FAQ – U.S. Climate Corps hosts

Climate Corps Fellows in the U.S. program are diverse graduate students who we recruit from institutions across the U.S. Many are pursuing MBAs with a focus on sustainability, and some are pursuing Masters Degrees in Public Policy, Public Administration, Environmental Science, and other relevant fields. Climate Corps fellow have on average 4 years of work experience, and are self-starters with project management and leadership experience, demonstrated success aligning and collaborating across teams, strong communication skills including presentation skills, and a passion for solving environmental challenges.

All eligible applicants are eligible to work in the U.S. for the summer. Every year, we vet a pool of over 1,000 candidates and make custom matches to companies and organizations based on Fellows’ areas of expertise and organizational needs.

We continue to focus recruitment efforts on historically underrepresented groups by building relationships with relevant graduate programs at HBCUs, HSIs, and public universities. Last year, of the universities we held recruitment sessions at 30% were minority-serving institutions and 65% were public universities. Climate Corps staff also recruit at diversity-focused conferences, including the National Black MBA Association conference. In 2022, 47% of our fellows identified as people of color. Our DEIJ report is available here if you want to dig in deeper.

Since 2008, we’ve placed over 1,400 Fellows within over 600 different organizations across private industries as well as nonprofit and public sectors. See all past and present host organizations and explore our database to find out more about Fellow projects and past partners.

Over 600 organizations from a wide range of industries and sectors have hosted a Climate Corps Fellow. We invite you to browse our full database to find out more about Fellow projects and past partners here.

Climate Corps Fellowships are 10-12 weeks between May and September. The exact weeks are flexible, depending on the host’s and fellow’s schedule.

This helpful graphic explains our process, and companies that are accepted into the program have an Engagement Manager on the Climate Corps team who can answer additional questions about the process.

Climate Corps hosts the weeklong Fellow Training in late May, which includes technical and professional content to bolster Fellows’ capacity to contribute to your team and goals. Last year’s agenda can be found here for reference.

Throughout the summer, Climate Corps also provides Fellows additional support through our Cohort model as well as advising from sustainability and energy experts, and an EDF Engagement Manager on the Climate Corps team for general support and when specific questions arise.

The Climate Corps Fellow Training is a valuable capacity-building experience that is integral to the Climate Corps Fellowship. The weeklong pre-fellowship commitment enhances Fellows’ technical and professional knowledge, helps them build important and useful connections and prepares them to be successful in their fellowships. Paying Climate Corps Fellows for Fellow Training is part of an effort to ensure that Fellows are compensated fairly for their time and contributions.

All hosts are required to:

• Hire Fellows directly at a salary of at least $1,400 per week for 10-12 weeks, plus $1,400 for participation in the Fellow Training. For example, for a 10 week project, the total cost is at least $15,400. There is no fee or cost to EDF. 
  • Salary will vary for our China and India programs.
• Provide a supportive high-level project sponsor and an accessible day-to-day manager/direct supervisor as well as provide suitable office space or remote-working equipment and support from relevant departments. We recommend that the Fellow’s day-to-day manager is available to meet with the Fellow one-on-one on a weekly basis.
• Make relevant records and information available to the Fellow.
• Implement Fellow recommendations at the discretion of the organization. Provide EDF with updates on implementation after Fellowship completion.

Typically, host organizations onboard their Fellows as “interns” or “term employees.” Ultimately, it is up to the host organization to work with their HR department to figure out the best way to classify and work with their Fellows. There is no expectation by Climate Corps to provide benefits in addition to the Fellow salary.

EDF and the Climate Corps Team agree to:

• Match you and your needs with Fellows according to Fellows’ expertise and experience.
• Train Fellows and provide them with extensive support and resources over the summer.
• Provide documentation that they are a U.S. Citizen or authorized to work in the U.S. over the summer.
• Support Fellows’ and Hosts’ technical and network building capacities through various webinars and events.

Climate Corps Fellows agree that they will:

• Be in compliance of federal law that states: all Climate Corps Fellows extended an offer by one of our host organizations must be able to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and complete the required employment eligibility verifications document forms by the first day of employment.
• Work onsite, remotely, or hybrid at the host organization full time for 10-12 weeks on the assigned workplan, and adhere to all hiring processes, HR policies and standards of the host organization.
• Provide final deliverables to both the host organization and EDF, based on Fellows’ workplan including a set of recommendations to drive next steps.

EDF will not refer to any organization’s specific program or results publicly without prior written approval. The aggregate, anonymized results of Climate Corps fellows’ impact may be shared in order to maximize both environmental and business benefits.

We are extremely proud of the outcomes our Fellows have achieved and invite you to explore our project database and index of case studies.

Please reach out! We would love to set up a call to help you develop your project and walk you through the application process. The best person to contact is Mali’o Kodis, who you can reach out to here.