Community Organizer

Community Organizer Job Description (Apply by June 7)

Purpose: Our core purpose is to build collective power for young people to create the safer, happier, and healthier world we want to live in. We organize and increase civic engagement.

Mission: Our core mission is to activate young people’s identities into action and help youth treat civic service as the work of a lifetime. We know that people’s deeper desires - what we want to want, who we want to become - can be shaped with conscious care and attention.

Vision: Our vision is to create a chain reaction of student involvement in civic service and empower students to create the world they want to live in. We plan to create an organizing infrastructure across most high schools in the US. Our role is to inspire youth to take action within supportive communities, so they can experience healthy early exposures to civic life.

Rhizome Overview: Rhizome is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit co-founded by 90 young people in 2021. We all come from different backgrounds, yet we share the desire to build a country that lives up to its values. More about our origins and impact can be found on our website.

Our flagship program is the Civic Service Fellowship, a leadership development program for emerging leaders in high school who learn how to organize and increase civic engagement. Local Fellowship Chapters are led by paid Youth Organizers, who support teams of Fellows. Next school year, we’ll likely have about 60 Youth Organizers who support teams of Fellows to organize, increase civic engagement, and lead local actions across hundreds of high schools.

Problem ID: Anti-democratic practices prevent young people from building collective power to create the safer, happier, healthier world they want to live in. We stand against cynicism, authoritarianism, and social isolation. In turn, we stand for civic participation, democracy, and community. In this time of rising challenges to mental health and democratic integrity, we understand social isolation as the opposite of collective power.

See the links below for more information about how we approach our work:

• Power Analysis: the levers of power we are focused on to create change
• What Authoritarianism Does: our midterm action and narrative campaign
• Visionary Platform: the issues Organizers and Fellows are most focused on

This Role: Community Organizers work an average of 6 hours/week* as W2 employees to recruit, onboard, and support teams of high-school aged Civic Service Fellows to lead actions in their communities. Community Organizers make $18/hour and submit weekly Action Reports of time spent.

• Community Organizers work 6.5 hours/week July-November and January-March, 4 hours/week in November and April. Rhizome also has 2 unpaid mental health breaks (office closures) in December/January and May/June.

Community Organizers will support 5-7 teams of Civic Service Fellows in local high schools across a particular urban, suburban, or rural community. COs will recruit, onboard, and support high school Fellows who build community, receive regular training, and lead civic actions. COs will work both virtually and in-person, and are ideally located in our priority regions to maximize in-person work and on-the-ground knowledge. Priority areas are: Washington state, California, Colorado, Illinois, Texas, New York, New Jersey, the DMV (Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia) area, North Carolina, Georgia, Utah, Oklahoma, Michigan, and Florida.

We will also consider candidates who have on-the-ground experience in a priority area, even if they do not currently reside there, and candidates who align with our work and are interested in seeding work in a state outside of our priority areas.

Qualifications: No specific experience is necessary, but the right candidate will bring:

• Community Organizing Experience: A demonstrable track record of organizing a group of people around a goal, campaign development, or volunteer mobilization.
• Experience in Youth Engagement: Experience working directly with and engaging young people (high school aged and up) in meaningful ways.
• Strong Communications Skills: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to speak with adult and youth audiences effectively.
• Understanding of Social Justice Issues: Can clearly articulate an understanding of why community engagement and civic responsibility is important.
• Proficiency with Digital Systems: Familiarity with online platforms and tools for community organizing, communication, and outreach.
• Alignment with Rhizome’s Mission and Values: Has a genuine passion for youth empowerment and building youth power.
• COs are required to attend weekly meetings on Mondays from 7:00pm ET - 9:00pm ET, weekly Chapter meetings (time and date set by the Chapter), and our in-person gathering August 6-10 (all travel costs covered by Rhizome).

Our Ideal Candidates:

• Experience in Developing and Supporting Chapters or Affiliates: Experience in supporting and growing chapters or affiliates within a larger organization.
• Strong Coaching or Mentoring Skills: Ability to effectively coach and mentor young people in a way that develops their civic skills and leadership potential.
• Strong Relationship-Building Skills: Able to navigate complex situations, adapt to changing circumstances, and creatively solve problems with individuals from diverse backgrounds.
• Self-Motivated and Proactive: Proven ability to work independently, take initiative, and ask for support as needed.
• Cultural Competence and Humility: A commitment to continuous learning and previous experience working with young people from varying cultural, religious, and ideological backgrounds.
• Previous Experience in Remote Work Environment: Demonstrable history of remote work experience and/or managing a team of remote workers.

Application Process: Review this timeline & plan accordingly. Dates may change slightly. Rhizome is an equal opportunity employer and encourages all interested applicants to apply.

Hiring Timeline: Community Organizers will likely receive job offers by the end of July, and we will provide finalized start dates and onboarding information by time interviews wrap up:

• Application deadline: Sunday, June 7
• Stage 1, June 15-18: candidates contacted for screeners
• Stage 2, June 22-30: candidate screeners and potential interview
• Stage 3, June 30 - July 1: offers are extended
• Start Date: Monday, July 20

Civic Service Fellowship: Fellows join weekly meetings in their local Chapters and bimonthly national meetings to learn the principles of community organizing, intentionally shape their own identities, practice healthy habits, and lead actions. This includes Chapter-wide actions each fall, national actions, and spring actions around nonviolent, nonpartisan, and inclusive ideas Fellows are passionate about each spring. Action examples include teach-ins about authoritarianism, wildfire prevention and education campaigns, teaching democracy to K-12 students, establishing school mindfulness periods, advocating for eco-friendly campuses, Know Your Period tabling events, hosting gun violence prevention conversations with City Council after the loss of a friend, mutual aid campaigns, etc. We’re also building storytelling systems that grow as we do, centering the voices of Fellows and Organizers at the forefront of our work.

Organizer Norms and Core Values:

• Strive to build a space to learn and grow
• Believe that this thing we’ve built can work
• Commit to your own happiness and wellbeing
• Go overboard with credit and praise where it’s due
• Center the people in the work, not just the numbers
• Learn from our mistakes, our wins, and our in between

Leadership Team Norms and Core Values:

• Proximate Decision-Making: decisions made by people closest to the information, with crucial expertise or lived experience.
• Connectedness: internal commitment to knowing each other, practicing heartfulness with each other, and communicating boundaries.
• Community Care: external commitment to our leadership team moving as a united front, getting work done, and pursuing wholeness.
• Wu Wei: cultivating patterns of rest, stillness, and contemplative action. Moving in accord with the demands of life, actionless action.
• Disagree and Commit: use our shared decision-making systems to arrive at decisions, then a commitment to backing each other up.
• Relentless Commitment To Youth Power: nourishing conditions that enable long-term collective power for young people to create the safer, happier, healthier world they want to live in.