Industry professionals: are you looking for bright talent to help you with a challenging social impact project? Here’s what you need to know about becoming a client with the WISE Program.

We review all project proposals, but we are especially excited about project opportunities in Philadelphia. We strongly encourage businesses and companies interested in scaling their impact within our city to apply.

Please note: the WISE client application is currently closed. Subscribe to our newsletter to learn more about the next application cycle.

WISE Program General Information

• WISE Fellows are undergraduate or graduate students from across Wharton and Penn. They apply to projects based on how closely the descriptions align with their skills and interests, and are then interviewed and selected by Wharton Social Impact Initiative (WSII) staff.
• WISE Fellows are strictly prohibited from the following activities:
  • Performing direct service
  • Soliciting or organizing campaigns to raise funds
  • Engaging in any political or religious activity
• All projects are approved by WSII staff and are managed in cooperation with the “client”.
• WISE Fellows work on project deliverables throughout the semester, so we do not recommend that you submit time-sensitive projects for consideration.
• WSII cannot guarantee that each project will receive applicants; therefore, we can only move forward with projects for which a sufficient number of qualified student applications are received.
• While WSII serves as additional support for quality control purposes, it is important to keep in mind that the work is being done by the student Fellows.

WISE Program Client Expectations

• You must work closely with WSII staff to create a task-orientated project scope that is reasonable for Fellows to accomplish in 8-10 weeks (working 8 hours/week). Your responses in your application will be used to create these documents.
• You are also required to identify a point-of-contact who should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week on this work for the duration of the project, including weekly or bi-weekly check-ins with WSII staff and WISE Fellows.
• The most successful WISE clients invest the time in orienting the Fellows to their company or organization, and clarifying the strategic importance of the project and how the Fellows will contribute to their impact goals.
• At the end of each semester, you will be asked to complete a feedback survey.  You may also be asked to provide quotes or an interview for promotional material for the WSII website.