Vacancy to Vitality Internship (Main Street America)

PROJECT SUMMARY

For nearly half a century, Main Street programs across the country have brought vitality to struggling old and historic downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts. Over the past six years, we have worked to build tools and construct data that allows us to advocate for the activation of vacant buildings, storefronts, and upper floors, as well unbuilt idle lots of land. Following a successful intern-supported pilot in 2023, we launched a new tool for Main Streets and other commercial districts in 2024 called the Building Opportunities on Main Street (BOOMS) Tracker. Nearly two years after the launch of BOOMS, Main Street leaders have gathered data on more than 38,000 buildings and lots. In 2026, we will launch a new component to BOOMS that is focused on capturing inventories of Main Street businesses, and we anticipate that there will be myriad new opportunities with that data.

The work of the “Main Street Vacancy-to-Vitality Intern” will focus on what Main Street leaders are currently doing with their BOOMS Tracker data and on building out concepts, templates, and draft products from the data. The intern will conduct outreach with Main Street leaders who have completed district inventories and seek out insights and ideas about new directions for the BOOMS Tracker tool and for applications of the data in advocacy, fundraising, and programming. It’s not enough to simply know the vacancy rates of Main Street districts—we want to work together to move from knowledge to action. We anticipate that the intern’s findings will help us build and shape new directions for our work, and yield promising novel directions for collaboration across local, regional, and national staff.

National Trust internships are temporary experiential learning opportunities with no expectation of employment at the conclusion of the internship.

For this internship, the National Trust is offering a stipend of $4,000 to help offset expenses. The period of the internship would be from approximately June 1 – July 24, for approximately 28 hours per week (some flexibility of end dates may be available).

DUTIES

• Directly analyze BOOMS Tracker data and identify key insights for current and prospective users
• Working with the Main Street America Research team, design a short survey for BOOMS Tracker users that strengths and shortcomings of the BOOMS platform and explores current and future applications of the BOOMS Tracker data
• Co-convene virtual “office hours” and focus groups of BOOMS Tracker users to understand ways we could improve the platform and ways different stakeholders could use the data
• Design report templates and other products that showcase BOOMS Tracker data and position it for advocacy, fundraising, and programming purposes
• Summarize findings for the Main Street America staff and leadership in a presentation and discussion
• Summarize findings for the Main Street America network in a blog post to be published through mainstreet.org

EDUCATIONAL VALUE TO THE INTERN

The intern will gain experience under the mentorship of respected community and economic development professionals in an educational setting at one of the nation’s leading community development organizations.. The intern will also have the opportunity to participate in educational programming offered via the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s organization-wide internship program. Students may also be eligible for college or graduate school academic credit at the discretion of their institution.

Specifically, the intern will gain knowledge in the following areas:

• Place-based community and economic development, in both urban and rural locales
• The intersections of historic preservation, economic development, community development, and city/town policy and planning
• Challenges and opportunities associated with older and historic building activation and adaptive reuse
• Nonprofit leadership and management
• Qualitative research methods, including survey design, focus groups, interviews, and participant-observation

At the end of the project the intern will have produced a professional presentation and blog post detailing the findings of their qualitative research which can be added to their professional portfolio in support of their future career pursuits.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Top candidates Must Have the following characteristics:
• Demonstrated interest in the connections between thriving downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts and sustainable place management
• Background and/or training in qualitative research methods
• Comfort working quickly and shifting between “behind the scenes” and “customer service” / “front of house” modes
• Excitement and interest in spatial data and data analysis
• Experience communicating research findings to different audiences
• Basic project management and project organization skills
• Ability to work effectively with culturally diverse colleagues
• Availability to work remotely for a minimum of 18 hours per week and 224 hours over the course of the summer
• Bachelor’s level studies (or equivalent years of experience)
• Extraordinary candidates may have the following Nice to Have qualifications:
• Familiarity with survey design and survey software, including Qualtrics or SurveyMonkey
• Familiarity with GIS platforms such as ArcGIS, ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, and QGIS
• Intermediate skills with data analysis using Excel, R, or other software
• Connections to or experience helping to engage culturally diverse audiences
• Current or rising juniors, seniors, or graduate students preferred
• Demonstrated interest and/or studies in urban planning, architecture and urban design, public policy, public administration, nonprofit management, sociology, geography, or historic preservation
• Demonstrated interest and/or studies in data science and data visualization