Municipal Policy Campaigns Manager

Welcoming Neighbors Network

Job Posting: Municipal Policy Campaigns Manager

Position Title: Municipal Policy Campaigns Manager, Welcoming Neighbors Network

Location: Fully Remote

Reports to: Director of Coordinating Team of Welcoming Neighbors Network

Hours per week (average): 40

Overtime Status: Exempt

Salary Range: $88,000 - $110,000 per year (depending on experience)

Welcoming Neighbors Network (WNN) is seeking a strategic, energetic, collaborative, knowledgeable Municipal Policy Campaigns Manager to support advocates in passing ambitious pro-housing zoning reform and other municipal policies to enable more abundant and affordable homes across the country.

Through coalition-building, community organizing, policy development, and grassroots lobbying, Welcoming Neighbors Network member organizations advocate to legalize abundant housing options, lower the cost of housing, reduce the displacement of marginalized communities, and ensure all Americans can find safe, stable housing that fits their needs and budgets. As a national network, WNN members come together to hone strategies, support one another, share lessons, replicate successes, avoid mistakes, and tackle challenges creatively.

Our Municipal Policy Campaigns Manager will accelerate abundant housing victories across the country – providing essential strategic and tactical support to on-the-ground advocates in municipalities experiencing housing shortages and runaway home costs.

In partnership with one additional Municipal Policy Campaigns Manager currently on the team, plus colleagues on the policy campaigns team focused on state legislation, this position will be the primary point of contact, adviser, and accomplice to a portion of the municipal campaigns supported by WNN.

Responsibilities include:

• Establish campaigns
  • Support local WNN members and/or other leading local pro-housing organizations to craft winning campaign plans, adopting and adapting the proven strategies from prior successful city and state efforts.
  • Support local members or partners to develop and manage strong coalitions by helping to identify coalition management best practices and strategies.
  • If no local member or partner exists in a geography with a key window of opportunity, research, identify, and build relationships with potential lead organizations, ultimately recruiting one or more to spearhead the effort.
  • In coordination with local leads, power map policy-makers to pinpoint priority coalition partners to recruit into campaign efforts.
  • Advise and coach local leads on how to approach key potential coalition partners.
  • Where appropriate, assist in recruiting organizations into the on-the-ground pro-housing coalition.
  • Assist local leads in coalition management (at their request/approval).
• Equip campaigns
  • Provide local campaigns with communications and messaging best practices on pro-housing policy issues.
  • Work with local leads to adapt communications and messaging best practices to their circumstances.
  • Ghost-write bespoke collateral for target localities to support their specific policy priorities.
  • Assemble and distill relevant policy research to support the case for local campaigns’ policy priorities.
• Enhance campaigns
  • Produce rapid-response written material to address time-sensitive challenges and opportunities as they arise on the ground.
  • Track down answers to questions from advocates, or from policymakers (via those advocates).
  • Ensure local leads are aware of, and prepared for potential pitfalls and possibilities before they happen.
  • Where appropriate and requested by local advocates, leverage WNN’s national network to bring in well-suited outside experts and messengers to speak to specific local audiences.
• Ensure campaign policies work
  • Maintain in-the-weeds understanding of policy proposals as they relate to similar policies around the country and agitate local leads to insist on policy details that have a proven impact on housing abundance and home cost.
  • Analyze policy proposals and proposed amendments with an eye toward their impact on housing abundance and home cost.
  • Where appropriate and approved by local leads, craft policy proposals and potential amendments.
  • Stay apprised of general best practices in the abundant housing policy space, as well as relevant new findings.
• (Plus other related responsibilities as needed)

Qualifications:

• Zeal for our organizational goals and strategies, including
  • Passing ambitious pro-housing policy in communities across the country
  • Supporting local advocates to run powerful campaigns,
  • Cultivating strong, creative, trusting coalitions, and
  • Working with a diverse array of partners behind the scenes to accomplish our objectives.
• Strong understanding of housing policy, specifically in regard to zoning, land use, and other regulatory factors that influence the ease or difficulty of building new workforce and affordable housing options
• Experience inside successful efforts to change municipal policy, either from the outside (as as an advocate) or from inside local government (as a staffer or elected official, etc).
• Dedication to building an inclusive, empowering organization that leans into collaboration, plays well with others, and values outcomes over credit.
• Commitment to racial and social equity, inclusion, and empowerment, inside our organization and in our work with partners and collaborators.
• Strong interpersonal abilities, with a willingness to cross boundaries and work with diverse people, including with unlikely allies
• Passion for building winning policy campaigns, rooted in tangible examples of successful campaign approaches both inside and outside of pro-housing policy
• Extraordinary writing skills, including the ability to turn around high-quality written content quickly
• Exceptional attention to detail, super organized, great time management, systems-thinking
• Calm under pressure and a commitment to kindness and respect
• Dynamic problem solving skills
• Comfortable with technology & ability to quickly learn to use new tech tools
• (Preferred but not necessary)
  • Experience working on municipal pro-housing campaigns, particularly those that have achieved meaningful policy change
  • Professional or academic experience in the ways zoning, land use, and regulation influence housing affordability and other social benefits

