Right To The City Alliance

National Field Organizer (West/California)

Job Announcement

Start Date: Ideal start  April 15, 2021. Open until filled

Posted April 6, 2021

Location: California preferred, Other western states locations negotiable.

About The Right To The City Alliance (RTTC)

Right To The City Alliance (RTTC) emerged in 2007 as a unified response to gentrification and a call to halt the displacement of low-income people, people of color, marginalized LGBTQ communities, and youth of color from our historic urban neighborhoods.  We are a national alliance of racial, economic and environmental justice organizations. Through shared principles and a common frame and theory of change, RTTC is building a national movement for racial justice, urban justice, human rights, and democracy.

The RTTC organizational ecosystem has evolved into a tripartite governance structure with three interdependent bodies including RTTC, Homes For All (our trans-local campaign for land and housing justice), and RTTC Action (a 501c4 electoral formation growing the electoral power of the renter class).

Position Summary:

The Right To The City Alliance (RTTC) National Field Organizer will guide the building of state and regional hubs and support the development of member groups to grow our transformative organizing model and advance our strategy to win dignified, affordable and safe homes for all.  We are looking for someone to join our visionary and solutions-oriented team of organizers to help grow our movement and build power to win the right to the city and liberation for our people.  The ideal candidate will be someone who can mentor others, who is a swiss-army knife, able to adapt to new conditions, believes deeply in self-determination and community power and who will bring fierce creativity, imagination and abundance to advance a bold and unapologetic vision of the world our communities need.  This position will be supervised by RTTC’s Senior Field Organizer.

 

This position will be lead liaison to Homes For All / Right To The City state and regional hubs in California and Western states (WA, OR, NV, CO, AZ, NM).  Hubs are state and regional Homes For All formations comprised of and led by our members within that area.  They serve as the foundational structure with which RTTC replicates and expands renter power,  and our model includes incubating local and sub-regional hubs within states where members deem them necessary.  ‘Growing to scale’ and achieving our vision of permanent, dignified, affordable, and safe homes for all, can happen by creating pathways for millions of new people to organize their communities.  HFA/RTTC hubs connect them to the alliance and broader movement infrastructure.

The RTTC transformative organizing approach includes: base building, democratic decision-making process and structures, short/mid/long-term strategy development, political education and leadership development, communications, data and technology, resource generation, language justice, collective care, culture and art, and organizational development.  This position will support RTTC / HFA Hubs to integrate and develop those capacities.

Job Responsibilities:

• National Field Organizer –  Lead Hub Development in Western US (40%)

• Support the holistic development in transformative organizing approaches, and for each Hub’s own infrastructure.  Coordinate with RTTC capacity building program to offer resources and training for hub organizational evolution, within the alliance’s priorities

• Provide support directly where possible, and access other staff teams and RTTC / HFA committees and leadership structure to meet Hub’s needs

• Policy Research and Campaign Strategy (30%)

• Read, analyze and track local/state housing policy, within HFA priority areas (tenant protections, land trusts, etc.) Keep track of relevant legislation / mapping and updates to Field Team and HFA campaign bodies of emerging and live measures.

• Use popular education, language justice, and cultural organizing to translate/explain policies to the grassroots forces and allies, to build collective strategy and strengthen policy campaigns
• Formulate recommendations and identify organizing interventions
• Build partnerships with other policy-research entities and allies. Represent RTTC in ally spaces, funder spaces, policy tables that are part of building relationships with strategic partners and in movement building spaces

• Member Engagement (30%)

• Track and support hubs and members, the development of recruitment, orientation and training systems for new members in the designated region

• As part of a cross-program team, lead member committees to advance HFA and RTTC member organizations strategic activities and goals

• Identify, assess and address the needs of member organizations based on our guidelines and protocols including with assemblies and data and technology

• Work as part of the Field team, to connect members to various supports, materials, tools, trainings, and committees based on our programming and our ladder of engagement.

• Support shared learning across hubs

Additional expectations

• Foster Transformative Justice values and practices. Participate in RTTC’s transformative justice program, including with members and hubs in the designated region, as well as individually and collectively working to address our contradictions and align our practice with our values and principles
• Assist building Field Team staff unity and cohesion, and principled struggle amongst all team/staff members.  We seek to support and nurture distinct teams and individual staff members whom we value, while balancing the priorities of the collective and organization.

• Each National Field Organizer will be responsible for additional areas of work beyond hub development and member engagement/support work.  These areas of work may change over time based on organization and movement needs, and always in consultation with the organize

Required Experience & Qualifications

• Support the mission, vision and goals of the Right To The City Alliance.  Experience and familiarity with housing justice, gentrification, displacement and anti-eviction work and/or grassroots base-building organizations and transformative organizing
• Work experience may be in any social/economic issue area (housing, fair wages, immigrant rights, racial equity, health access, etc.) with the following qualifications
  • 8 – 10 years of base building & organizing experience working on local or statewide campaigns
  • At least 4 years of leading local and statewide advocacy campaigns (developing plan and leading implementation of campaigns)
  • At least 4 years of experience on leading on all aspects of campaign development and implementation for local or statewide campaigns – overall strategy and vision, narrative/comms, fundraising, coalition building, political education, etc
  • At least 4 years of experience building and leading multi-sector,  multi regional / geographic coalitions
  • Prefer 2-4 years Policy analysis background
• Supervisory experience, team leadership, training and mentoring others
• Experience in multi-racial, multicultural settings
• Excellent attention to detail, and can handle a lot going on at once, consistently applying lessons learned to improve practices for an abundance approach to movement building
• Knowledge of common computer applications: MS Office, Google docs, Dropbox, Mac environment, and Zoom video tele-conferencing systems
• Willing to do what it takes to make a project come off. Low ego, high focus on getting stuff done
• Able to work independently while maintaining close communication with remote teams
• Open to flexible hours and able to manage your time independently. You know that changing the world doesn’t always happen between 9 and 5
• Willingness to travel: average 2-3x per month x 3-7 days each trip in the US. During the COVID-19 pandemic, RTTC has followed CDC guidelines and has not been travelling

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to write and speak a second language, preferably Spanish
• Experience managing budgets at the scale of $1Million and above

• Fundraising/grant-writing experience
• Drivers license and auto insurance

Salary and Benefits

This is a full time, non-exempt position.  The salary range for this position is $75,000 – 90,000, commensurate with experience.  RTTC offers a generous and comprehensive benefits package including 100% medical, dental and life insurance, employee-matched 401k retirement plan as well as sick and vacation PTO.

How To Apply

Interested candidates should submit a resume, cover letter, and writing sample through our hiring portal at: righttothecity.bamboohr.com/jobs/.   References will be requested for candidates who advance in the process.  Candidates will only be contacted if our hiring team chooses to pursue an interview.

Right To The City Alliance is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive work environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.  Applicants from communities heavily impacted by gentrification, displacement and housing insecurity are strongly encouraged to apply. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, familial status, sexual orientation, national origin, ability, age, or veteran status.