I have some exciting news to share. Movement Voter Project is growing and we're planning to hire up to seven new (mostly senior) positions in the coming months (!!!). We'd love your help in identifying great candidates! Below are the hopefully fascinating REAL TALK descriptions of each role - like no job posting you've ever seen. Worth reading for the literary and entertainment value alone :). We're looking for bad ass folks at all experience levels (can be based anywhere).
Background: Over the past 18 months, in partnership with each of you, we've helped more than 1000 progressive donors move $3.7 million ($1.2 Million this year alone) to more than 140 local and national groups. We are especially proud of having helped seed more than 25 new organizations or 501(c)4s. And we're proud of operating with a collaborative spirit with everyone else in the field. In short, Movement Voter Project is off to a good start.
But we know that the need out there is at least 100 x greater than our current capacity. We know that there are thousands of progressive donors - especially now - who want to make a difference, but who need basic support, encouragement, research etc. to have the confidence to invest - especially in local groups and edgy, risky, experimental efforts - often in far away places. That's why we exist.
We have prided ourselves for operating on a shoestring. But we are hitting our ceiling in terms of capacity and we believe that there is a moral and strategic imperative to grow our little team to meet the needs of the amazing progressive donors and organizers whom we serve. Frankly we must do everything in our power to save the country that we love. There can be no excuses.
To date, we've had a financial model of "radical generosity" in which we help everyone - donors and groups alike - pro-bono. In turn, about 10% of our pro-bono "clients" have seen enough value in our work and offered to chip in to cover our operating expenses and generously given us the support to pilot this model.
Recently, some of our close donor friends have started asking us: Why are you so small and scrappy? If your product is as good as you say, why doesn't anyone know about it - beyond a very small circle? Are you really serving your mission and the local groups you support by being so under-capacity to meet their needs?
Basically, in a very nice way, they challenged us: Go Big or Go Home!
So we're launching a Go Big or Go Home campaign! We're still in the process of raising the money ($400k toward our $1 Million goal). Ideally, we will more than double our paid staff over the next 1-6 months (ahem! we're still look for a few more anchor donors). But we didn't want to wait to raise all the money to put out the word and start the process of recruiting.
Right now, Movement Voter Project is a little bit more than half-time for myself, Matt Singer and Jessica Pierce; a little bit of Howard Watts and Bryan Perlmutter's time (Bryan focuses on Student Power networks); and a part-time ad hoc team doing operations, data, web, and graphic design). We have a great crew of part-time consultants and dedicated super volunteers.
In an ideal world, we want to hire seven more positions - aiming for full time, as resources allow.
In an ideal world, we would recruit senior people who are very entrepreneurial, and the best in the world at each role. Almost all of the jobs are listed as "Directors." But here's the thing: We're also willing to consider amazing mid-level, or even junior-level people for "Manager" or "Associate" versions of these jobs. So the salary ranges and even job titles are somewhat malleable within each area. For almost any of these positions, we would consider the right person in the $40k - $50k range, the $60 - $80k range, or the $80k- $100k+ range (I make $90k but I wouldn't be opposed to paying someone more than myself). We would also consider part-time staff and consultants. We want the best people in the world, and we understand that greatness comes in many different forms. We believe the best people are self-starters, deeply collaborative, team-oriented, and diverse in every way imaginable.
Here are the seven positions with a little bit of REAL TALK description on each role - hope you enjoy!
1. Director of Local Partnerships & Political Strategy
This person lives and breathes to support local organizations all over the country. They wake up in the morning thinking about the eco-system of groups in Michigan, Arizona, Alabama... in probably 15-20 states at once. So they have to be a fanatic. But a really nice fanatic. They are constantly on the phone and traveling, tracking, and translating everyone's plans and needs for the digital comms and the donor-facing team. And helping groups in little ways to make connections, document their work and translate it for funders (curating data, stories, budgets, photos, etc). They'd also be helpful in political strategy and donor-facing work. But their main job is to talk to and support 100-200 local groups. Howard has been doing this job (with help from me, Matt and Jessica) but he only has about 5 hours a week (LOL!) so when we hire someone full-time for this position, Howard will shift to a senior adviser role.
2. & 3. Donor Organizers (Major Donors and Mass Scale)
This is probably two positions if we can afford it. Half of the role is being a traditional development director - keeping track of all of our donors and clients and making sure we're communicating well with them. Half is genuine donor organizing. We don't see people as checkbooks. We see our donors as smart people who are just like any other super volunteer - they have vision, passion, creativity, skills to offer, networks. Our job is to keep them informed on the most amazing work in the most politically strategic places. And to invite them to participate in the movement in ways that make sense for them. Our purpose is to organize, inform and advise... and we want to do it with major donors and ideally with thousands of smaller donors, ideally in teams all across the country, who organize their peers to donate. And who want to know where to send money to impact say, the Secretary of State race in Michigan... (to pick a not-so-random example :). These people love donors and wake up every morning thinking about how to empower more progressive donors to reach their potential and organize other donors - at all levels.
