Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Buffalo, NY

Details at a Glance

• TIME COMMITMENT : Full Time Schedule

• START DATE: June 1, 2022

• APPLICATION DEADLINE:  April 25, 2022

• EXPERIENCE LEVEL: Director

SALARY:  Up to USD $93,000 / year  Salary is $93,000 and non-negotiable

Showing Up for Racial Justice undermines the power of the Right and plays a critical role in building multiracial majorities by organizing in majority white communities. In this historic moment, SURJ’s work to organize white people away from white nationalism and towards multiracial solidarity is more important than ever.  As a result, SURJ has grown exponentially over the last two years. At this exciting moment of growth and transition, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) is looking for a Managing Director who will play a critical role in our leadership team. This is a newly configured senior position that will both lead our growing organization and work closely with the National Director and other key directors to strengthen SURJ’s internal management, organization-wide.

The Managing Director is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day functioning of the organization and building our infrastructure and capacity to do our work well. They will collaborate closely with SURJ’s organizing leads to ensure program, planning and culture are moving forward together. The Managing Director will serve as a strategic partner to the National Director and Board of Directors and will be fully versed in day-to-day operations of the organization to oversee operations in the absence of the National Director.

This is the perfect position for a culture-loving, people-centered, detail-oriented, highly collaborative individual who is excited about building cross-class, anti-racist, anti-ableist systems and culture. The Managing Director will harness solutions in order to efficiently communicate resources needed for key activities and ensure work follows plans. The Managing Director will be highly skilled and enjoy supervising staff members. They will be self aware and eager to build and support diverse teams across the organization.

Responsibilities 

Planning

• Lead annual planning process, ensuring budget and planning are clear to all staff and completed in a timely manner
• Create and lead systems for accountability related to executions of work plans
• Develop evaluation system to track progress towards goals with staff systems adoption and use
• Work with CFO and senior staff to draft annual budget and ensure budget and program planning processes are moving forward together
• Lead process to clarify and formalize SURJ’s governance structures

Systems

• Serve as the lead partner to the National Director on the organization’s administrative and operational processes, with a goal of continuously developing, improving, and evaluating systems
• Work with operations staff and consultants to ensure all staff are trained to use our systems to work remotely and that SURJ is using the best systems to communicate and work together
• Ensure organizing and finance teams are coordinated to ensure compliance and regulatory functions of the organization for our 501c3, 501c4 and Political Action Committee with the support of external counsel
• Implement the infrastructure and systems needed to support strategic objectives
• Identify best practices from outside the organization that contribute to more efficient and effective internal systems

Culture/Team Management

• Represent SURJ leadership to all staff in a friendly, thoughtful and inclusive manner when facilitating meetings, planning trainings and making oneself available for questions and concerns
• Clarify the role of current decision-making bodies to make key organizational decisions and develop other leadership bodies as necessary to ensure organization is functioning smoothly
• Track progress towards goals in coordination with organizing directors
• Develop and execute trainings or work with external consultants or partners to provide training to our team to continually promote and help create a learning environment
• Supervise SURJ’s Director of People and Culture and support further growth and development of a culture at SURJ that is aligned with our values and politics.

Human Resources + Finances

• Supervise SURJ’s Finance and Human Resources Officer
• Ensure a strategic and responsive approach to staff skills development and ensure it is coordinated and integrated with organizing directors

Board Relations

• Serve as the lead staff liaison with the Board of Directors, seek their involvement in policy decisions, and support their fundraising and external-facing work
• Oversee organization of Board and Committee meetings

Qualifications

Knowledge

• Understanding of how class, ableism, sexism and racism impact organization structures and interpersonal dynamics, with a commitment to dismantling classism, racism, sexism and ableism in our organization
• A baseline understanding of disability justice principles and analysis and passionate about learning and deepening their knowledge about disability justice.
• An understanding of anti-racist and working-class movement landscape

Skills

• Demonstrated experience to build strong and trusting relationships across lines of difference with passion for building a “leaderful” organization
• Expert agenda planning and meeting facilitation
• Sets a high bar for performance and execution of goals
• Systems-level thinker who is ability to juggle and balance strategic and tactical work on a regular basis
• Technologically savvy
• Clear communicator, skilled at giving direct feedback

Experience 

• Minimum of 10 years of experience, with at least five years in a similar role at a non-profit or union.
• At least 5 years of experience as management with supervision of 3+ staff members, with a preference for experience in supervising senior staff
• Experience in leading planning efforts and running operationally effective organizations that have multiple functional areas
• Proven effectiveness managing others, empowering them to make decisions and grow on their work path
• Strong preference for someone who has operated in an organization that has experienced significant growth
• Experience leading change management processes
• Experience developing the leadership of poor and working class people
• ​​Experience with partnerships between 501c3 and 501c4 organizations and understanding of compliance requirements
• Experience leading in a base-building and campaigning organization preferred

 

To apply send resume and cover letter to jobs@surjaction.org with subject line “Managing Director”