We're now accepting applications for National Organizing Director
Elected Officials to Protect America seeks an experienced organizer and advocacy professional with a track record of leading successful organizing, advocacy, or political campaigns to coordinate a national program to organize thousands of state and local elected officials across the U.S. to become our democracy’s champions on the climate emergency, environmental justice, and land and water protection.
Led by representatives from frontline communities and lawmakers who are veterans, the campaign goal is the enactment of a federal Climate Emergency Plan and state and local policy to create a rapid, just transition away from fossil fuels to 100% clean energy, and take imperative action to restore a safe climate, ensure environmental justice, and protect our land and water.
The ideal candidate has a passion for peer-to-peer organizing, a track record of building and leading effective campaigns or organizations, passion for climate and environmental justice and protection, strategic savvy, and experience working with policymakers and elected officials.
Elected Officials to Protect America is committed to centering, connecting, and supporting leadership of public servants who represent frontline and historically marginalized communities. Indigenous people, people of color, women and LGBTQ+ people, and people from immigrant and working-class backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply.
ABOUT ELECTED OFFICIALS TO PROTECT AMERICA
Elected Officials to Protect America (EOPA) is a network of current and former elected officials who care deeply about protecting our planet and people. EOPA is committed to solving the climate crisis, ensuring environmental justice, and protecting our lands and waters. We educate through value-based storytelling, training lawmakers, and connecting elected officials to inspire strong environmental leadership.
Led by representatives from frontline communities and lawmakers who are veterans, EOPA has a consistent track record of successfully organizing elected officials to promote bold climate action. In New York, our network of more than a thousand lawmakers played a key role in banning fracking statewide and divesting the state from fossil fuels. In California, we organized more than 400 elected officials to help prompt Governor Newsom to declare an end to oil and announce 3,200-foot setbacks on oil and gas drilling. At our nation’s capital, we organized veterans who are lawmakers from 50 states to secure permanent funding for the U.S. Land and Water Conservation Fund. We organized hundreds of elected officials to advance the Green New Deal and phase out fossil fuels.
Extraordinary times require extraordinary leadership. With the accelerating climate emergency, environmental injustices, and ecological crises, the window of opportunity to protect our planet and people is shrinking. With President Biden elevating climate as a key national security priority, we are expanding our work to inspire public officials to leverage our collective power to protect our communities and nation.
Our work has been covered in hundreds of news outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, CNN, ABC News, and BBC News. Our video production arm, Code Blue, has exposed Saudi Arabia buying up American water, which was later covered in The Guardian.
Now, we are organizing thousands of state and local lawmakers, led by lawmakers who are veterans and represent frontline communities, to mobilize our nation to enact a federal Climate Emergency Plan to create a rapid, just transition away from fossil fuels to 100% clean energy, and take imperative action at state and local levels to protect our public health, communities, and ensure environmental justice.
Our Core Principles:
- Public Stewardship. Elected officials are publicly entrusted to steward our communities, democracy, and future. We believe it is the responsibility of our elected officials, who take a constitutional oath of office to protect the general welfare, to represent and act to secure the common, long-term interests of all who they represent, including marginalized peoples, children, future generations, and all life.
- Courageous Leadership. Extraordinary challenges require extraordinary leadership. When a problem threatens our public welfare, it is the responsibility of our elected officials to step up and lead the solution. The consequences of failing to address the climate and ecological emergencies are so severe that it threatens our survival as a nation.
Collective Power. We have the power to join together and collectively lead, no matter the challenge. When a problem crosses jurisdictional boundaries, our elected officials must come together to provide collective leadership to solve the problem. We must provide the collective leadership necessary to protect our people and communities and restore our environment and democracy.
ABOUT YOU
If you are an organizer and campaign professional with a track record of leading successful organizing, advocacy, or political campaigns and programs and are excited to organize thousands of state and local elected officials to protect our planet and people, led by representatives from frontline communities and lawmakers who are veterans, this may just be the perfect job for you.
The ideal candidate has a passion for peer-to-peer organizing, a track record of building and leading effective campaigns or organizations, passion for climate and environmental justice and protection, strategic savvy, and experience working with policymakers and elected officials.
While no candidate will bring all of the following skills, experiences, and characteristics, ideal candidates will bring most:
Exceptional organizing and relationship-building skills
- Organizing: highly effective at building relationships with people, bringing people together to work in effective teams, inspiring people to lead and take collective action to accomplish a goal
- Emotional intelligence: uses empathy and shared values to build powerful relationships and trust with people, including team members, elected officials, partners, advisors, and funders.
- Enthusiasm: exhibits passion and excitement for work. Has a can-do attitude. Connects with and enrolls people to take action.
- Inclusive: A commitment to diversity and inclusion, demonstrated by inviting, including, valuing, and supporting diverse perspectives, voices, and ideas.
Strong experience successfully building and managing teams to accomplish a mission
- Management: recruits, builds, and drives a team of outstanding talent to exceptional results. Supports team members with clear guidance, communicates the why, sets clear expectations, gives them support in executing, holds people accountable, creates learning, and adapts to fit the person and context
- Ability to hire A players: sources, selects, and sells A Players to join the organization.
- Ability to develop people into A players: coaches people in their current roles to improve performance, and prepares them for future roles; reassigns or removes from the team people who chronically deliver substandard performance.
