Appalachian Peoples Union Director

Position Title: Appalachian Peoples Union Director

Tier / Category: Tier 5 / Director I

Reports to: Grassroots Organizing Director

Employment Status: Full Time

FLSA: Exempt

Location: Kentucky and Appalachia

NLRA: Management Role, not a Bargaining Unit Member

Drawing on the deep history of Appalchian freedom fighters, Appalachian People’s Union (APU) brings working white Appalachian people into local community campaigns fighting for justice in the Appalachian region of the South. It is a project of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), a national organization that brings white people into fights for racial and economic justice. We work to undermine the power of the Far Right and build the white flank of multiracial majorities fighting for the things all communities need. We organize white people by engaging their shared interest - what they stand to gain by joining alongside people of color. We do this through 150+ local chapters across the US and Canada, a National Membership base, and local base building projects in the South.

Summary of Position:

SURJ is seeking a Director for the Appalachian Peoples’ Union to lead the project’s work. The Director is responsible for being a lead strategist focused on working class, majority white, rural Appalachian Kentucky communities. This position will supervise organizing staff and ensure coordination between other SURJ projects working in Appalachian states. The Appalachian Organizing Director will also hold key relationships in the region, particularly with key organizing partners who are aligned with SURJ.

Our vision for the Appalachian Peoples’ Union is to build a powerful working class organizing program spanning Appalachia which includes local base building projects and coalition work, in addition to distributed organizing campaigns including material economic issues and electoral work, as well as digital, cultural organizing, and narrative campaigns. APU’s goal is to run campaigns that interrupt the Far Right’s racist divide and conquer strategy by bringing working class white people into multiracial coalitions so that we can win better conditions for all people in Appalachia. Right now, Kentucky is the primary state within APU, but we are holding a vision of growing into other states in Appalachia in the future. Our work is often done in close partnership with other groups in the Appalachian region.

Reports to: Clay Smith, Grassroots Organizing Director

Current Direct Reports: Kentucky Peoples’ Union Organizer, Madison County Tenant Union

Organizer

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES — Essential duties and responsibilities may include, but are not

limited to the following:

Rural Organizing in Kentucky (75% of time)

Strategy and Leadership

• Pursue SURJ’s current Strategic Goals by implementing specific strategies and tactics at APU as outlined in OKRs and other plans.
• Identify and articulate a vision for the growth and development of APU, and long term goals and strategies for its ongoing development.
• Be a leader on the SURJ Grassroots Organizing team by innovating and experimenting with SURJ’s transformational organizing model, supporting the team in evaluation processes, and sharing lessons learned with the larger staff body, network, and partners.
• Ensure coordination and communication between APU programs and other organizing programs across SURJ.

Supervising rural organizing in Kentucky

• Supervise, support, and mentor the staff organizers of the Kentucky Peoples Union and Madison County Tenants Union. Ensure they have the tools necessary to be powerful and effective in their base building, leadership development, campaign work, and political education.
• Work with, mentor, and support the KPU organizing team to run and win ambitious campaigns that meet SURJ’s goals, starting with our Kentucky organizing campaigns with an eye towards expanding into more Appalachian states in the coming years.
• Ensure strong campaign planning practices that reflect SURJ’s methodology and theory of change, and support building the base, strength, and infrastructure of local member groups and statewide campaigns.
• Support staff development through supervision, direct feedback, and ensuring staff have clear work plans as well as professional development goals and plans to achieve them.
• Lead or support staff, allies, or at-large members in organizing trainings and political education opportunities as needed to build grassroots power in Appalachia.

Statewide and Regional organizing (15%)

• Connect the Louisville SURJ chapter with rural projects for statewide campaigns and relationship building moving our groups toward a united Kentucky working class coalition of SURJ organizations building a blueprint we can use as we grow further into Appalachia in the coming years.
• Work in coordination with the Grassroots Distributed Organizers on local and statewide campaigns.
• Maintain and deepen relationships with primary movement partners in Kentucky and the region who are working to build power.
• Establish, maintain and deepen relationships across Appalachia holding a vision for expanding APU beyond Kentucky into other states in Appalachia when the time is right.

SURJ and Grassroots Organizing Department (10%)

• Collaborate deeply with SCOPE to build collaboration and alignment.
• Create and manage APU’s Annual program budget.
• Engage in direct donor work as needed.
• Participate or lead in drafting and/or editing fundraising documents and external communications about the work and strategy.
• Participate in SURJ-wide staff and other meetings to build and maintain collaboration and alignment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in bottom up grassroots organizing or union organizing, especially in using campaigns to build bases of directly impacted people and cultivate their leadership.
• Skilled at supervising staff.
• Experience holding the big picture of an organizing campaign with very little external guidance.
• Experience running an integrated program that is integrating and balancing leadership development, campaign strategy, winning change, campaign research
• Deep skill in integrating political analysis with concrete organizing skills.
• Experience designing curriculum and facilitating meetings, trainings, and/or group gatherings that move people to action;
• Experience with membership database/CRMs and reporting of campaign metrics;
• Experience designing and leading teams through processes of campaign or action planning;
• Experience developing compelling campaign narratives and multimedia communications strategies, a plus.
• Role requires a skilled and experienced practitioner who, with any necessary accommodations, can function independently and with only general supervision
• Demonstrates reliable professional skills including project design and monitoring, prioritization of tasks, understanding a budget, setting goals, clear communication and coordination skills, and follow-through.

Skills

• A natural sense of curiosity about people, ability to build meaningful relationships with others, and a belief that directly impacted people are their own experts and can be a powerful force for change;
• Willingness to sit with complexity and nuance, take risks, suggest new ideas, receive feedback and be a part of the solution;
• Profound love and trust of the people and communities you come from and a deep desire and longing to create avenues for individual and community transformation;
• A demonstrated commitment to racial and economic justice and to working in multiracial coalitions for larger transformative change;
• Lived experience in rural communities, small towns, and low-income communities a plus;
• Flexible schedule including some evenings and weekends, and travel;
• Reliability and follow-through;
• Flexibility to adapt quickly as things change;
• Organizational leadership: Lead by example by modeling a high bar for performance and values;
• Radical welcome: Every single person is welcome and has a smart role to play on the campaign;
• Relationship-Oriented: You build trust and work through differences to find a positive solution; and
• Always learning: You’re hungry to learn. You absorb information from members and others, you ask questions, and you constantly seek out best practices.