Lead Organizer/Director of Organizing

Organizational Description:

Since our founding in 2006, Organizing Neighborhood Equity (ONE) DC has worked tirelessly to advance racial and economic equity in the District by fighting economic disenfranchisement among Black working-class communities in DC. ONE DC builds multi-racial and cross-class solidarity, but we focus our efforts in the majority Black, working class communities in Wards 5, 6, 7 and 8.  We build community power through grassroots organizing, leadership development of members, advancing social entrepreneurship and alternative economic models, collective use of resources, and coalition-building in the primary areas of housing, employment, and income inequality.

As a Black-led non-profit, we take seriously the need to bring members of the community that we serve into decision-making and leadership roles. The members of our shared leadership team have lived experience with the structural inequalities that we work to address, and this experience guides our direction and informs the work that we do. Our commitment to building economic independence and community power within communities of color in DC shows up clearly in the decisions we make about how to shape our programming and where to direct our resources.

As a Black and working class-led organization, ONE DC has recently achieved a number of internal and external victories to build our political strength to win racial and economic equity in the District. In 2018, ONE DC purchased the United Black Fund building and spent the last three years renovating it to become the country’s first debt-free Black Workers Center, where ONE DC members and other workers convene to build worker power through cooperative incubation, community work, and political education. As a community steward, ONE DC plans to use our Black Workers and Wellness Center as a hub for movement-building work and community partnership. In 2020, ONE DC co-founded a citywide organizing partnership to cancel rent for workers who lost their jobs during the country’s first global pandemic in a century. In 2021, ONE DC began its work to strengthen the city’s tenant union community. Now, in over five buildings working with tenant leaders, ONE DC encourages these tenant associations to join the Right to the City, a national network of tenant activism.

Organizationally, ONE DC has practiced a non-traditional governance structure called shared leadership. ONE DC’s volunteer directors on the Shared Leadership Team, work with ONE DC’s staff to steward and govern its resources and organizational priorities through sub-committees. In 2022, ONE DC’s SLT decided to introduce a management team structure to strengthen our human resources operations, and the financial management. The management team, composed of the Director of Operations (Operations Lead) and the Director of Organizing (Lead Organizer), will strategize staff activities with the SLT, work with ONE DC’s Personnel Committee on staff management, and provide day-to-day staff supervision. As a management team, these supervisors will be responsible for ensuring key responsibilities that fall under certain SLT standing committees and subcommittees are completed collaboratively by staff and members. This position is one of the management team positions. 

About the Position:

ONE DC is seeking a creative and dynamic individual with a proven track record to join the ONE DC’s management team as the Lead Organizer (Director of Organizing).

Responsibilities include:

• Anchor and co-lead SLT’s Organizing and Membership Committees with  SLT Directors.
• Ensure these committees hold monthly meetings
• Ensure these committees have at least 10  ONE DC members on it. 
• Manage campaign work happening under the Organizing Committee.
• Manage political development under the Membership Committee.
• Work with SLT to revise, chart, and synthesize ONE DC’s membership development process.
• Serve as strategic coordinator of ONE DC’s base building  work. Provide visionary leadership for campaigns, including strategic direction and intervention on campaigns to ensure ONE DC builds its political power and becomes the city’s leading movement organization. 
• Oversee and execute political education and organizing skills workshops, including ONE DC’s Leadership Education for Action and Power (LEAP).
• Identify and integrate cultural events to celebrate ONE DC members and staff’s successful completion of leadership development activities.
• Mentor ONE DC staff and model ONE DC’s organizing model by holding regular one-on-one on a weekly basis with our primary base (who will then participate in ONE DC’s membership development ecosystem). By the year’s end, successful development of at least 50 ONE DC members, not including SLT directors and staff, is expected.
• Create and systematize ONE DC’s campaign strategy and political action work. Where necessary, develop forums and workshops staff can conduct to help members decide when political action is necessary.
• Manage and grow existing strategic partnerships with aligned, values-driven organizing groups committed to transformative education and power-building.
• Serve as an organizational representative in ONE DC’s partnerships with movement and local organizations. This includes representing ONE DC at key meetings, coalitions, community events, public forums, legislative and agency hearings to maintain effective relationships and build support for ONE DC campaigns.

