Lead Organizer at the MinKwon Center for Community Action in Flushing, Queens, NY

[Ahram Kim]

The MinKwon Center for Community Action is pleased to invite applications to join our team as a Lead Organizer. This is a full-time, salaried position.

Organization History & Mission: The MinKwon Center for Community Action was established in 1984 as the Young Korean American Service & Education Center (YKASEC) to meet the needs and concerns of the Korean American community.  Since our founding, we have made a profound presence through various grassroots organizing, education, and advocacy initiatives that address important community issues, including immigration policies, voter rights, and cultural awareness.  The MinKwon Center places a special emphasis on meeting the needs of our marginalized community members, including youth, elderly, recent immigrants, low-income residents, and limited-English-proficient residents.

Job Description: The Lead Organizer will play a key role in MinKwon’s Civic Engagement team to strengthen and develop our advocacy campaigns, grassroots organizing and voter engagement within our communities. Responsibilities include:

• Work closely with director-level staff to plan, develop and strengthen both existing and new advocacy campaigns on issues such as comprehensive immigration reform, fairer allocation of city and state budgets, affordable housing and other social justice issues
• Play a leading role in our Advocacy and Community Organizing Program to develop an informed, active base of community members engaged on these issues
• Work closely with others on the Civic Engagement team to integrate organizing, advocacy and voter engagement activities
• Represent the MinKwon Center in partnerships, coalition activities and other external relationships
• Supervise and work closely with MinKwon’s Community Organizers
• Work with organizers in designing and executing intensive outreach to Korean community members, including mobilization for campaign events
• Work with organizers to develop members’ leadership abilities, coordinate regular member meetings, and track members contacts in our membership database
• Speak at rallies, campaigns and media appearances on behalf of organization

Job Requirements: The ideal candidate will be highly motivated, organized, detail-oriented and a systems-thinker who is adept at solving problems and working collaboratively. Candidates will be evaluated on the basis of the following:

• Demonstrated interest and commitment to working on social justice issues, such as immigrants’ rights and civil rights
• Experience in advocacy and/or community organizing (strongly preferred)
• Ability to work closely and cordially with co-workers and allies in close-knit team environment
• Excellent communications skills and ability to guide and help lead group meetings
• Ability to work independently and cordially with others
• Self-directed and focused – Ability to work independently, set and meet deadlines and benchmarks without external prompting
• Ability and willingness to participate in regular evening/weekend events
• Ability to be highly organized, adapt to simultaneous timelines, and take initiative on projects
• Spoken fluency or proficiency in Korean 

MinKwon Center will accept applications on a rolling basis until the position is filled.  Please prepare a detailed cover letter and resume describing your interest in the organization and the position and email to: James Hong, Director of Civic Engagement h...@minkwon.org. NOTE:  Make subject line of email “Application to Position: Lead Organizer - [YOUR NAME]”