4. Digital Communications
This is the position I feel like I understand the least how we find the right person. Basically we need someone who is going to blow Movement up and make it a trusted household name in wider progressive circles. Easier said than done. The ideal person would do a combination of: basic social and traditional media pitching; and they'd have the personal reach to make things blow up; and they'd have a huge network of other influencers who could do the same; and they'd build and manage zillions of creative partnerships, and they'd come up with lots of their own creative ideas and execute them - in super collaborative alignment with the rest of the team. It's hard to find all of those abilities and sensibilities in one person. Might end up being a team. So let us know what your super powers are in this general area. It's unlikely that any one person can do everything!
5. Elections Director
In addition to moving money to the best groups, we have traditionally helped to fill gaps in the progressive vote infrastructure. Our major program in this area is VOTE MOB - a momentum driven GOTV program primarily for young people in 30 states. We talent scout unlikely organizers and get them swag, stipends, training, management tools, coaching and management to run simple GOTV programs in the most strategic places. We've also organized swing state trips, progressive voter guides, cultural interventions, and engaged in countless local and national partnerships to support local organizers - to fill gaps and engage talent and work in places or in ways that our local partner organizations can't or won't. This person would run a national vote program (directly stipending hundreds of people in places like North Dakota, Mid-Missouri, Southern Georgia, Northern Arizona, etc) and also work with national and local partners to creatively solve problems and fill gaps in the landscape. Believe it or not, I am currently performing this role (with the help of a great VOTE MOB team last year). But I'm doing it badly and we're missing lots of opportunities. This role deserves someone's full attention. And I need to shift more of my time to donor organizing.
6. Director of National Partnerships & Political Strategy
This amazing person would spend their time building strategic partnerships for Movement Voter Project's campaigns and working with partners in a more concerted way to engage in movement-wide campaigns (say the Tax Bill, or responding to a Hurricane, or a special election in Alabama). Take the Alabama race: They would have asked a few months ago: "Who is working on this? They would work with the MVP team to identify and support local groups in Alabama, financially and otherwise. And finally they would build relationships and work with national and local partners to try to optimize national support for Alabama in a way that is most helpful given the sensitivity of the situation. On a good day I sometimes play this role. So this would be a person who would work very closely with me.
7. Managing Director
So... that's a lot of staff - and would require a lot more attention to management, real time cash flow budgeting and internal systems. I could probably manage the whole team very very inadequately. Matt Singer could manage them but we realized that in this new structure, Matt would rather play a role more focused on outreach and donor advising than managing people. The best Managing Director I've ever worked with is Hallie Montoya Tansey at the League of Young Voters, and it took us both a few years to grow into learning how to work together (she started as a local organizer and grew into the role - and I grew over time in my understanding of how to partner with a Managing Director). I know this: It's an extremely rare person who can come into such a complex multi-faceted situation and succeed at the job in a short amount of time. I know myself - I know I'm not the easiest person to work with. I have a new idea every week. I'm used to shifting gears quickly, operating with a high degree of turbulence, and frankly managing everything myself. And I know myself: Like anyone, I want to keep growing, but it seems unlikely that I will fundamentally change. The idea of this hire and the others listed is not to "kick me upstairs" and out of the day-to-day work. It's to hire someone who can partner with me and the rest of the team to help us do more of the stuff we've been doing - but at a higher level of quality, intentionality and scale.
Our vision is to build a dream team at MVP of people with some very different skill sets - working virtually across the country in a startup environment. And the reality is that it's hard to manage people virtually - especially when you don't know each other well, and haven't done their jobs before. There are very few people who have the variety of experience - from major gifts... to decentralized fundraising... to national partnerships and campaigns... to local organizing... to elections... to digital comms. There are very few people who know enough about all of these things to manage them well. There are very few people who are great managers at all in our movement. And this would be the mother of all management challenges. Especially at first (maybe even for the first year) they would have to work very closely with me and we would essentially have to share the job. Over time, they would take on greater and greater ownership of the role, and I would step away.
Rant alert: I know this is a super unconventional description of this role and is probably TMI. But in my experience, the relationship between founding Executive Directors and Managing Directors is a very difficult needle to thread and the conventional wisdom that a founding ED is supposed to hire a Managing Director who is going to come in and manage everyone and everything is usually a set-up for failure - and frequently a lot of tension and pain for everyone involved. I think we put unrealistic expectations on Managing Directors. And I think that the personality types of most EDs and MDs tend to be polar opposites. MDs tend to want order and structure - and listen primarily to internal data points, as they should. Founding EDs tend to be serial social entrepreneurs who have a new idea every week - and tend to evolve in their thinking quickly as they receive new data points from the external work. And they tend to want to micro-manage specific parts of the work that they feel most passionate about. All of which tends to make MDs feel disempowered and not trusted and drives them crazy. Part of why Hallie and I worked well together is that she came up through the organization and already knew it inside out. And I came to trust and see over time that she could do a lot of things better than I could do them.
