Chapter Organizer (West Coast)

Job Description

About us:

As the JVP family of organizations, we are growing, developing and mobilizing a powerful grassroots, multiracial base of Jews toward Palestinian freedom and the end of Israeli apartheid and occupation.

About you:

A committed and passionate organizer, you thrive on building relationships and developing leaders. You are ready and excited to build, strengthen and expand JVP chapters, which are sites of deep, sustained local organizing at the center of JVP’s work. Your organizing approach is rooted in relational work, building real power, and creating movements that are prepared to fight for collective liberation. You live in or are willing to relocate to California, Oregon or Washington.

Core responsibilities of JVP Chapter Organizers:

Develop and support intentional member leadership:

• Coach and develop chapter leaders by building organizing skills as well as strategic capacity & alignment, so that chapter leaders can effectively hold powerful local organizing and in turn build others’ leadership
• Identify and cultivate the leadership needed to build a multi-racial, multi-generational base of Jews for Palestinian liberation in their local context
• Collaborate with other staff & chapter leaders to find ways to scale up leadership development and skill-building across chapters

Support, coach, and train chapters to develop effective organizing practices & systems that grow their power, including:

• Building a local base and develop leadership within that base
• Creating healthy & effective group structures
• Cultivating a liberatory organizing culture that is anti-racist and anti-oppressive
• Organizing in accountability to Palestinian-led movement and with a movement-building approach

Mobilize JVP chapters at key moments, and support chapters to take effective, strategic action in their local context around the following: (this is done in close collaboration with staff who lead campaigns, communications, & legislative work)

• Rapid response mobilizing
• Participating in national campaigns & mobilizations
• Participating in locally-rooted campaigns & mobilizations
• Legislative organizing
• Media outreach and engagement

Work with the Director of Chapters & Local Organizing as well as other organizers to build and maintain:

• Effective communication, information flow, and coordination between chapters and the national organization
• Systems that effectively prioritize internally & creatively problem-solve towards maximum impact, while working with multiple chapters across the country

Skills and qualities we are seeking:

• Develops effective leadership: Holds an orientation where being a leader means developing leaders, and effectively supports leaders’ growth through coaching, training, support, and feedback. Ready and able to identify and develop the leadership needed to build a multi-racial, multi-generational base of Jews for Palestinian liberation across varied local contexts. This specifically includes the leadership of: young Jews; Jews who are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), Mizrahi and/or Sephardi; white anti-racist Jews; and trans, queer, working-class, poor, and/or disabled Jews.
• Builds strong groups: Works effectively with groups, showing a commitment to high-functioning, inclusive groups and building the structures & skills that enable them. Attuned to culture and group dynamics, and able to support groups to build and shift internal culture in liberatory ways. Has strong facilitation instincts and fundamentals. Can effectively support groups to: create organizing goals, focus their energies in strategic ways, build a base, build power locally, and take strategic action.
• Relational and communicative: Understands that organizing is fundamentally built on relationships. Has enthusiasm for meeting and engaging with people, builds authentic relationships across lines of difference, and communicates effectively with others (both verbally and written).
• Strategic, thoughtful, and curious: Able to focus on top-line goals in the work and how we get there. Oriented towards building power and the pathways to achieving our goals, and can in turn support others in building strategic capacity. Can grasp the subtleties of complex issues, identify patterns, hold nuance and balance conflicting priorities. Approaches challenges with curiosity.
• Aligned with and rooted in JVP’s values, overall political analysis, and strategy: Has a commitment to building power both locally and nationally towards JVP’s political goals. Understands why JVP is building power as a US-based Jewish organization in the movement for Palestinian freedom. Rooted in values of justice for all people, and works to express those values in their work & organizing approach, including in forging connections across movements.

Other important info:

JVP is a union workplace, and this role is part of our staff bargaining unit with the Washington-Baltimore News Guild

Travel: Some travel required, including for in-person chapter visits, leadership development gatherings, and staff gatherings.

Benefits include: Up to 16 accumulated vacation days per year, accrued at 6.67 hours per pay period; Up to 12 sick days per year, accrued at 4 hours per pay period; 17 paid holidays (9 floating and 8 federal). Health, vision, and dental insurance with premiums currently paid by JVP, and 15% of family benefits to be paid by JVP. Paid bereavement leave, parental leave, and medical leave, as well as leave without pay. Flexible Spending benefit. 1% of salary paid into 401k by JVP

Accessibility Information: Physical requirements include long periods of sitting, working on a computer in chunks of time that can extend to 8 hour days, and consistent communication via computer.

Application, process, & timeline:

We aim to be transparent and efficient in our hiring process. Each question you will be asked throughout our hiring process ties directly back to one of the skills and experiences listed above. In each stage, you will be asked to provide examples of these skills and experiences or how you would draw on your experience to handle a scenario commonly found at JVP. Our typical hiring process includes:

• Job application: You will not be asked to submit a cover letter. Instead, the application consists of several questions related to the role you are applying for. Your answers will be assessed anonymously by the hiring committee, based on the skills outlined above. You may be required to upload a CV or resume. The hiring committee will not look at your CV/resume or any identifying information until you have been invited to a first round interview, and will make those initial decisions based on your answers to the initial set of questions.
• 25 min video interview: usually with the hiring manager and staff members you would work with on a regular basis
• Written work assessment, responding to a scenario commonly found on the job.
• 50 min video interview: May be the same group of staff or a slightly larger group as the first interview
• Reference check

Depending on logistics and scheduling, our hiring process generally takes about 4-5 weeks from the job closing to a job offer. We let candidates know after each step in the process, once we’ve made a decision, whether they are moving forward to the next stage or not, so candidates know the status of their application.

People of color, Sephardi and/or Mizrahi applicants, people with disabilities, and transgender or gender non-conforming applicants strongly encouraged to apply.

Jewish Voice for Peace opposes anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab bigotry and oppression. JVP does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, ethnicity, religion, national origin, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, marital status, disability, or status as a U.S. veteran.