Management team responsibilities include:

• Supervise staff in daily work responsibilities; in particular supervise any or all of: the Community Organizers (including the Homes for All organizers and the Cooperation DC organizer), the LEAP or political education organizer, apprentice organizers, interns or assistants, and ONE DC volunteers.
• Serve as a primary liaison with ONE DC’s Shared Leadership Team (SLT) to provide streamlined communication between staff and SLT.
• Provide monthly updates to SLT about staff’s performance, concerns, and organizational work.
• Further develop ONE DC’s human resources and administration operations, enhancing professional development, compensation and benefits, performance evaluation, training, and recruiting.
• Act as liaison between staff and Personnel Committee.
• Hold bi-weekly check-ins with staff; Ensure monthly work plans are submitted.
• Ensure staff evaluations are completed on time (monthly, semi-annually, and annually as appropriate).
• Plan, Attend and when necessary Facilitate staff meetings.
• Provide and/or schedule leadership training for staff.
• Help staff develop leadership training plans and monitor their progress.
• Oversee new staff onboarding and conduct staff orientation
• Support staff’s development and manifestation of ONE DC’s values, mission, and organizational work.
• Work with staff to plan staff retreats.
• Work with SLT to plan annual SLT retreats and complete strategic plans.
• Work with SLT  and Operations Lead to revise and expand SLT’s leadership development process, including a revamp of SLT’s orientation process.
• Support SLT Directors with the recruitment of SLT apprentices and directors.
• Assist in planning and implementation of ONE DC organizational events, such as the Annual Meeting, annual member appreciation, People’s Assembly, People’s Platform, Juneteenth, Emancipation Day, etc.

This position reports directly to ONE DC’s Personnel Committee, the Chair of the Personnel Committee is the Lead Organizer’s immediate supervisor.

Minimum Requirements:

1. At least five years of demonstrated direct organizing/base building experience;
2. Two years or more experience in movement related staff management;
3. Excellent interpersonal skills, with a history of power-building and relationship-building with working-class sub-populations;
4. Strong computer and internet skills;
5. Exceptional organization and time management skills; a demonstrated ability to design a work plan, prioritize, and meet goals; 
6. Ability to build unity and motivate others to action;
7. Strong history and personal practice of political and personal transformation;
8. A disciplined commitment to political education;
9. A history of developing successful working relationships with movement organizations;
10. Excellent emotional intelligence;
11. A long history of self-accountability and positive contributions to organizational staff culture;
12. Good communication skills, written and verbal; and
13. Self-motivated and skilled at working as part of a team.

Additional Qualifications:

1. Must be a resident in the DMV area. DC residents are strongly encouraged to apply and given strong preference;
2. Must be willing to consider at least a 3-year commitment to ONE DC;
3. Knowledgeable about best practices in movement organizing ;
4. Learn about and commit to ONE DC’s organizing model;
5. Be a political mastermind in terms of DC and how ONE DC’s work impacts it;
6. Willingness and ability to work with diverse community residents, particularly low-income residents, to address barriers to developing their strength as a community;
7. Strong research skills; Eye for detail;
8. Flexible hours, including ability to work some evenings and weekends;
9. Creativity and sense of humor;
10. A desire to deepen political analysis and learn about the history of social movements;
11. A reflexive professional practice and active commitment to self-critique;
12. Willingness to engage in honest, though constructive, mindful, and compassionate reciprocal critique of work with teams and other staff.

This is a full-time position. The salary for this position will range from $65,000-$75,000 based on experience. ONE DC offers a generous salary and benefits package. ONE DC is strongly committed to staff development and training. This is an opportunity for an individual to build meaningful relationships with grassroots communities and to be a part of real, concrete social change. People of color, women, LGBTQ and bilingual applicants are strongly encouraged to apply. Visit www.onedconline.org/jobs  for more information.

To Apply:

Please submit resume, list of 3 organizing references, and cover letter (including salary expectations) electronically to onedcjobs@gmail.com. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.