Organizer - Senior Empowerment Project - Michigan

Addition (a project of Tides Center) seeking a community organizer to work on their Senior Empowerment Project in western Michigan. We are looking for a candidate committed to building winning economic and social justice campaigns. As a community organizer, you will be responsible for organizing with working-class rural people in Michigan, by conducting one-to-one visits, building a large, engaged base of people, developing grassroots leadership, creating effective communications, waging winning campaigns on the issues most important to working class seniors, and more.

We are looking for someone who is excited about building power with people in new ways and in places, who has a track record of successful organizing that creates changes people can see and feel in their daily lives, and who has the drive, self-direction and adaptability to expand our senior organizing.

Working closely with the Organizing Strategist, you will help drive the Senior Care Campaign in Michigan and help shape our regional organizing strategy. This is a great opportunity for a skilled, dedicated, and creative leader to grow our current campaigns and launch new organizing with seniors in rural western Michigan.

About the Senior Empowerment Project

We believe that every senior, having spent decades working, raising families, and serving our communities, has the right to continue living lives of dignity and purpose. We organize seniors to make lasting, positive changes for themselves, their families and their communities.

Our vision is for a world where each of us can grow older with dignity, with the care we need, and in the communities that we choose to live in.

We are working toward a future where:

• Every senior has a home
• Every senior has access to high-quality, affordable and local care
• Care workers are treated with the dignity they deserve and are paid the wages they are worth.
• Seniors are no longer isolated, but full participants in community life.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Work with the Senior Organizer to inform the overall vision and workplan for campaigns.
• Provide leadership by driving the campaign, bringing in new people and changing how people think about the contributions, challenges and opportunities of senior citizens and rural communities.
• Listen for issues that resonate with rural people, frame the issues, help people create effective organizing plans and take action.
• Work to identify and develop new leaders and strategic constituencies. This includes training and coaching grassroots leaders in organizing fundamentals, such as running effective public meetings, cutting issues, gaining media coverage and impactful communications.
• Be actively meeting and engaging with a broad range of people in rural communities.
• This work will emphasize in-person connections, including one-to-one and in-person meetings, to build power among people who are often left out of decision-making that impacts their lives.

Other Duties and Responsibilities

• Maintain and track detailed organizing records and conduct ongoing follow-up.
• Valid driver’s license, safe driving record, and access to a reliable vehicle. This is a Michigan-based position, and you must be able to drive and organize with people in the towns, cities, and rural communities across Michigan.

Education and/or Experience

• Experience: two or more years of campaigning and community organizing experience preferred.
• Experience working with older adults individually and in groups is a plus.
• Campaigns and Organizing leadership: Ability to plan, execute, and adapt campaign strategies in changing contexts. This includes strong strategic thinking and decision-making skills.
• Training and Leadership Development: Experience training and developing community members in organizing, power building, community advocacy and/or influencing policy.
• Systems-based approach: Familiarity and comfort with systems-based approaches to change.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strong Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, distilling complex ideas into clear, compelling messages. Good conversation and interpersonal communication skills.
• Interpersonal skills: Experience building relationships and engaging effectively with people from various generational, ethnic, racial, socio-economic, educational, and religious backgrounds, as well as people of various physical abilities, sexual orientations, and gender identities
• Basic computing skills (Google Suite, Zoom, ability to learn and utilize organizational database functions for organizing). Experience using social media for organizing is a plus.
• Experience using and/or the capacity to learn to effectively use mass communications tools such as social media, texting platforms, predictive dialers, CRM systems, and direct mail.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Commitment to meeting people where they are.

Organizational Relationship

Addition is a fiscally sponsored project of Tides Center. Addition serves as a home for incubating projects to engage the bigger “We” needed to preserve democracy and address the most pressing issues of our time by bringing together experienced, talented, and creative strategists and organizers to be in relationship with segments of the country that have been written off by much of today’s economy and civic institutions. This position will report to a Senior Organizing Strategist. Addition (a project of Tides Center) is a fully remote organization. Candidates should be based in western Michigan and will work from a home office. This is a full-time position.

Physical Demands

There are no significant physical requirements related to this position.

Work Environment

Will work remotely with significant travel across Michigan and limited travel in the Upper Midwest.

Equal Employment Opportunity and Reasonable Accommodation

Tides Center is an equal-opportunity employer. We value a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture. The organization encourages applications from all qualified individuals without regard to race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, marital status, disability, veteran status, record of arrest or conviction and any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

We provide a generous benefits package that includes health and dental coverage for employees and their dependents, a 401(k) plan, a flexible spending plan, paid vacation, holidays, sick days, and support for remote work set-up. We offer ongoing training opportunities in a fast-paced, dynamic, supportive, and collaborative setting.