Pay and benefits: This is a full-time, remote work position that offers flexibility in terms of hours and days. Periodic travel will be necessary for this position. The salary range is $88,000 - $110,000 per year (depending on experience), with a comprehensive benefits package that includes 100% employer-paid health, dental, and vision insurance for employees (and their families). Employees are able to enroll in 401k retirement plan and are eligible for a 4% automatic contribution and up to a 4% employer match on 401k contributions. Employees are also eligible for pre-tax transportation benefits. Employees will receive up to 180 hours of annual vacation time (accrued at 5 hours per pay period), 80 hours of health leave, up to 2 days of casual leave, and 20 hours of volunteer leave annually. Employees will also receive 17 paid holidays throughout the calendar year. Employees are eligible for 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave after 90 days of employment.

About Welcoming Neighbors Network:

The Welcoming Neighbors Network (WNN) leads the movement for more abundant and affordable housing across the United States. Comprising 61 independent state and local member organizations across 32 states – plus a prospective member and partner network extending further still – Welcoming Neighbors Network powers the most effective pro-housing organizations and policy campaigns in the country.

WNN member organizations were driving forces behind landmark statewide pro-housing policy victories in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawai’i, Massachusetts, Maryland, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington state, and citywide victories in New York City, Austin, Columbus, Minneapolis, Charlotte, Portland, Cambridge, and Anchorage. These policies promise to translate into untold thousands of homes for middle class, working class, and low-income Americans in integrated, amenity-rich, climate-friendly communities.

The Welcoming Neighbors Network is a hub for local pro-housing groups and leaders to connect with one another across state lines. WNN documents and shares organizational and campaign resources, based on the successes and learning from across the membership. WNN also helps on-the-ground members and partners build capacity and power by providing access to their national relationships and economies of scale.

WNN facilitates collaboration and peer-support of network members across the country and targets resources to maximize campaign impact. We embrace incremental victories on the way to transformative goals and we incorporate a wide variety of allies to navigate different political contexts to achieve policy goals.

Welcoming Neighbors Network commits to building an organization that empowers the leadership of directly impacted communities, especially Black, Indigenous, Asian American, Latine, immigrant, and low-income or working class communities. WNN prioritizes policy priorities that improve social and economic outcomes for historically oppressed communities, especially communities of color.

Hiring Statement

Welcoming Neighbors Network aims to cultivate and maintain a work environment that is safe and open to all employees and partners, respecting the full spectrum of race, color, religious creed, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, political affiliation, ancestry, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status and all other classifications protected by law in the locality and/or state in which you are working. If you require accommodations at any time throughout the hiring process, please don’t hesitate to let our hiring team know.

How to Apply

To apply, please complete the application form here.

Priority will be given to applications received by January 9th.

The target onboarding date for this role is March 1st.

This hiring process includes 3 interview stages for qualified candidates, with the candidate pool winnowing significantly between each stage:

• Stage 1: Phone interview
• Stage 2: Exercise assignment and panel video interview
• Stage 3: Panel video interview, potential additional exercise assignment and reference checks.

E-Verify

Welcoming Neighbors Network participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with employees’ Form I-9 information to confirm authorization to work in the United States. Job candidates and employees authorized to work may not be discriminated against on the basis of national origin or citizenship status.

Artificial Intelligence

Regarding the use of AI: We understand that AI is a tool that is growing in popularity and is widely available. While we do not prohibit the use of AI in polishing your written materials in your application, please ensure that your work expresses your original thoughts and accurately reflects your abilities, skills, knowledge, and problem-solving capabilities. We want to get a feel for you! We maintain the right to disqualify any candidate who we feel has plagiarized and/or misrepresented their skills via the misuse of AI generators and other tools. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out for clarification.

The Welcoming Neighbors Network coordinating team offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes 100% employer-paid health, dental, and vision insurance for employees (and their families). Employees are able to enroll in 401k retirement plan and are eligible for a 4% automatic contribution and up to a 4% employer match on 401k contributions. Employees are also eligible for pre-tax transportation benefits. Employees will receive up to 180 hours of annual vacation time (accrued at 5 hours per pay period), 80 hours of health leave, up to 2 days of casual leave, and 20 hours of volunteer leave annually. Employees will also receive 17 paid holidays throughout the calendar year. Employees are eligible for 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave after 90 days of employment.

Must be fluent in English. Other language proficiencies appreciated & potentially useful but not required.