Organizer - Senior Empowerement Project

About Addition

Addition was created to seed new working-class organizing across the United States. We do three things: launch new working class organizing projects from scratch, train people in the fundamentals of the craft of organizing and a return to common sense non-academic language, and help working class people tell their own story.

About the Senior Empowerment Project

The Senior Empowerment Project (an organizing project of Addition) believes 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.

We are working toward a future where:

• Every senior has a home, suited to their lives and located in the communities where they want to live
• 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 active participants in community life.

Position Summary

Addition’s Senior Empowerment Project is seeking a community organizer to work in central Wisconsin. 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 primarily working-class seniors (65+) in the small towns and rural communities of Wisconsin by:

• conducting one-to-one visits
• building a large, engaged, and organized base of seniors,
• Recruiting and developing an active team of senior leaders,
• creating high impact communications, and
• waging winning campaigns on the issues most important to seniors and their families.

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 results in wins that people can see and feel in their daily lives, and who has the drive, skills and adaptability to expand our senior organizing.

Working closely with the Organizing Strategist and Senior Organizer, you will help expand the Senior Empowerment Project in Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Work with the Senior Organizer to inform the overall vision and workplan for campaigns.
• 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.
• Listen for issues that resonate with rural people, frame the issues, help people create effective organizing plans and take action.
• Organize campaigns that win positive changes for seniors and increase their power to continue to improve their lives and the lives of their communities. ,
• 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. This requires the ability to travel across the state to meet people in the communities where they live.

Minimum Qualifications

• Grounded in real-world organizing practice
• Strong judgment, discretion, and reliability
• Commitment to meeting people where they are
• Can-do attitude working in a new and evolving organization
• Demonstrated deep commitment to racial, gender, and economic justice
• Handle sensitive information with discretion and judgment

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 working 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 a CRM for organizing).
• Communications: Experience using and/or the capacity to learn to effectively use mass communications tools such as social media, short form video, texting platforms, predictive dialers, CRM systems, and direct mail.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• 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.
• Experience working in 501c3 and 501c4 environments and with lobbying/policy advocacy in Wisconsin is a plus
• Two or more years of campaigning and community organizing experience preferred.
• Experience working with older adults is a plus.

Compensation & Benefits

We provide a generous benefits package that includes health, dental, and vision coverage for employees and their dependents, a 401(k) plan with up to 5% employer match, 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.

Note

This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed

by the employee(s) of this position. Employees will be required to follow any other job-

related instructions and to perform any other job-related duties requested by any person

authorized to give instructions or assignments. All duties and responsibilities are essential

functions and requirements and are subject to possible modification to reasonably

accommodate individuals with disabilities.

Addition is dedicated to the achievement of equality of opportunity for all of its employees and applicants for employment. This broadly interpreted policy not only prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, age, national origin, disability, veteran status or any protected category under state, local or federal law, but also ensures that qualified individuals will be given the opportunity to join Addition and progress within Addition in accordance with their own abilities.

We provide a generous benefits package that includes health, dental, and vision coverage for employees and their dependents, a 401(k) plan with up to 5% employer match, 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.