Senior Community Organizer / Community Organizer

The Opportunity

Essie Justice Group (Essie) is building grassroots power to dismantle the US incarceration system, the most egregious creator of racial and gender injustice of our time. We are a loving and powerful community of women with incarcerated loved ones. Our community includes cisgender women, transgender women, formerly incarcerated women, gender nonconforming (GNC) people, elders, and young people.

After ten years of building an active membership across California and beyond, Essie is deepening its base-building and leadership development strategies with the 1 in 4 women with incarcerated loved ones to propel bold decarceration agendas across the nation. We seek to transform the criminal legal system and create a Black feminist future rooted in care, equity, community safety, and liberation. Essie is waging ever more ambitious campaigns to divest from state-sponsored punitive control and invest in structures that support the self-determination, freedom, and dignity of Black women and gender nonconforming people. We are seeking a people-oriented, adaptable, and highly motivated Community Organizer to join us in building and implementing campaigns to upend systems of control and confinement.

Core Responsibilities

Member Recruitment and Retention : Recruit women with incarcerated loved ones to join our membership and use effective techniques in relational organizing to continuously engage and create a political home for our members.

• Recruit new members and steward participation of existing members in Essie programming and campaign tactics, including monitoring progress toward turnout goals.
• Track and proactively respond to trends in member retention.
• Plan and track member leadership development via committee participation.
• Get to know members' strengths, stories, passions, and interests in order to support them in assuming more leadership in relevant program / campaign related activities (e.g. committee leadership, spokesperson training, etc.).
• Actively problem-solve and support with logistics to reduce barriers to member participation.
• Work alongside members to facilitate member meetings and gatherings in an engaging and values-aligned way.

Member Activation & Engagement in Campaign Tactics : Carry out activations, mobilizations, and other tactics to achieve advocacy objectives.

Who We're Looking For

Ideal Qualifications

Qualities

The Position

The Sr. / Community Organizer is a full-time, salaried, exempt position. This position is supervised by the senior member on the Membership & Organizing team.The salary for this position is between $68,000 - $80,000 depending on experience with full medical, dental, and vision benefits, optional 401(k), a substantial vacation package, and a monthly personal wellness stipend. The position is based in one of Essie's offices in Oakland or Los Angeles, California.

Essie Justice Group provides equal employment and advancement opportunities to all staff members. Employment decisions are based on merit, qualifications, and skills. Essie does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, immigration status, socioeconomic status, ancestry, age, size, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, familial status, veteran status, disability, AIDS / HIV status, medical condition, prior conviction, arrest history, traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles, or any other characteristic protected by law.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, performance assessment, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.