2026 Top Employer
Virginia Economic Development Partnership recognizes Public Servants for its high-quality, paid internship program.
Public Servants has been named a 2026 InternshipsVA Top Employer by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP), recognizing our approach to creating high-quality, paid internship experiences.
Our internship program is still young—and intentionally evolving. Each cohort helps us learn more about what it means to create an experience where emerging practitioners can contribute meaningful work while having room to learn, experiment, ask questions, and develop their own practice.
“We want internships at Public Servants to be genuinely useful to the people who spend part of their early careers with us,” said Ashleigh Axios, founder and CEO of Public Servants. “That means paying people for their contributions, giving them meaningful work, and creating room to learn, experiment, and develop their own point of view. This recognition encourages us to keep building on that approach.”
Interns at Public Servants work alongside our team on company-initiated projects spanning design, research, communications, and public-interest work. We pair that experience with regular critique and reflection, opportunities to learn from practitioners in different disciplines, and space for each cohort to help shape what they work on together.
The state-sponsored award recognizes Public Servants alongside other Virginia employers investing in high-quality, paid internship programs. InternshipsVA, an initiative of VEDP, supports employers across the Commonwealth with guidance, recruitment tools, training, and matching grants for eligible employers.
We're grateful to the interns who have trusted us with a part of their early careers—and who have helped make the program better through their ideas, questions, work, and feedback. We're equally grateful to the practitioners and leaders who have shared their time, experience, and expertise with those building the next stage of their careers.
And we're continuing to build. Our Fall 2026 cohort is getting underway now, bringing another group of emerging practitioners into the work and another opportunity for us to learn alongside them.
