Nader Ghorban Zadeh
About Community Change and Community Change Action:
Community Change builds the power and capacity of low-income people, especially low-income people of color, to lead powerful and dynamic movements for social change. With our community-based partner groups, we bridge the grassroots and the national, supporting outsider strategies to disrupt the status quo while also building pathways to influence the insider conversation.
Our vision of a better world centers the leadership of impacted people of color to move our work on immigrant rights, economic justice, and racial equity, including a focus on jobs and housing, early childhood care and education, income supports, and immigration reform.
This position also supports Community Change Action, an affiliated 501(c)(4) advocacy organization. While motivated by the same core values – equity, inclusion, and justice – Community Change and Community Change Action operate independently of one another and each organization has its own board of directors.
Position Description:
The Economic Justice Campaign Director will provide strategic direction, broad campaign development, and overall coordination for priority issue campaigns under our Economic Justice program for Community Change/Action. This includes the development and management of our collaborations with key national allies such as unions, advocacy and policy groups. The Economic Justice Campaign Director will organize, train, and build local and state coalitions with existing and new partners to build power to win changes at the local, state, and federal levels. The Director’s responsibilities include setting campaign goals, managing team work plans, supervising staff, evaluation and reporting.
The Economic Justice Campaign Director will work hand-in-hand with the Director of Economic Justice and coordinate with members of the senior staff, including the Power in Places Electoral, Reinvestment, Immigration, Housing Trust Fund, Field Support, Policy, and Communications teams, who lead various aspects of our work, to jointly advance our mission and core priorities under Path to Power, and provide strategic direction, broad campaign development, and overall coordination across the organization. They will support in overseeing and coordinating our Economic Justice projects to ensure that the EJ program meets its goals and deliverables.
Principal Responsibilities:
- Help grassroots organizations to develop strategies to build alliances, partnerships, and coalitions with other organizations to enhance their power and to achieve their goals, including organizational and strategic development work, fundraising, leadership training, and non-partisan electoral work.
- Train and mentor both local organizational leaders as well as organizing staff working for and in partnership with Community Change/Action.
- Manage, supervise, develop and evaluate program staff.
- Work with the Institutional Advancement team to fundraise for Community Change/Action’s work, including managing and supporting relationships with major donors and foundation representatives, and providing material for grant proposals and reports as needed.
- Work with the Communications Department to increase visibility for Community Change/Action, including talking to the press as needed.
- Represent Community Change/Action in speaking engagements and prepare the Executive Team to do so as well.
- Work with Community Change/Action legal counsel to maintain the appropriate legal separation between 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) work.
- Assist in reviewing budgets and expense reports, tracking deliverables and managing reporting mechanisms, and preparing subgrant and campaign plan documents.
Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.
Qualifications:
- Minimum of seven to ten years of experience in community organizing, labor or immigrant rights organizing and work leading campaigns at the local, state or national policy initiatives on economic justice issues. A mix of experiences in these areas is ideal.
- Experience developing and overseeing field plans to move targets, and great attention to details for program evaluation and deliverables tracking.
- Understanding and use of research to inform work.
- Demonstrated experience in organizational assessment and development; ability to provide significant help in organizational and coalition development and create a sense of community among disparate organizations and leaders towards a common purpose.
- Familiarity with and openness to different approaches to grassroots organizing and policy work.
- Fundraising experience with social justice/community organizing foundations.
- Familiarity with online technology (email/SMS/mobile tools) and electoral tools (VAN, Catalyst) for use in field campaigns.
- Strong relationship-building, facilitation, and training skills.
- Administrative skills. Financial expertise and budget management.
- Relational capacity; ability to work democratically and effectively with diverse groups and people.
- Experience in leading and supervising a complex team and the ability to build and move a diverse team of senior-level individuals, based across the U.S.
- Experience and comfort working as part of a multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural team and know how to combine assets available to the team in a way that maximizes the ability of the team to function at a high level.
- Strong team player, familiar with team dynamics and willing to work in a team environment.
- Strong commitment to racial, gender justice and social change.
- Knowledge of key issues that our organization currently works on, such as poverty, criminal justice reform, jobs, economic justice, immigration and/or other issues.
- Excellent written and oral communication skills, including conference presentation skills.
- The ability to produce consistent, quality work in a fast-paced environment.
- Ability to work at a macro level, keeping in mind the broader vision, while also attending to operational details.
- Thrives on complexity and challenges.
- Capacity and willingness to work long, flexible hours and to travel extensively.
- Demonstrated ability to conceive and execute creative, breakthrough strategic initiatives to achieve goals.
- Comfortable using cloud-based technology including Google Suite and dynamic databases like Salesforce.
- The ability to speak a language used by key constituents is a plus.
This position reports to: Director of Economic Justice.
Classification: Community Change recognizes a staff bargaining unit affiliated with IFPTE Local 70, a union for non-profit workers. This position is not included in Community Change’s bargaining unit and therefore not covered under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement.
Travel Requirements: This position requires some travel, about 3-7 days each month.
Salary & benefits: $105,000 starting annual salary. Community Change also offers an excellent benefits package, which includes 4 weeks of annual paid vacation; additional paid holiday leave between December 24 and January 1; 8% employer contribution to retirement account after six months of employment (and 3% employer contribution for the first 6 months); and a choice of generous health insurance plans.
Position Location: Flexible, but strong preference for NYC and Washington, DC.
Closing Date of Position: As soon as filled.
How to apply: Please click here to submit a cover letter sharing your personal interest as well as salary expectations, a resume, and two writing samples.
Community Change is an Equal Opportunity Employer