Pay Our Interns
Creating a diverse workforce pipeline, one paid internship at a time.
Pay Our Interns was founded by two former unpaid interns, Carlos Mark Vera and Guillermo Creamer Jr. Together, both Carlos and Guillermo were interns in five different offices, including the House of Representatives, the White House, the D.C. Mayor, and the European Parliament. In September of 2016, the two shared their internship stories and realized that their hardship was a similar one. With the launch of the Pay Our Interns Facebook page in October 2016, the two quickly noticed that this social media campaign was going to be so much more than that. Within just a few weeks of launch, the campaign caught the attention of thousands of young adults and a few media outlets. Weeks after the 2016 presidential election, the two shifted the focus of the campaign to that of a non-profit. After a series personal meetings, phone calls, and email exchanges, by June 2017, a first of its kind Congressional Report titled Experience Doesn’t Pay the Bills listed which members of Congress paid and which did not. The report was received and shared by various news outlets highlighting the abysmal number of members who offered paid internships. This report provided the small team a threshold on what changes they wanted to see in Congress.
One year from publishing the report, Pay Our Interns worked with various offices, doubling the number of Senate Democrats who offered paid internships and increasing the number of Senate Republicans as well. Alongside these increases, the group also inserted themselves in the DNC Chair race and worked with each candidate to pledge their support in offering a paid internship program if elected. By the beginning of June 2018, the Pay Our Interns team had successfully worked with the DNC, DCCC, and several Senate offices to help create their paid internship programs. Alongside a group of bipartisan legislators, the team worked to help create the first ever internship fund allocation for the Senate at a healthy $5 million fund. A few weeks after a successful partnership with the Senate, the team worked with a group of bipartisan legislators on the House side and successfully secured $8.8 Million in intern funding. On October 3rd, 2018, the President of the United States signed a minibus budget that included $13.8 million in funding for an internship program in Congress.