Research Intern

Position Announcement

Job Title: Intern, Research

Organization: National Endowment for Financial Education 

Reports To: Manager, Research and Innovation

Location: Downtown Denver, Colorado 

Type: Part-time Summer Internship  

Organization Overview

At the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE), we champion effective financial education. We are the independent, centralizing voice providing leadership, research, and collaboration to advance financial well-being. We do this by mobilizing and inspiring educators, researchers, and advocates nationwide to maximize the impact of financial education. We work hard to remove barriers, amplify outcomes, and elevate effective models through leadership, research, and collaboration. We believe this is important because everyone deserves the opportunity to live their best financial life and that equitable and effective financial education makes it easier for everyone to navigate the financial system, creating a more just society.

We are seeking a paid, part-time intern to assist NEFE’s research teams with a number of short-term projects. This internship will begin late May 2026 and will run through mid-August 2026, though flexibility on the start and end dates will be considered depending on candidate needs. This internship is ideal for students or recent graduates seeking work experience in professional research, as well as for individuals with a strong interest in the field of financial wellbeing.

Summary of job responsibilities:

• Infrastructure for data and research projects
  • Assist with the creation of process documentation for NEFE’s Evaluation Toolkit and survey data collection/storage projects.
  • Identify and catalogue conceptual models, tools, and frameworks in support of NEFE research and evaluation repository.
  • Assist with organizing public and proprietary survey into an internal data library.
  • Analyze data on the financial wellbeing of US households in support of research projects, including drafting summaries and reports.
  • Support the research teams in identifying and actively monitoring key emerging trends/issues in the financial education field.
• Grantmaking
  • Support NEFE grantmaking efforts, including but not limited to, reviewing and providing feedback on Letters of Intent (LOIs), participating in team meetings, and conducting other activities as assigned to assist in decision making.
• Other duties as assigned.

Skills and experience of successful candidates:

• Some prior exposure to, or interest in, research methods, data collection, evaluation, and survey research.
• Prior exposure to, or interest in, using statistical analysis software or programming languages (e.g. Stata, R, Python).
• Basic knowledge of, or interest in, the field of financial education, NEFE, and the Personal Finance Ecosystem.
• Demonstrated technical and scholarly writing skills including translating technical writing for non-research audiences.
• Junior, Senior, recent graduate, or currently enrolled graduate student. Social sciences (e.g., Economics, Political Science/Public Policy, Sociology, or a related field), Statistics, or Applied Mathematics may be especially relevant fields of study but are not required.
• Commitment to equity and inclusion as organizational practice and culture.
• Proficiency in MS Office applications.

Physical/Mental Demands of the Job:  

• Physical demands of this position are aligned with that of general office-based work, such as: regularly required to stand, sit, talk, hear, and use hands and fingers to operate a computer and telephone keyboard. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision requirements due to computer work. Light to moderate lifting is required (e.g., 20lb box of paper).  

Location and Hours  

• This position can be completed within the Denver Metro area. Hours are flexible, totaling approximately 20 hours/week.   

Compensation   

• Compensation for this internship is $20/hour, paid semi-monthly on the 1st and the 15th.  

Application Instructions  

• Please submit a resume and a cover letter to apply. No phone calls, emails, or LinkedIn messages please. All application materials must be received by 5:00 pm MDT on Friday, April 24th, 2026.   

NEFE is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.