Childcare Changemakers Organizing Director

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:

Digital organizing tactics have allowed the child care movement to build, for the first time, a national base of directly affected people who can be mobilized for national advocacy. For the past several years, Community Change has experimented with engaging a growing base of providers and parents through our cutting edge Childcare Changemakers digital organizing project. We are testing and honing digital methods for bringing together once-isolated workers and community members to organize and win meaningful change for the care workforce.

Changemakers is now a growing network of over 70,000 child care providers, parents and families organizing together to bring transformational change to our child care system. The program works with volunteers in almost every state, develops powerful new leaders, and serves as a model for innovative digital organizing experimentation. We believe this base of leaders will be instrumental to any future campaign work on child care, and a core part of the movement to win a universal childcare system in this country.

To take this exciting work to the next level, we seek an Organizing Director to lead our Changemakers Organizing team in sharpening their organizing skills to deepen our grassroots movement of leaders. The right candidate will have experience training and coaching organizers, building direct membership bases with a focus on leadership development, and a track record of winning campaigns.

Because this is remote work, we are looking for someone who is highly independent and takes initiative. In this political climate, we are often working in rapid response moments and seek a candidate who thrives in this environment. The Organizing Director should propose bold ideas that sometimes fail and sometimes succeed. This role will require flexibility in work hours with long hours when necessary during campaign peaks.

Our Childcare Changemakers organizing program of individuals is being built alongside our longstanding work in the grassroots child care movement to support state-based organizing groups to win local, state, and federal campaigns.

Principal Responsibilities:

The primary job responsibilities for this position will include:

• Responsible for day-to-day Childcare Changemakers operations and setting strategy with the Community Change team on how to work with our national base of parents and providers to develop their leadership and organizing skills.
• Supervision and training of the Changemakers Organizers, with a focus on developing their community organizing and leadership skills.
• Responsible for thinking through how to weave Community Change’s broader child care strategy into the program, as well as teach organizing fundamentals and theory of change to the Changemakers Organizers and Changemakers base.
• Convene meetings and work with Childcare Changemakers organizers to:
  • Develop local and state strategic organizing plans in a distributed leadership organizing model
  • Develop leaders to use our organizing tools to build their base
  • Develop strategic communication plans as needed
  • Support in-person actions and events
• Supervise the Changemakers Organizers to grow our organizing base of Childcare Changemakers using various forms of digital tools that lead to face-to-face conversations, including but not limited to:
  • Peer-to-peer texting platforms
  • Creating content and engaging online communities to foster community within Childcare Changemakers
  • Relational organizing tools
  • Social media specifically Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
  • Running digital ads
• In addition to organizing in the digital space, our program has regular in-person days of action like our annual Day Without Child Care, which will likely have at least 80 events across the country in over 30 states this year. We also develop state and local campaigns in a handful of priority states which require the development of campaign arcs, strategy and tactics, and events.
• Work with the Childcare Changemakers to identify grassroots leaders for media and legislative lobbying opportunities.
• Form relationships with national allies to help advance the Childcare Changemakers work
• Own the Changemakers campaign cycles, like Day Without Child Care, federal mobilization moments, and electoral work.
• Support the writing and drafting of emails and website language.
• Development of a strong team culture where each person feels valued, there is accountability, there is celebration, and clarity of purpose and strategy.
• Collaboration between different teams inside of Community Change including, digital, communications, policy and advocacy, and electoral.

Qualifications:

• At least 5 years experience as an Organizing Director, Campaign Director or Executive Director at an organization where the primary theory of change is grassroots organizing. This can include leadership roles within a progressive political campaign, non-profit or union.
• Senior-level understanding of organizing principles and experience implementing campaign strategies and tactics. Experience as the staff lead on several campaigns, ability to share lessons learned from those campaigns, and how you approached making challenging decisions.
• At least 3 years experience with staff supervision, particularly the management and development of community organizers. A track record of successfully training and mentoring organizers and creating team cultures of accountability and intention.
• Demonstrated commitment to racial, gender, economic, and social justice along with worker and community leadership.
• Familiarity with digital tools and their application to organizing including, but not limited to, peer-to-peer texting, broadcast texting, Facebook and Twitter. A familiarity with moving grassroots leaders from social media and into organizing campaigns is a plus.
• Strong communication skills, specifically the ability to write clearly and concisely.
• Experience with collaborative decision making and experience leading coalitions.
• Experience working with a regionally dispersed or remote team.
• An ability to juggle multiple projects and work in a fast-paced environment.
• A demonstrated commitment to meeting high standards and a history of getting things done even in the face of obstacles.
• Ambition, drive, and energy.
• Ability to speak and write in fluent Spanish is a plus.
• Experience with voter engagement and electoral organizing is a plus.

This position reports to: Economic Justice Campaign Manager

Supervisory Responsibility: Yes

Travel Requirements: This position requires travel approximately 5-6 times per year. However, during peak periods (typically April-June and September-December), travel may be required on a more frequent, potentially monthly basis. While monthly travel is not expected year-round, candidates should be prepared for occasional periods of increased travel as needed.

Salary & benefits: The annual salary range is $95,000 - $105,000. 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 and a Summer break the week of July 4th; 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.

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 is not covered under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement.

Location: This is a remote position.

Equal Opportunity: 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. We strongly encourage the interest and applications of people of color, women, and people in the disabled and LGBTQ+ communities. Community Change is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Closing Date of Position: Open Until Filled

Click here to learn more about our employee benefits and Community Change’s values