- Adaptable: can receive and provide direction, operate independently and cooperatively, work productively under pressure, and handle occasional long hours and travel.
Excellent campaign planning, project management, and strategy development skills
- Execution Planning: ability to plan complex projects. Works backwards from the desired end state to define all specific steps that must be completed. Specifies who does what by when. Manages plans effectively.
- Results- and process-oriented: relentless focus on overcoming challenges and ensuring practices are in place to achieve the results
- Strategic vision: sees and communicates the big picture in an inspiring way. Determines opportunities and threats through comprehensive analysis of current and future trends.
- Creativity and innovation: generates new and innovative approaches to problems.
Desirable qualifications, but not required:
- Policymaker advocacy: experience working with elected officials or decision makers for local, state or national level policy change
- Digital advocacy: experience with online advocacy and campaigns, skilled at large-scale outreach to inspire action to move people up a ladder of engagement
- Communications: experience organizing press conferences, working with the media, and coordinating messaging with external partners
- Networking: strong relationships with elected officials in state and local government, and with climate and environmental organizations
ABOUT THE ROLE
The mission of the National Organizing Director is to inspire, support, and organize state and local elected officials across the U.S. to become our democracy’s champions on the climate emergency, environmental justice, and land and water protection.
Strategic outcomes of the role are successful development and execution of EOPA’s national climate emergency, environmental justice, and land and water protection programs with a focus on rapidly and justly phase out fossil fuels; enrolled thousands of state and local elected officials to join our national programs; cultivated a powerful and diverse Leadership Council of elected officials nationally and in priority states; supported dozens of elected officials in moving up the ladder of engagement; cultivated partnerships and resourcing relationships with strategic allies.
Specific accountabilities and outcomes of the role:
Leadership Development
- Leadership Council: National Leadership Council of elected officials representing a diversity of geographies, level of office, expertise, and demographics are recruited, cultivated, and supported
- Leadership Development: Cohort of frontline elected officials across the country recruited, trained, and supported to organize peer-to-peer, engage with the media, and build EOPA’s member base; elected leaders are trained and supported in policy, organizing, campaign strategy, values-based communications, and media engagement
- Membership Engagement: Strong relationships cultivated and maintained with EOPA Leadership Council members and elected membership; elected official membership is recruited, cultivated, and supported in moving up the ladder of engagement for EOPA programs
National Programs
- National Letters and Plan: Thousands of elected officials from all 50 states and territories join call for a national climate emergency declaration and Federal Climate Emergency Plan to phase out fossil fuels
- National Summit: Annual White House and Congressional National Climate Emergency Summit raises awareness and builds political support for enacting a comprehensive federal climate emergency plan and policies with Congress and the Administration
- Local and State Policy Phasing Out Fossil Fuels: Training and support provided to frontline leaders to protect their communities from fossil fuel harms, phase out fossil fuels, and become climate champions in their states; compiled comprehensive list of existing policies and model policies to protect communities from the harms of fossil fuels and urge climate emergency action; supported local campaigns to pass local climate emergency plans and policies to phase out fossil fuels production, infrastructure, finance, and consumption, and helped organize local efforts into a nationwide movement
- Partners: Powerful relationships of mutual support cultivated with strategic partners, including advocacy partners, elected officials networks, and credibility partners aligned with EOPA’s mission
- (pending funding) National Tour: Climate Emergency Tour by electric bus with press conferences, trainings, and rallies raises our profile, gains media attention, and builds political support for a Climate Emergency Plan
Communications
- Supports communications, media engagement, and rapid response to media opportunities
Operations
- Talent: An exceptionally-talented, world-class national team committed to the organization’s values, purpose, and mission is fully staffed, trained, and supported to deliver on the organization’s goals with a strong culture of excellence
- Data: Highly-effective outreach using state-of-art campaign tools enable moving elected officials up the ladder of engagement enable organization to successfully execute its strategic goals
- Processes: Standard operating procedures for peer-to-peer elected organizing are developed and guide EOPA programs, driving us to achieve outstanding results and continuous improvement
Program Quality: Programmatic excellence, rigorous program evaluation, and consistent quality of execution support EOPA in achieving our strategic goals
COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
- Starting compensation $47,000 to $65,000 annually, commensurate with qualifications, experience, and location
- Paid graduate education and premium training via University of San Francisco Certificate in Public Leadership ($10,000 tuition value)
- Location flexible: remote position
- Flexible schedule
- Opportunities for job advancement, pay increase, and significant responsibility in a growing start-up national organization
- Contribute to a strategic, high-leverage initiatives with direct state, national, and international policy impact
- Exclusive networking with elected officials, government leaders, members of the media, national organizations, and funders across the country
HOW TO APPLY
Apply online here: https://forms.gle/tjpmWTxFW33AsLqg6
Please note: a Google account is required to fill out the application form.
If the form is not accessible or for troubleshooting questions, please email: talent@protectingamerica.net
In your cover letter, tell us what’s motivating you to apply, and what talents, skills, and expertise you have that will be most important in this role.
Our hiring process is thorough. In addition to a screening interview and competency interview, we will conduct a chronological career history interview in which we ask about your entire career and professional development. Finalists are asked to arrange reference calls with some of your former managers, supervisors, and others.