Director of Organizing

Firelands Workers United/Trabajadores Unidos seeks a collaborative leader who shares our commitment to building multiracial, multicultural working-class people power in rural communities in Washington State!

Firelands organizes with working families in rural counties in Western Washington State. Our member-driven campaigns have won statewide advances in healthcare, fair taxes, green jobs, and tenant protections. We train members and partners with innovative popular political education in Spanish and English, and we run nationally-recognized narrative strategy. Our skilled and powerful team of organizers have come up through our base and lead the heart of our work with energy and rigor. Join our team and help shape the answers to these questions:

• How do we embrace the challenges and opportunities of this moment, especially in rural communities – to protect our people, widen our base, and pick smart fights – while shifting power to win over the long term?
• How do we build irresistible, welcoming organizations where rural working-class leaders – immigrants and locally-born – can form bonds of solidarity across race and language to organize together for what we all need and deserve?
• How can organizing be a joyful calling where organizers and volunteers bring wise, creative, strategic leadership, with a culture of sustainability and resilience?

THE ROLE

The Director of Organizing will develop Firelands’ organizing team’s skills, and lead vision, strategy and design to grow our multiracial, multicultural base and develop leaders. This role brings together the skills of developing people and teams, vision and strategy, systems and program management, and social-emotional-cultural leadership. The Director of Organizing will work deeply with our bilingual team of six Organizers, directly supervising 3-4 Organizers, and will collaborate with other staff. The Director of Organizing will participate in co-learning spaces with other rural groups across the US, including the national Peoples Action Organizing Directors cohort, and will have opportunities to attend conferences and receive coaching and professional development. The Director of Organizing reports to our Executive Director, working together with them and other teams to strengthen our organizing program and lead a growing, vibrant organization advancing multiracial worker power.

Applications due: We are receiving applications on a rolling basis. The priority deadline is April 27, 2025. Our goal is to make an offer by end of June, 2025.

Compensation: Salaried, exempt, full-time 32-hour/week position. Annual salary range of $85,061 - $89,341. Employer-paid medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance, as well as FSA and Dependent FSA accounts offered. Firelands provides 15 paid holidays, 8 sick days, and generous vacation, plus three office closures for approximately four additional paid weeks off (April, July and over winter holidays). A flexible, family-friendly work culture.

Location: This is a hybrid in-person and remote role in Western Washington State. The position requires working with the Organizing Team in person in our Aberdeen office (1 day minimum, ideally 2-3 days/week) with additional events in Grays Harbor, northern Pacific county or Olympia, WA. Occasional out-of-state travel for conferences/trainings may also be required. Day to day work can be carried out in our offices or remotely. Work-related travel is covered, including mileage and lodging and we offer home-office setup funds. If the selected candidate has to move to the region or from out of state to take this position, we can offer a relocation stipend.

ABOUT FIRELANDS

Firelands Workers United/Trabajadores Unidos organizes with working-class power in rural timber counties in Washington State. We are working families in Grays Harbor and Pacific counties in rural Southwest Washington and the Olympic Peninsula joining together across race and language to fight for good green jobs & workers rights, affordable & healthy homes, healthcare, childcare, fair taxes, healthy forests, immigrant rights, and more. Our coastal, forested region is full of natural beauty and can-do people, but over the decades, big corporations have exploited our lands and labor and eroded union jobs. Public disinvestment via a regressive tax code has led to high poverty rates and the decay of our housing and other public goods. While some politicians in our region have backed these schemes, people are fed up with the rich and powerful calling the shots. Rural working families in Washington deserve better and we are organizing for a different future.

Since forming in 2019, Firelands has played an outsized role in winning nationally-recognized statewide policy campaigns, from expanding healthcare access to transformative tax reforms to tenant protections to defending billions in public resources for schools, childcare and climate jobs. At the national level, we are recognized for our leadership in bilingual popular political education and public narrative strategy campaigns.