Matt Singer and I have been talking about this a lot. Having been an ED himself basically his whole adult life - and one who has had a successful partnership with a previous Managing Director, it has been a pretty wonderful experience for me to get to work closely with him and hear his insight and reflections from both sides. He said a friend once told him that "EDs get to do Improvisational Jazz because they're constantly talking to new people, figuring out funding, program, talent, partnerships, etc and trying to make it all work together. But teams are more like orchestras: They have to all play together - so there's a built in tension." What I said back to him is that I want to build a team that is more like an Improvisational Jazz band. I want the best people in the world who are grown-ups and have "movement building DNA" at the center of who they are. I want us to learn to play together as a team and jam together. And I also want everyone to be empowered to do their own solos and create their own magic in their roles. But it will probably take a lot of practicing together to get to the point where we actually sound good together as a band. Probably longer than if we were an orchestra, reading notes off of a sheet.
Frankly, I think orchestras are increasingly an outmoded form. The world is moving too fast. The 21st century increasingly will require all of us to play jazz. Otherwise, we'll be replaced with Artificial Intelligence. I think what we're looking for in a Managing Director is probably someone very wise who has been a managing director and/or a founder and/or an ED (ideally several times over), who has been around the block and fallen in the potholes themselves many times over :). And who could probably do my job and then some - but who feels called by our mission and strategies and has found that they really love internal management and helping everyone around them to harmonize and succeed as a team.
There! I think I've written a letter of admiration to our future Managing Director and team :).
Billy
ps. To inquire, please send resume and cover letter to: Hiring@movementvote.org or just reach out to me directly if you have questions or ideas.
pps. Here's a quick and dirty but slightly more formal description of the various roles:
Job Description
Managing Director
Responsibilities
Manage staff and help support a network of high-level super volunteers
Help shape overall organizational strategy, plans, structure, etc.
Plan and prep regular team meetings and internal communication
Lead on a portfolio of projects as needed and appropriate
Solve problems and put out fires
Job Description
Director of State Partnerships & Political Strategy
Responsibilities
Direct the identification and vetting of, as well as engagement with, Movement's hundreds of partner organizations around the country, including by working with volunteers to keep information up-to-date
Working closely with the staff and key partners, manage the development and maintenance of political strategies and targeting
Personally work with and manage relationships with 50-100 local partner organizations plus dozens of national organizing networks and intermediaries
Lead on documentation of local plans, work and results
Assist donor advisors with development of memos or other materials for donors and present to donors as needed
Job Description
Development Director, Donor Organizer & Donor Advisor
Responsibilities
Oversee and support donor identification, introduction, cultivation, solicitation, appreciation, recognition, and engagement for Movement and for our donor advising efforts, including managing a national volunteer team to organize major donors.
Develop and implement donor education and communication programs in collaboration with senior staff.
Support donors to organize their own networks
Support local partner organizations to partner with donors
As needed, advise donors and support relationships with partner donor networks, including ensuring the development and maintenance of healthy collaborations with aligned donor networks.
Job Description
Local Donor Organizing Manager
Responsibilities
Lead on local and mid-sized donor identification, introduction, cultivation, solicitation, appreciation, recognition, and engagement for Movement, including managing a national volunteer team to organize local donor teams
Organize local donors in partnership with other local and national networks
Manage swag and visibility in marches, rallies, progressive and cultural events.
Assist the Donor Organizing Director as needed
Job Description
Digital Communications Director
Responsibilities
Work with a team of paid and volunteer designers and writers to create compelling content and campaigns - based on highlighting local work of organizations that MVP moves funds to.
Create and manage 100+ partnerships with key influencers, orgs and others who can transmit our messages far and wide.
Lead or co-Lead on creation of Annual Report, materials, storytelling, and dissemination.
Ideally: Evaluate cool new tech tools for Movement and its partners.
Job Description
Elections Director
Responsibilities
Lead on direct electoral partnerships in key races.
Manage VOTE MOB, Local Vote, Swing State Trips, as well as targeting and electoral partnerships.
Must be willing and able to travel and deploy in places for extended periods.
Job Description
Director of National Partnerships & Political Strategy
Responsibilities
Manage relationships with 100+ national partners in ways that create concrete mutual benefits or all parties
Manage or participate in key strategic alignment projects growing out of these relationships which advance our mission.
As needed, lead on supporting ad hoc emergency or opportunistic campaigns that grow out of these relationships.
Jobsthatareleft is a listserv run by Democratic GAIN. Membership dues keep us going. Please consider becoming a full member of Democratic GAIN by checking your membership status at https://www.democraticgain.org/members/membership.asp .
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "GAIN Jobs via JobsthatareLEFT" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to jobsthatareleft+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to jobsthatareleft@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jobsthatareleft/CAJ1ZrL1K9o9GG9HBR9e8iyJHDE1q7L6sDFimor9RcxF003bCtA%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.