Virginia State Organizing Director

Virginia State Organizing Director

Progress Virginia is an equal-opportunity employer. Women, people of color, persons with disabilities, veterans, and LGBTQ candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

About Progress Virginia:

At Progress Virginia, we drive powerful, values-based narratives to uplift and amplify grassroots voices through innovative digital communications and earned media strategies. We build progressive power alongside marginalized communities to tear down systems of white supremacy, advocate for equitable policies, and ensure leaders reflect the communities they serve. We strive to be anti-racist in all that we do. We are committed to dismantling white supremacy and interrogating our work to ensure we are actively working toward racial equity, and all of our programs are tied to specific racial equity goals both internally and externally.

Who You Are:

• Committed to progressive values and committed to anti-racist work
• Creative, flexible, and willing to experiment and take risks
• Self-motivated and disciplined with the ability to own the work and drive it forward with minimal supervision while working from home most of the time
• Excited about working to win, promote, and take credit for progressive electoral and policy victories to our online audiences in Virginia
• Interested in creating and implementing innovative digital content and strategies, growing our existing relationships with our online social media audiences across platforms, and dismantling white supremacy in our culture.

Starting Salary: $35,000 (see details below)

Term: May 2025 - December 2025

Reporting Structure: This position reports to the Executive Director

Primary Areas of Responsibility:

• Development and implementation of a state volunteer recruitment plan in coordination with paid organizers on the ground in Virginia (30%)
• Management and oversight over a team of communications organizers operating throughout Virginia (30%)
• Set overall goals and metrics of success for identification, recruitment and engagement of recruited volunteers with state organizers (20%)
• Work and liaise with National Megaphone team members including Training Director, National Organizing Director, Program Director, and Executive Team to design training materials for organizers and volunteers (20%)

Job Classification: 2025 Election Cycle

This is not an entry-level position.

Position Summary:

The state organizing director will manage a team of communications organizers operating throughout Virginia and work with Progress Virginia’s Executive Director to manage and oversee the identification, recruitment, and engagement of volunteers interested in personal storytelling and political engagement on social media channels. They are responsible for assisting organizers in executing recruitment and engagement plans, taking their own knowledge of field organizing and relational management, and putting it to use in a new and first-of-its-kind program to ensure that trusted local community validators are sharing progressive messages across social media channels. Through the creation of these volunteer teams, the state organizing director will help create a compelling progressive narrative as well as combat misinformation and disinformation being spread on social media channels. The state organizing director should be well versed in field organizing strategies, recruitment, relational organizing, field organizing metrics and strategies to keep volunteers engaged and moving up a ladder of engagement.

Primary Areas of Responsibility:

Development and implementation of a state volunteer recruitment plan in Virginia and in consultation and coordination with paid organizers (30%)

• Create quarterly goals for recruitment by each organizer and assist organizers in building week-by-week plans that identify the tactics to be used for identification, recruitment, and engagement
• Work directly with organizers to teach them how to apply field and relational organizing tactics to compel volunteers to share content and their own stories across social media platforms
• Assist Progress Virginia’s Executive Director in the scaling of the program across the state with an eye toward ensuring realistic volunteer management goals per organizer
• Work with state and national staff including the national data manager to analyze metrics around volunteer participation in the program and work with organizers to come up with tactics and programming that maximize that participation
• Collaborate with other team members to develop strategies and materials that serve volunteer needs

Management and oversight over a team of communications organizers operating throughout Virginia (30%)

• Work directly with organizers on creating their specific in-state organizing and recruitment plans.
• Working with other senior staff at Progress Virginia to effectively target organizing efforts to ensure that volunteers being recruited have reach in communities that need to hear progressive messages
• Help organizers troubleshoot organizing challenges and create a ladder of engagement that turns volunteers into local leaders
• Meet regularly with organizers to ensure that they are implementing their organizing plans and meeting their organizing goals
• Help Progress Virginia communications staff prioritize messages being put in front of volunteers to ensure that organizers and volunteers are able to rapidly respond to breaking news or other opportunities
• Develop regular programming and assist organizers in the creation of communications strategies that foster community between volunteers
• Develop materials that help communicators adopt field organizing strategies and tactics toward the goals of greater visibility of progressive messages

Set overall goals and metrics of success for identification, recruitment, and engagement of recruited volunteers with state organizers (20%)

• Work directly with organizers and national data manager to create organizer-specific metrics of success for volunteer recruitment and engagement
• Meet regularly with organizers to ensure that they are meeting their goals and troubleshoot ways to meet them if they are not being met
• Set overall goals of the state program in consultation with the Progress Virginia Executive Director and relevant national staff, ensuring that we are maximizing our efforts to recruit and retain volunteers
• In consultation with the national data manager and others, come up with a regular reporting mechanism that can communicate program successes in the state to the program manager, executive team, and stakeholders regularly

Work and liaise with National Megaphone team members including Training Director, National Organizing Director, Program Director, and Executive Team to design training materials for organizers and volunteers (20%)

• Help to create new and innovative training materials that translate the best practices of field organizing into communications
• Ensure that training materials include both theoretical and practical guidance for organizers who are taking communications and putting them directly into the hands of volunteers
• Assist in ensuring that training materials give organizers a realistic understanding of the tactics and tools that are at their disposal
• Assuring that organizers understand how long it takes to meet goals and have a numerically driven approach to the universe sizes they need to effectively recruit and target, as well as realistic expectations for how many communications/completes it takes to reach goals.

Required experience, skills, and competencies:

• 3-5 years of field and organizing experience on political or advocacy campaigns, mostly in Virginia
• Broad understanding of field and relational strategies and tactics, able to look at those strategies and tactics through a new lens and adapt them for the communications space
• Demonstrated success in other organizing efforts in Virginia
• Skilled communicator who can translate organizing concepts and help mentor/assist organizers in their work
• Background in setting and meeting field organizing goals as well as reporting
• Understands how to move a volunteer up a ladder of engagement and can help organizers develop volunteers into leaders
• An understanding of how personal stories and emotional connection affect public opinion
• Experience working with coalition partners
• Understands field analytics and has a demonstrated ability to use those analytics to inform strategy

To Apply:

Interested candidates, please apply with the following information to

ashleigh@progressva.org with the subject line “Virginia Organizing Director”:

• A letter describing your interest,
• A detailed resume

The position is remote, with minimal travel expected. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so please apply as soon as possible. If we find your skills match those of the position, we will contact you for an interview.

• Proof of COVID-19 vaccination (including eligible boosters) is required unless a medical

or religious accommodation is granted.

Because negotiating is inherently inequitable, we want to be transparent about what benefits

we can offer up front and avoid negotiation.

The salary for this position is $35,000. People in this position must provide their own computers and additional work equipment, but may submit reimbursement requests of up to $100 per month to cover costs for phone access and $75 for internet access. This is an election cycle position that does not provide health care or other benefits.