MA Co-op Director

Organization Overview:

The Community Purchasing Alliance of Massachusetts (CPA MA) is an innovative social-impact, group purchasing cooperative focused on supporting community institutions such as nonprofits, congregations, and schools. Our mission is to organize collective bargaining and purchasing power to not only save money and improve services but also to support BIPOC-owned companies, close the racial wealth gap, and promote environmental sustainability. CPA MA is part of the multi-regional Community Purchasing Alliance Network (CPA Network). 

The Massachusetts Co-op Director’s role is to lead the cooperative toward financial self-sustainability and social impact through the growth of high-quality group purchasing programs. The MA Co-op Director’s primary responsibilities are: (1) growing purchasing programs with current participants and new prospects and (2) leadership of CPA MA as an independent local cooperative that is a member of the broader CPA Network.

What You Will Do:

Institutional Engagement, Membership Recruitment, & Program Support:

• Build relationships with our existing base of over 50 institutions who purchase with the cooperative, helping connect them to new purchasing opportunities and encouraging them to become co-op member-owners.
• Organize additional institutions (across a range of institution types and sizes) to join our purchasing programs and co-op membership. Expand the pipeline of institutions engaged with the co-op and move them toward contract opportunities.
• Lead turnout for purchasing program campaigns. Align engagement efforts to the calendar of purchasing campaigns in order to maximize the number of organizations cooperating on each group purchase. Coordinate with program directors at the CPA Network to maximize impact of each purchasing program campaign.
• Provide on-the-ground support to programs as needed, in coordination with program directors, particularly for programs that require site visits including janitorial and waste.
• When opportunities arise, lead the development of new purchasing programs responsive to the unique needs of community institutions in  Massachusetts.
• Build and sustain relationships with key partners across the racial equity, cooperative, community organizing and solidarity economy movements.
• Manage MA communications including newsletter, web, PR, and lead planning and implementation of CPA MA’s annual meeting for member-owners. 

Provide Strategic Leadership to MA Co-op

• Prepare for, facilitate, and participate in monthly CPA MA Board of Directors meetings.
• Cultivate and hold the culture, values, practices, and mission of our social impact cooperative with a focus on developing and executing a racial equity strategy.
• Oversee strategy and priorities settings, guiding an MA-focused team to achieve organizational goals across key business, cooperative, and social impact metrics.
• Support CPA MA’s fundraising and budgeting in coordination with the CPA Network. 
• Represent the unique context and needs of CPA MA at the CPA Network by participating in team spaces focused on strategic planning, staffing structure, and prioritization. 
• When needed and as financially feasible, hire and manage a contractor to support business development and account management, with the goal of building scale sufficient to bring on a full time employee.

Skills & Qualifications:

• Relationship-building: You can connect with people from many different backgrounds and create opportunities to deepen connections and build authentic, mutual relationships with members, participants, vendors, and colleagues across lines of difference.
• Organization-building: You thrive in a small but complex organizational setting (despite working remotely without an office) with people across the country who work similarly.
• Persistence: You can build new relationships with busy people. You’ll be rejected multiple times but will continue trying. 
• Entrepreneurial: You are genuinely curious about the challenges that leaders of community institutions face, and can think creatively on how our cooperative can help them now and in the future. You have experience managing a budget and are able to move CPA MA towards financial sustainability.
• Self-Management: You can operate effectively in environments with a high degree of freedom, developing and implementing strategy and goals to lead an organization through early-stage growth. 
• Mission-focused: You are passionate about advancing sustainability, equity, and justice by building business partnerships across lines of difference.

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance (100% employer paid premiums)
• $2,500/dependent compensation addition for up to two dependents
• Retirement contributions (CPA will match your contributions to our employer retirement plan, starting with a 100% match up to 3% of your salary in the first year of employment, up to 4.5% of your salary the second year, and up to 6% of your salary after two years).
• Hybrid position with flexible schedule + “Flex Fridays” (time to catch up on deep work and/or personal needs)
• Be your own boss while practicing workplace democracy in an environment of high feedback and self-evaluation aimed at professional development
• 25 days of PTO + all federal holidays
• 3 months parental / primary caregiver leave
• Remote office reimbursements
• Professional Development Budget of $500/year of employment up to $2,500
• Annual cost of living adjustment

Our Hiring Values:

The Community Purchasing Alliance recognizes that in the US, legacies of oppression are perpetuated through, among other things, hiring practices. White people, men, straight people, and wealthy people are given access and preferentially hired into well paying, high-esteemed jobs over people of color, women, trans people, queer people, disabled people, displaced people, and poor and working class people. CPA is committed to participating in socially just hiring practices that counter these pressures. Through this practice we strive to maintain a cooperative make-up which values and centers the voices of those who have been historically excluded from positions of leadership and power. 

We make an intentional effort to encourage and recruit a diverse applicant pool with regard to race, ethnicity, sex, gender, religion, age, ability, size, sexual orientation, marital status, familial status, economic status, class background, language, nation of origin, and documentation status. (Language adopted from www.aorta.coop)