Pathways to Charity and Development

Pathways to Charity and Development offers employers the opportunity to work with University of Exeter students keen to start their careers in this sector.

In June 2025, a total of approximately 25 successful students, selected from a range of disciplines and year groups, will undertake four days of experiential learning delivered by industry experts, followed by completing a 35 hour fully-funded internship with a UK organisation in the Charity and Development sector.

“This programme is inspiring and of mutual benefit. The students have so much creativity to offer and a fresh perspective that's valuable to any employer who's got a project they need help with. They're intelligent and hard working individuals and get so much from the experience too to help inform the path of their career.” (Dawn Vincent, The Mare and Foal Sanctuary)

Employers can get involved in a Professional Pathway programme by:

delivering a 1-hour training session
providing a business project for students to work on during the training
offering a 35 hour internship

If you are a current student, please see our Pathways to Charity and Development student page.

Could you offer an internship opportunity?

Applications to submit an internship opportunity via next year's Pathways to Charity & Development programme will open in January 2025. To register your interest in the programme, please complete the short form here and we'll be in touch.

If you have any questions please email the team at professionalpathways@exeter.ac.uk.

Internship eligibility

The role or project must:

Be within the charity and development sector
Use undergraduate level skills, knowledge and/or experience.
Aid career development
Include tasks and responsibilities normally associated with a graduate level position
Provide training and support
Be a total of 35 hours and be undertaken either part-time or full-time between 23 June - 4 July 2025.

Training programme

We will be delivering the training element of the programme on our Streatham Campus in Exeter between 16 - 19 June 2025. The training is designed to give students an insight into the sector, covering as many areas as possible while also providing them with the opportunity to meet professionals working in the charity and development sector.

We regularly work with a number of organisations who deliver a 1 hour session for us each year. For reference, please see below the schedule from our 2024 Pathways to Charity & Development training programme. If you would be interested in delivering a session and have a suggestion for a different topic not covered below, we would be happy to hear from you at: professionalpathways@exeter.ac.uk.

Schedule from our 2024 programme:

Training session topic:	Organisation/Speaker delivering training:
Fundraising	University of Exeter Global Advancement Team
Marketing and Communications	The Mare and Foal Sanctuary
From Pathways Student to a Career in the Charity Sector	Alzheimer's Society
How Charities are Governed	Hospiscare
Practicing Partnership: Challenges & Success in the Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise Sector	CoLab Exeter
Working in Funding	Save the Children
Volunteer Management	National Trust
Insights into Charity fundraising including journey from Exeter student to Director of Fundraising & Comms at a national charity	Philanthropy and Fundraising Consultant
Humanitarianism, the humanitarian system and what it's like to work in the sector	Humanitarian Adviser (Humanitarian & Stabilisation Operations Team, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office)
Setting up an international foundation	UppFutures

Could you provide a group project?

During the training days (16 – 19 June 2025), students will engage in a group project based on a sector-related business challenge provided by an employer. This opportunity allows students to apply the knowledge and skills gained in their training to a set task, which could be particularly of benefit to organisations with under-resourced projects. Students will collaborate for 2-3 hours daily from Monday to Wednesday and present their findings on Thursday 19 June between 10am - 1pm on our Streatham Campus in Exeter. We encourage employers who submit projects to attend the presentations, providing valuable feedback and engaging with the students directly.

Ideally, employers will be offering a project alongside hosting an intern, as your matched student intern(s) would then also be allocated your group project, allowing them to gain insights into the organisation before starting their internship. The project task must differ from the submitted internship but can complement it. Interested employers should contact the team at professionalpathways@exeter.ac.uk or indicate their interest through the employer vacancy form when submitting internship opportunities.

Selecting your intern

All students will go through a rigorous recruitment and selection process conducted by the University, to ensure we select the best candidates.

Students successful in gaining a place on the programme, will be presented with all the internships opportunities on offer and asked to identify their preferences. We will make the final decision of who will be matched to your opportunity and as such, your organisation will not need to undertake any recruitment or selection process of our students.

Once we have identified the most suitable intern for you, we will send you their details in May 2025. We very much hope that you will be satisfied with our selection, however if for any reason this is not the case, you will have the opportunity to withdraw from the scheme. Unfortunately, at this stage of the recruitment process, we will not be able to find a replacement intern.

Internship training and support

We ask that all employer hosts work through a basic induction with their new intern(s). You are welcome to complete your own induction or you may wish to use the Professional Pathways Internship induction checklist we have put together. You can download this checklist here: Pathways induction checklist.

We have also put together some notes of guidance for employers hosting an intern via the Professional Pathway programme. You can view these here.

We ask employers to set clear objectives for their intern(s) and be available to provide information and guidance throughout the 35 hour internship.

The Professional Pathways Team will be available during the internship to support you and your intern(s) should this be required.

Internship feedback

At the end of the internship, we ask that you please complete the Employer Feedback Form. This will be emailed to you shortly after the end of the internship and your comments will be taken into account during our evaluation exercise.

Internship terms and conditions

All parties (the employer, the University and the student), must adhere to the Student Secondment Agreement. This agreement ensures the student is committed to the internship and both the employer and the University understand the remit of their duty of care for the student. This document must be signed by all three parties before the internship can begin.

Employer Case Studies

If you would like to hear from previous employers who have participated in the Pathways to Charity and Development programme, you can read our employers case studies below:

To find out more about the programme, please email the team at professionalpathways@exeter.ac.uk.

Feedback from previous employers

Hear from employers who have previously hosted an intern via our Pathways to Charity and Development programme:

“This focused internship has really added value to our work, data review, strategy creation, content production ... I am amazed at what high quality work can be outputted in such a short period of time (all while giving the students training, feedback and hopefully the opportunity to learn new skills and tackle real-world challenges).” (Susanna Plummer, Working Options)

“It was a very productive and enjoyable experience. Our Intern used her expertise and research to help us develop new projects within our organisation. We were grateful to have another professional, knowledgeable person on the team for a week.” (Becks Sweetman, Farms for City Children)

“Our intern Sophie was incredibly motivated. She successfully completed our agreed project to a very high standard. Sophie drafted our new fundraising pack to inspire supporters to fundraise for Step One, and additionally created further supporting materials to help our mission. I would highly recommend the programme to any charity that has a one-off project they need to kickstart or complete. I am confident Sophie will go on to have a great career in the charity sector.” (Victoria Lewis, Step One Charity)

“You will receive an intern primed and ready to slot into your organisation from day one, as though they’ve always been there. We are already missing Lucy and hope to welcome her back again one day.” (Christie Burton, Wild Futures)

“This programme is inspiring and of mutual benefit. The students have so much creativity to offer and a fresh perspective that's valuable to any employer who's got a project they need help with. They're intelligent and hard-working individuals and get so much from the experience too to help inform the path of their career.” (Dawn Vincent, The Mare and Foal Sanctuary)

"Our intern brought bags of energy and put a smile on everyone's face. We found his approach refreshing and inspiring and were really happy to be part of his personal development.” (Molly Southwood, Exeter Leukaemia Fund)