Job Description: Southeastern Wisconsin Co-op Organizer

Objective: Citizen Action of Wisconsin seeks a dynamic and socially committed person to join our organizing team and lead an innovative multi-issue membership organizing project. This is a full time (40-50 hrs/week) salaried permanent position located in Milwaukee.  Some evenings and weekends required, as well as in-state travel and occasional out-of-state travel.

Description of Work: This position reports to the Organizing Director, and the successful applicant will work to advance a revolutionary membership organizing model pioneered by Citizen Action of Wisconsin known as an Organizing Cooperative. This position involves organizing, maintaining, and growing a critical mass of dues-paying supporters in our locally based, member-led co-op model.  The Co-op Organizer together with member-leaders and Citizen Action staff will advance diverse issue and electoral campaigns that have real impact on their community and make large scale changes in Wisconsin to open up opportunity for all. The position includes a 6 month training and trial period. More information about Citizen Action of Wisconsin Organizing Cooperatives can be found here.

Organizational Background: Citizen Action of Wisconsin is an issue focused non-profit organization committed to achieving racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice. We are dedicated to achieving a Wisconsin and an America where every human being has an equal opportunity to live a meaningful and fulfilling life. Citizen Action of Wisconsin brings together thousands of activists and allied groups across Wisconsin to deepen democratic participation and create an issue environment that advances a progressive public policy agenda.

In late 2017, Citizen Action adopted a cutting edge 8 year issue agenda that was written by hundreds of members across the state. Most fundamentally, we believe that issues matter. It is through transformative issues that capture the public imagination and reveal the dissonance between our nation’s ideals and its economic, social and environmental realities that average people see their stake in the public sphere and are motivated to participate in their democracy and fight for meaningful and lasting change.

Citizen Action is spearheading the development of innovative new grassroots organizing techniques, and seeks candidates who are interested in embracing new dynamic approaches. More information on current Citizen Action of Wisconsin programs can be found at citizenactionwi.org.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Work with staff and local member teams to lead a local Organizing Cooperative.
• Recruit new, and retain current, dues-paying co-op members through relationship building, fundraising, and leadership development.
• Directly organize and develop activists and leaders to participate in Citizen Action issue and election campaigns. This may include leadership of some issue campaigns. Current issues include Healthcare For All, Voting rights and Good Government, and 100% renewable energy/100% living wage jobs.
• Coordinate program and logistics for public events, mobilizations and other grassroots activity.
• Participate in small and large dollar fundraising in collaboration with CAW staff.

Specific Responsibilities also include

• Embrace and effectively utilize new communications technology, working within Citizen Action’s cutting-edge social networking and web technology programs to augment on-the ground organizing.
• Help organize coalitions and networks of members to advance critical issues of local importance in tandem with Citizen Action staff together with a wide range of prospective allies.
• Work in a focused way to advance strategic goals, and provide timely weekly reporting of organizing progress.
• Integrate Citizen Action’s values-based communication into all organizing work.

Desired Experience:

• Experience in labor, community, political or faith-based organizing, experience with or a strong interest in learning relational organizing as well as a commitment to working on racial justice issues,  working with communities of color, and with a multicultural base of individuals.
• Experience with large and/or small dollar fundraising.
• Experience working with a broad array of organizations in a coalition on issues of social and economic justice.

Required Qualifications:

• Philosophical commitment to progressive values of economic, gender, racial, anti-oppressive, and environmental justice and equity along with health care freedom for everyone in Wisconsin and America.
• Ability to understand public policy issues and translate them into organizing issues that motivate average people to act.
• Strong creative strategic thinking skills and willingness to innovate in fast moving issue campaigns and meet deadlines.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including ability to produce effective flyers, email alerts, coalition reports, blogs, and effective social media posts.
• Excellent listening, interpersonal and problem solving skills, strong personal time management skills, organization skills, and the ability to work under pressure, and the ability to resolve conflicts while maintaining effective relationships.
• Intermediate computer skills including email, composing documents, designing flyers, working with databases, and social networking (Familiarity with NationBuilder, GoogleDocs, Google Analytics, Hootsuite, as well as managing Facebook pages and/or Twitter accounts).
• Ability to undertake periodic travel in Wisconsin and occasionally out-of-state.

Desired Qualifications (Not required):

• Experience with designing and implementing strategic legislative and or electoral issue campaigns.
• Experience working with a broad array of organizations in a coalition on issues of social and economic justice.
• Experience with working on racial justice issues and/or working in communities of color.
• Experience with online list-building and voter files a plus.
• Demonstrated ability to meet fundraising goals.

• Bilingual/multilingual a plus.

Salary and Benefits:  This is a full-time position which includes health care, dental and employer-matched 401K, life insurance, disability insurance, cell phone allowance, and other benefits.  Some weekend and evening hours required. Base salary rate is $40,000.00 annually, and is negotiable upon offer of employment based on experience and qualifications. This is a union position, represented by OPEIU Local 9, AFL-CIO. 

 Application Process:  E-mail cover letter and résumé to Angelique Rogers (Organizing Director) at angelique.rogers@citizenactionwi.org.  Please, no calls.