We are committed to multicultural organizing with working-class rural people, building a culture of solidarity across our differences. Firelands is made up of a growing base of over a 1,000 members who are cannery workers, mill workers, healthcare workers, domestic workers, retired veterans, students and more. Our members are majority Latino and we are growing our base of members who are white, Black, Asian, and Native. We organize in Spanish and English. We host joyful events drawing 500+ participants; we run deep listening canvasses; we host leadership cohorts which have developed over 60 volunteer organizers. We collaborate with other workers’ groups that share our commitment to dissolving the “jobs vs. environment” story in rural WA and creating local union climate jobs. We also engage in numerous WA state coalitions including the State Power Table, as well as collaborating with national campaigns and organizing with Peoples Action. To learn more about Firelands read our 2024 Annual Report and our 2025 Legislative Agenda.

Organizing is the heart and soul of our work and our organizational structure reflects that. With a 32-hour work week, a values-aligned and equitable pay structure that recognizes organizing as the center of Firelands, and one-on-one outside resilience coaching for each organizer, our team of 11 is dedicated to making our organizational culture energizing and sustainable. Our Organizing Team of six began as members and today are powerful and committed organizers with a keen understanding of their rural and working class communities, both immigrant and local-born. Since our founding, Firelands has retained 100% of full-time staff. We work hard, laugh hard, rest and pace ourselves for individual and organizational health, and learn continuously with evaluation and feedback. We see hope as a disciplined, mutually-supported practice. Join us!

This position supports both Firelands Workers United/Trabajadores Unidos (501c4) and our sister organization, Firelands Workers Building Community Power/Trabajadores Construyendo el Poder de la Comunidad (501c3).

RESPONSIBILITIES

Supervision & Team Management

The Organizing Director manages a phenomenal team of six Organizers (all former member-leaders):

• Coaches, supports, and holds accountable 3-4 Organizers through weekly supervision
• Trains and stewards a strong and healthy team through weekly Organizing Team meetings, monthly Retreats, and check-ins with all organizers
• Offers guidance and mentors the Team to resolve contradictions, challenges and conflicts that arise in organizing and cultivates emotional resiliency and trauma stewardship.
• Leads assessments, evaluations, and feedback for growth and learning
• Manages the hiring of new Organizers or Organizing Apprentices

Systems & Structures for Base-Building & Leadership Development

• Trains and mentors Organizers and member-leaders to improve skills in deep canvassing, phonebanking, and one-on-ones to recruit and develop Firelands members
• Guides the collaborative design of the structures and strategies for stronger base-building (via events, canvassing, phonebanking, and more); and leadership development (via a membership structure and leadership ladder, member committees, leadership trainings, and more)
• Leads participatory planning of the organizing program’s long-term goals (e.g. multi-year) as well as medium and short term goals
• Collaborates with our Trainings Manager and Organizers to lead political education and organizing skill trainings with members with plain language and popular education in Spanish and English: trains and facilitates and mentors Organizers to train and facilitate
• Supports the Organizing Team to continuously evaluate and improve practices for a welcoming, irresistible and responsible bilingual organizing culture with members across race, language, age, and culture
• Ensures there are opportunities for volunteer members to participate and give input in campaign decisions and strategy
• Works with Data staff to implement and train the Organizing Team on data systems

Campaigns & Political Co-Leadership

• Works with the Executive Director, Campaigns Team, and Organizing Team to devise campaigns and campaign strategy (including local, statewide and national campaigns)
• Leads in designing and carrying out tactics, together with other staff members (e.g. lawmaker visits, media actions, etc)
• Coordinates with the Narrative Team on public narrative and base-facing communications
• With the Executive Director, explores future opportunities for electoral organizing

