Senior Advocacy Officer

This position is open to all candidates located in North America or Latin America.

An experienced advocate and network builder who will help Namati drive a successful campaign for improving global access to justice, and invite a broad range of stakeholders into the legal empowerment movement 

About the position

Namati is searching for a big-hearted advocate who will help us develop, drive, deliver, and implement successful wins across our global legal empowerment portfolio. 

In 2015, Namati and the Legal Empowerment Network led a successful advocacy campaign calling for access to justice to be included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This was the first time that the global community recognized access to justice as essential for peace, inclusive growth, and sustainable development. Now with populism and authoritarianism on the rise, we face challenges in translating these goals to real life. For many people, their ability to access justice is increasingly under threat. In 2018, Namati and the Global Legal Empowerment Network launched a global advocacy campaign - Justice For All - calling for scaled up financing and protection for grassroots justice defenders. With COVID-19 presenting new, unpredictable challenges to accessing justice around the world, we’re looking for someone to help us ramp up our advocacy to ensure that justice is sought and won in our communities throughout the response and recovery. 

As part of a newly-created Engagement Team, this role will help Namati grow an even broader and more diverse base of support for the legal empowerment movement. This person will create energizing experiences, relationships, and content to raise Namati’s public profile, reach new audiences and deepen engagement with key stakeholders. 

Reporting to Namati’s Policy Director, this role will be responsible for:

• Developing Namati’s policy positions to advocate to governments, foundations, grassroots organizations, and others to expand access to justice, and to increase funding for it. This also includes building the case that the COVID-19 crisis is also a justice crisis. 
• Forging meaningful relationships with partners, working closely and collaboratively with members of the Legal Empowerment Network to advance common advocacy goals and provide advocacy support.
• Creating and adapting advocacy resources to cater to the diverse needs of global network members, such as training materials and campaign tools.
• Supporting Namati’s partners working on national policy reforms, for example, by helping draft policy papers and organizing advocacy meetings.
• Supporting our policy director, and our global programs team, to evaluate and continuously learn from our experience with advocacy campaigns.
• Mapping the legal empowerment and relevant ecosystems to actively identify new allies and engagement opportunities
• Supporting the Engagement Team in envisioning and executing content campaigns.
• Ensuring all projects are well planned and advance towards defined goals, communicating with other staff and partners, documenting team discussions and following up on commitments made.
• Providing additional support to Namati’s interconnected advocacy, partnerships, and engagement work as needed.

Here’s what you might have tackled in the past week:

• Contributed to research and writing for a policy paper on safeguarding access to justice for women during a pandemic.
• Held a call with a lead network member in the Philippines developing a regional strategy to access funds allocated via COVID legislation in service of justice. 
• Co-hosted a webinar with Namati’s Policy Director on protecting the rights of justice defenders during quarantine and facilitating an online Q&A with participants.
• Organised an online roundtable with senior ranking politicians and diplomats to advocate for additional global financing for community justice.
• Designed a project to sharpen Namati’s brand positioning in partnership with pro-bono consultants.
• Launched a digital brief for Namati’s friends and supporters, highlighting our big wins and insights that are relevant to current events.

About You

• Track record of work on advocacy campaigns: You have multiple years of experience in campaign project work involving a combination of digital organizing, non-violent direct action, public communication/engagement, and media. Educational background in International Development, Public Policy or a related field is a plus.
• Exceptional communication skills: You have demonstrable experience engaging with diverse communities and are an outstanding communicator across a variety of channels. You’re proactive about getting what you need from other staff to advance your projects. 
• Nimble and a creative thinker: You like to use your creativity to develop new and innovative approaches, create compelling content, and push back against the status quo. Although careful planning and execution define your work, you are positive and graceful when unexpected challenges arise. You quickly reorient and identify the best new course of action.
• Strong program management. You are a dependable, organized, detail-oriented, and proactive professional known for producing high quality content on deadline. You work quickly and efficiently and can produce excellent, on-point work products on deadline, including in short timeframes when needed. 
• Aptitude for investigation and analysis: You have a demonstrated track record of skilled research and writing. You find good data from a variety of sources to craft effective, evidence-based policy positions.
• Collaborative and service-oriented, with a global outlook: You have strong interpersonal skills and an intuitive sense of how to build and maintain strong, personable relationships across cultures and stakeholders. You manage collaborative processes confidently and efficiently: you know how to work with input from a variety of stakeholders, while maintaining control, scope, and timeliness.  
• Growth oriented: You are always seeking to better yourself and your work, and you will push yourself to the peak of performance to help fulfill our mission. In service of that growth, you welcome and delight in feedback from supervisors, peers, and anyone else.

Location 

This position is open to candidates throughout North America and Latin America. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the job will involve travel internationally. 

Compensation & benefits

We will finalize compensation and responsibilities based on the qualifications, experience, and country location of the person joining. Early in the selection process we’ll discuss salary ranges with candidates. If you have salary requirements, please share them in your cover letter. 

We also offer excellent benefits: while the exact terms vary somewhat based on location, they always include health coverage, generous paid time off, retirement or old-age plan contributions, sick leave, and parental leave— or compensation for the same. All staff also have access to funds for professional development opportunities.

To Apply

Please submit a resume and cover letter - explaining your interest and how your experiences relate to the position - using our online application form. Please include a relevant work sample. 

We‘ll accept applications on a rolling basis until the position is filled. Namati is an Equal Opportunity Employer.