Director of Environmental Justice and Community Partnerships

TL;DR

World-changing climate tech startup is seeking an optimistic, outgoing, experienced, and external-facing Director of Environmental Justice and Community Partnerships who understands local air pollution concerns and the EJ ecosystem to interface directly with community-based organizations, policymakers, and environmental and public health NGOs. Charged with driving maximum impact and benefit in communities, you’ll be an ambassador of the Aclima brand, working with community leaders and government agencies to help inform the way regulatory bodies implement data-informed solutions, and how they design new programs powered by Aclima’s hyperlocal environmental data and tools that meet community needs.

About Aclima 

Aclima is pioneering an entirely new way to monitor and respond to air pollution in communities, and track the effectiveness of focused mitigation efforts. We leverage cutting-edge sensor technology mounted on fleets of mapping vehicles to measure air pollution, greenhouse gases, methane, and air toxics across entire cities, states, and regions at block-level resolution. Our professional analytics software, Aclima Pro, translates billions of scientific measurements into insights at the source level, providing environmental intelligence for governments, industry, and communities. Our free app delivers address-level air pollution insights for the communities we serve. Aclima is a purpose-driven technology company helping to catalyze bold climate action that protects community health, reduces emissions, and supports smart government.

Aclima is one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential companies. Other awards include Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World, #1 in Data Science, Inc. Magazine’s Best in Business, a Fast Company 2022 World Changing Idea, a WEF Technology Pioneer, and one of the top 100 companies in GovTech for 2023. Aclima is headquartered in San Francisco. 

To learn more about Aclima, please visit https://aclima.io.

About the Role

As a public benefit corporation (PBC), we are committed to building technology that serves society, catalyzing meaningful benefits for our environment, and protecting public health. Aclima’s stakeholders are varied, and under our PBC status, include all members of the public. Our paying customers include those in the public sector, public regulators and officials, as well as energy utilities, who in turn serve their customers – constituents and ratepayers. As a result, all residents, especially community residents on the front lines, are beneficiaries of Aclima’s innovative work.

As the Director of Environmental Justice and Community Partnerships you will lead Aclima’s community engagement work and manage projects and programs in partnership with Aclima’s customers. You will shape how Aclima engages with, understands, serves, and delivers real-world value through Aclima’s products and services. You’ll achieve this by working closely with Aclima’s deployment teams and business development teams on outreach and engagement. Aclima strives to work with community leaders to develop community-led engagement strategies to ensure that our work is responsive to local concerns. Our goal is to utilize and build upon the lessons learned from each community engagement opportunity to continually enhance our product to better serve new communities across the country and abroad. You will be responsible for community-related customer success, retention, project management, and expansion, ensuring successful implementation of Aclima’s solutions.

A key element of this position is establishing deep and trusted partnerships with community groups and key individuals to design programs that leverage Aclima’s unique data. You’ll be shepherding those customer and partner relationships, ensuring value delivery, and integration of key lessons and user needs into Aclima’s products. Specifically, you will serve as the main liaison between community stakeholders and Aclima’s Product team to inform features and development, improving Aclima’s effectiveness at delivering value to communities. You will collaborate with Aclima’s BD and Sales leads to craft innovative proposals informed by your experience and outreach with these constituents. Then, with community support, you’ll help to create replicable value propositions to expand Aclima’s reach to support new communities across the country and globe. The ideal candidate will possess a wide network of relationships in community-based organizations, NGOs, and the EJ-focused research community, and possess deep domain expertise in EJ issues and the political landscape. Over time, the Community Engagement Team at Aclima will grow under your leadership, and be recognized as the gold standard for effective community partnerships.

The ideal candidate will be entrepreneurial, energetic, experienced, empathetic, and execution-oriented. You will:

• Identify, build, and maintain trusted relationships with EJ, community, and thought leaders in new and existing Aclima markets through regular check-ins with partners and potential partners
• Engagement on major enforcement settlements that provide an opportunity to support forgotten communities with Aclima’s portfolio of tools.
• Partner with CBOs to design, write, and submit novel grants for new data collection campaigns that can be funded by federal or state grant programs such as the EPA’s Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grant Program  
• Utilize strong active listening skills to liaise across multiple stakeholder groups, including grassroots community-based organizations, large NGOs, regulators’ community engagement teams, elected officials, and applied researchers
• Work with Aclima leadership to define and rollout Aclima’s donor-advised fund, “Groundtruth Fund” taking on a key leadership and fundraising role once the program is fully operational
• Work cross-functionally across teams, including Business Development, Government Affairs, Communications, Product/Design, Engineering, and Operations, to play a key role in shaping Aclima's products to expand the scale, reach, impact, and lasting adoption of Aclima products
• Identify and prioritize opportunities for expansion into new geographies where Aclima’s tools and services are most likely to be adopted by stakeholders
• Develop and communicate a specific strategy for engaging with CBOs and other relevant stakeholders in every new geography Aclima leadership deems as high priority
• Ensure the real-world environmental impacts of Aclima’s tools in existing coverage areas through user interviews to improve interfaces and getting Aclima’s tools into the hands of more people
• Coordinate advocacy among stakeholders to garner support expanded monitoring efforts
• Project-manage proposal generation, and grant submission efforts with customers and partners. write grants, create marketing materials, presentations, design demonstration projects, and form partnerships with local champions.
• Help manage complex multi-stakeholder follow-up and track those outreach efforts
• Help CBOs effectively utilize Aclima’s tools and datasets to engage with elected officials and regulators to design and implement data-driven policies
• Identify ways to expand how Aclima serves communities, including hiring from at-risk populations and reducing Aclima’s own fleet emissions and waste streams
• Liaise with Aclima’s advisory board of EJ leaders.
• 10% to 20% travel time, mostly within the state of California.

Qualifications:

• 5+ years of working in or with community NGOs or international advocacy NGOs, or other direct experience working in or with environmental regulators on program implementation, project management, and community outreach.
• Trust and credibility within EJ and front-line communities.
• A love of meeting new people, and service oriented leadership.
• Strong desire and track record of rolling-up-sleeves to execute end-to-end programs.
• Deep familiarity with CBOs, EJ organizations, and the climate advocacy ecosystem
• Outstanding public speaking, and presentation skills.
• High level of drive and resourcefulness, creativity, and adaptability.
• Strong sense of loyalty, teamwork and high personal integrity.
• A hunger to learn everything there is to know about Aclima’s products, customers, strategy, and the markets we’re defining.
• Bi-lingual candidates are preferred.

Please know that you can be a great candidate even if you don't have everything we've described above. You might also possess important skills and experience we haven't considered. If that's you, don't hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself (especially in your cover letter).