Intern at Your Own Risk

A word of caution from the National Council of Nonprofits:

Interns and Unintended Consequences

About this time of year, many nonprofits are bringing summer interns on board. Interns can be terrific additions to a nonprofit’s capacity building journey, but it’s important to clarify whether interns are unpaid volunteers or paid employees – or something in between. In particular, there could be unintended consequences if an intern receives a stipend that could transform a volunteer intern into what the Department of Labor would consider an employee, resulting in a risk that the nonprofit could owe back wages (to pay the intern at least minimum wage) and back taxes.