Hi Deirdre,

We have both paid and unpaid intern opportunities, but we do not offer stipends - paid interns receive minimum wage. Stipends can open up a bit of a gray area as to whether the intern is an employee or a volunteer, and it is possible that by offering an intern a stipend (which is a nice thing to do!) you open yourself up to the Department of Labor classifying them as an employee and suddenly you are on the wrong side of the law for not paying minimum wage to an employee. State laws also come into play.  It is worth looking into the legal ramifications of stipends. I believe there is an acceptable percentage amount that you can give to a volunteer for "expenses" but it is quite low - something like less than 20% of amount wages they would have received if they were an employee - look that up though, as I don't have the details in front of me. For us, when we did the math, it was such an insignificant amount that we opted to go away from stipends. We don't offer many paid internships, but are committed to working to steadily increase the number each year. It's a start.

Jenny Woods
Seattle Art Museum

Hi Deirdre!

     AAM has some information on this on their website, most notably Fact Sheet #71 for the Department of Labor. It was referenced in a webinar a while ago as the most pertinent to museums. While it focuses on whether or not a company is required to pay an intern, and your museum desires to provide some compensation (Awesome!), I think it is still helpful. See the link below:

https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm

These are the main points the fact sheet makes, required if you are not paying the intern:

1. Internships are educational experiences

2. For the benefit of the intern

3. Does not displace regular employees

4. Employer derives no immediate advantage from the intern

5. Intern is not entitled to a job at the end

6. Employer and intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages

My current museum is part of a university, and meets these requirements. We do not pay interns, but they are required to receive college credit for the internship, and we make an effort to not take on too many interns at once, which can easily jeopardize #'s 1 and 2 I think.

From the intern perspective, I was fortunate enough (not too many years ago), to have two paid internship. One was a stipend-ed internship that lasted 3 months, the other was a year long internship in which I was paid hourly. The stipend internship was in D.C., and as I was going to school in Georgia, I could not have participated in a internship in that city without the stipend. The hourly internship was offered to me after I demonstrated an independent and consistent work ethic from volunteering at the museum. I would say the stipend gave me peace of mind and flexibility to truly feel like the internship was a learning experience, while the hourly internship helped me focus on completing my project in a very goal oriented manner. I think both methods are useful, and depend on your museum's goals for the internship. Both were great experiences- let me know if you have any more questions on either type.

Hope this helps!

Samantha

Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts

University of Alabama at Birmingham