (and family) as well as my own comfort zone as a man and professional. “But here I am - low on another learning curve once again - and grateful for the challenge! There's everything to do and the reality of not being able to do with what we don’t or have yet to have - but it's more than enough to keep me and The Internship Institute moving forward.
“We've come too far to turn back. And how far there is to go is well beyond me. Just another good reason for the non-profit and the leaps I must will myself to make as I rely on others to join our cause.
“While I guess I should caution other social entrepreneurs not the ‘try this at home’ in terms of what some might consider an [unorthodox] incubation of a 501c3 social impact organization, everything in my experience tells me that now’s the time to make this work ... and hard at that!” ###
Editorial Note: For More Information: TII is also behind an Advocacy Campaign at PayInterns.com – launched on July 4 Independence Day, and its affiliate Education Campaign via BETI.org, where Mr. Zinman is featured in clever public service announcements (PSAs) about how “Interns Can Do More. Help Us Stop Intern Abuse Now.”
TII Media Contact: email Matthew Zinman at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Thank you for your shared passion!
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