Director of Development & Storytelling at OPEN, a global progressive alliance. Location: anywhere!

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May 23, 2015, 1:17:53 PM5/23/15
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Job Announcement – Director of Development and Storytelling for OPEN
(Online Progressive Engagement Network)


OPEN is a young and growing association of the world's leading and most promising progressive, national, digital-campaigning organizations. We help insights, expertise and collaboration flow seamlessly between our member groups across national borders. This dramatically accelerates innovation, deepens impact, and helps new member organizations launch and thrive in record time.


See a 3-minute video tour of our global network and program here. (PW: MeetOPEN)


Our ambitious, not-for-profit enterprise seeks a dynamic, multi-talented Development/Fundraising professional and expert Storyteller to help us resource our operation and tell our story to a variety of stakeholders including funders, allies and friends around the world.


Email CV and cover letter to: jo...@the-open.net -- by Friday May 29th.


I) ABOUT OPEN


Our Members


OPEN’s founding member organizations include MoveOn in the United States, Campact in Germany, GetUp in Australia, 38 Degrees in the UK, and Leadnow in Canada. We are currently supporting start-up organizations in India, South Africa, Sweden, Ireland, France, Austria, New Zealand and nearly 15 other countries across the globe.


Collectively our founding members engage over 15 million individual activists, averaging over 1 out of every 15 voters in the federal elections of their respective nations. In 2013 and 2014 alone, OPEN groups turned out a confirmed total of 424,942 volunteers to offline activities, ranging from local petition deliveries to major rallies.


All OPEN member organizations campaign on a wide range of progressive issues, as shaped by their national debates and the preferences of their individual supporters. Top issue campaigns include combating climate change, pushing back on anti-democratic trade deals, addressing economic inequality, preserving net neutrality, promoting LGBT rights, stopping tax dodging by the super rich, defending workers rights, and expanding and defending public services, especially health care.


The core of  the organizing model is surprisingly simple: when key issues their community cares about reach a tipping point (in legislation, elections, corporate decisions, or other channels) OPEN groups engage their members through email, social networks, and mobile channels to offer timely information, strategic analysis and tools for collective action to shape the outcome. The choice of tactic depends on what form of collective action would be most effective at any given time -- but they nearly always include a mix of online and offline action.


Our Program


OPEN was founded in 2013 by our Executive Director Ben Brandzel and the original member organizations with a four-part mission and program:

  1. Connect these groups to share expertise, best practices, technology, and resources seamlessly across borders. We do this in person through staff exchanges and summits, and virtually through a range of facilitated and ad-hoc communication channels.

  2. Coordinate efforts between groups to do joint-campaigning and strategically leverage trans-national partnerships. Our highest priority joint issues in 2015-16 are trade and climate.

  3. Enhance their impact with world class expertise, technology and support, by leveraging network efficiencies and a global reach to make these resources more far accessible and affordable. Our current focus is on spreading best-in-class management training, video production, and collaborative technology development.

  4. Grow the network by catalyzing and supporting new start-ups in key nations. While we have start ups in 4 continents, our top priority growth region for 2015 is Europe.


We believe the most serious issues we face are actually global problems which require many national solutions. To meet that challenge we need fully independent domestic movements optimized to win campaigns in each national context. And we need a robust global network to accelerate innovation, maximize every resource, and supercharge collective impact  That’s OPEN.


Note: OPEN is a “B2B” organization with a very low public profile (i.e. Google won’t tell you very much). This is intentional, as the political implications of an international association can be sensitive in some of the countries in which we work.


II ABOUT THE ROLE


The Director of Development and Storytelling is a new position at OPEN. It's a combination of a traditional Director of Development role with what we might call Director of Storytelling. There are 3 categories of  responsibilities within this role:


i) OPEN Development includes managing OPEN’s fundraising system from start to finish - from identifying prospects, to cultivating relationships, to grant proposal writing, to maintaining ongoing communications with funders, to formal reporting and renewing grants. This means owning the functions that help grow OPEN’s resources as an organization.


ii) Stakeholder Communications includes ongoing maintenance of our stakeholder database, regular updates about OPEN activities and key moments, wholesale relationship-building and strategic networking. It also includes individualized and tailored communications with key funders and stakeholders on aspects that they care most about, are most interested in, or that OPEN most wants to direct them towards.


iii)  Network Storytelling includes capturing, presenting, sharing and celebrating with the member groups the myriad of amazing stories that pop up every week across our network.  These illustrate the incredible work our groups are doing and the growing power of their collaboration and we want them to see that reflected back in a consistent and reliable way.


OPEN is constantly producing, constantly moving, and the Director of Development and Storytelling will be responsible for keeping our funders, stakeholders, and network members in the know,  particularly on the pockets of OPEN’s work that they care most about.  There are mechanics involved in this – like obligatory grant reports and other technical pieces. There is research involved – prospecting research to determine the kinds of things our various funders may be interested in knowing about and the kinds of communications that would best suit them.  But there is also a magic touch. Our Director of Development and Storytelling must have that magic touch – a keen ear and a fluid written communication style that is consistent with OPEN’s evolving brand.


We are ideally looking for a full-time staff member but are open to hearing other ideas from consultants or freelancers.


OPEN is a virtual office organization and we are open to applicants in any location, with a slight preference for the East Coast of the USA (where our Tech Director, Growth Consultant and many funders are based)  or Bangalore India (where our Executive Director is based).


Experience and skills required (or preferred):

  • Proven professional written communications experience (example: experience as a communications professional, grant-writer or content writer);

  • Moderate graphic design abilities and strong aesthetic sense for written presentations;

  • Knowledge or understanding of online communications/ online organizing/ digital strategy;

  • General identification and familiarity with and passion for progressive politics and grassroots power-building;

  • High aptitude in tracking and synthesizing lots of information from many sources -- bringing order to complexity, spotting and articulating patterns and opportunities;

  • High comfort level with an international community and global conversation;

  • At least 3-5 years of professional experience in progressive activism and/or non-profit development preferred;

  • Preferred familiarity with basic CRM systems like Mailchimp, Salesforce, Salsa or others;

  • Preferred working understanding of the funder landscape in the US and/or Europe and/or other;

  • Exceptionally gifted communicator in written English

How to Apply:


Please send a Resume/CV and cover letter to jo...@the-open.net by Friday, May 29th.



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