Organizational Co-Leadership

• With the Executive Director, holds Firelands’ political and cultural ‘center’ with love, rigor, integrity, and responsive leadership
• With the Executive Director, holds the “strategic compass” of Firelands to bring an ear-to-the-ground connection with the base and organizing team together with ongoing assessment of the political moment and opportunities to adjust our strategy and work accordingly
• Facilitates sections of weekly Full Team meetings and Quarterly Staff Retreats for assessment and strategic planning
• Represents Firelands at coalitions and partner events as needed
• Participates in Organizing Director Cohort with Peoples Action, cross-learning spaces with other groups, attends and represents Firelands at national conferences, attends professional development opportunities and training (e.g. Rockwood, Management Center, etc)

Financial Management & Fundraising

• Coordinates with the Operations & Finance Team on organizing program budgets and compliance
• Supports fundraising work as needed (e.g. provides information for grants, attends funder briefings, etc.)

QUALIFICATIONS

• 5+ years relevant experience, including experience in community organizing, labor organizing, and/or electoral organizing, preferably with experience in grassroots working-class member-based organizations and with immigrant communities
• Sufficiently bilingual in English and Spanish to facilitate, support, and supervise bilingual and monolingual (English and Spanish) staff and member-leaders
• Experience as a manager/supervisor of organizers and ability to build and steward a strong and healthy team as a motivational, accountable, patient, and supportive team leader
• Demonstrated record building trust with working-class people across race, gender, language, and political party/ideology including with Latinx, white, Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, and/or Indigenous people
• Experience designing programs and managing organizers and volunteers to carry out base-building activities including canvassing, house visits, phonebanks, member meetings, large events, campaign tactics, and trainings
• Strong facilitator, particularly of nuanced or complex decision discussions and processes
• Experience developing the analysis and skills of base members (through one-on-ones, accessible trainings, etc) to take part in strategy and campaign decisions
• A deep commitment to advancing racial and economic justice with strong analysis of the political and economic systems that exploit working-class people
• Capacity to bring warmth and wisdom when working with organizers who are taking on secondary trauma (we hear hard stories on the doors and most of our base have experienced trauma). This position does not require professional training in trauma stewardship or therapy, but it requires familiarity and sensitivity to trauma.
• Flexibility, responsiveness, a commitment to growth and learning, and giving and receiving feedback
• Ability to work independently with self-identified goals, to make decisions and resolve challenges with structured planning or improvisation when needed
• Strong written, verbal, interpersonal communication

The following are helpful, but not required qualifications:

• Experience with multiracial populist political education and agitation
• Experience with deep-listening canvass methodology
• Experience with popular education training and curriculum design
• Experience managing data in a database (such as EveryAction, Action Builder), experience using VAN, Google sheets, peer-to-peer text tools (we use ThruText), or other digital organizing tools
• Trained in conflict resolution and trauma stewardship
• Knowledge of at least one of our issue areas: tenant rights, workers rights, tax system, healthcare etc.
• Familiarity with lobbying, working with government agencies, and organizing towards governing power
• Understanding of WA state political landscape and conditions
• Background with rural and small town communities

TO APPLY

Please upload a resume, cover letter, and a relevant work sample of any kind or length at this link:

(https://bit.ly/Firelands_Organizing_Director) In your cover letter, briefly share how your skills & experience reflect the qualifications for this position.

We understand that candidates may bring different skills than we have listed here. If you have questions, please do reach out–we want to hear from you! Reach out at jobs@firelandswa.org. Subscribe to our newsletter here to be updated on new positions.

HIRING PROCESS

We are receiving applications on a rolling basis. The priority deadline is April 27, 2025. Our goal is to make an offer by the end of June, 2025.

Applicants who are selected to continue in the process can expect to participate in a brief screening interview plus two longer-format interviews (with the second in-person) and will have the opportunity to meet with various team members and member-leaders.

We strongly encourage applications from those who live, work, and contribute to rural Washington or who have experience with and connections to rural communities, immigrant communities, and working class people. Firelands is an equal opportunity employer and we encourage people of color, immigrants, bilingual people, and multicultural individuals, d/Deaf people and people with disabilities, women, members of LGBTQIA+ and gender non-conforming communities, and people of all and under-represented backgrounds to apply. Come join us at Firelands!