Posted August 7, 2018
To Apply:
Please submit resume and cover letter (including salary expectations) electronically to [email protected]. Applications will be accepted until September 5, 2018.
About ONE DC:
ONE DC (formerly Manna CDC) was founded in 1997 (renamed Organizing Neighborhood Equity DC in 2006) in the midst of rapid neighborhood change. Our work centers on popular education, community organizing, and alternative economic development projects. Stemming from a deep analysis of race, class, gender, and power, our approaches to equitable community development and anti-gentrification address structural causes of poverty and injustice in Shaw and throughout the District of Columbia.
Moving beyond service provision, ONE DC builds the political capacity of low-income, long-term residents of color in DC, in order to create and preserve racial and economic equity in the district. Our grassroots resident leadership development draws deeply on the principles and achievements of Ella Baker and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). We seek to learn from and build upon this history and that of people-led movements for justice and human rights throughout the world (see our vision and values).
ONE DC's People’s Platform is the current foundation of our work. The People’s Platform is a movement of low-income and working-class DC residents of color and people who share our values and vision. We seek to organize, educate, fight for and win truly affordable housing, sustaining work, and wellness for all in DC. The state of income & housing security and wellness for DC residents is bad and only getting worse. Where the city has successfully encouraged wealthier and whiter residents to move into the city, it has pushed out low-income Black residents, destroyed welfare and social programs, attacked workers’ rights, and supported a severe reduction in spending on programs for the most vulnerable. We envision a DC that retains its long-term residents and is an equitable and just place to live and work for all of its residents.
ONE DC’s Black Workers and Wellness Center (BWWC) is a member-led space that builds racial and economic justice through popular education, direct action and worker-owned alternatives. It is a center for finding and creating positive, dignified Black work and training. It’s an incubation space for alternatives to low-wage work, such as worker cooperatives, collectives, and small businesses created, owned, and operated by community residents of color. The BWWC provides a place to openly discuss the intersection of race and work, particularly what it means to be "working while Black." The BWC creates an environment to challenge bad employers who exploit, cheat, & steal from their workers; and an educational space to talk about and create ways to provide safe, high quality, dignified work in DC. ONE DC’s Cooperation DC is a member-led initiative within the Black Workers and Wellness Center. Cooperation DC coordinates city-wide efforts for worker co-op development, including education and advocacy. And also coordinates the DC Co-op Loan Fund.
The Black Workers and Wellness Center Community Organizer will be responsible for outreach and program management of the Black Workers and Wellness Center, as well as coordinating and building a citywide base of Washingtonians who champion the rights of Black workers and other low-income workers of color in DC, and develop and support alternative economic strategies including worker co-ops. This organizer will also be responsible for cultivating a broad base of leaders largely led by long-time, low-income Black Washingtonians who advance the mission of the BWWC and the People’s Platform’s political analysis during general body meetings, direct actions, and outreach. This organizer must always center the leadership of long-time, low-income Black Washingtonians. These leaders, with the organizer, will work to deepen our membership’s political analysis, advance “non-reformist reforms” and build alternative community-driven socio-economic institutions. Lastly, the BWWC organizer must be collaborative and willing to build a broader movement that is multi-national, multi-ethnic, multi-gender, and multi-class.
Organizationally, ONE DC has formally implemented a shared leadership structure, managed and governed by our Shared Leadership Team, composed of our not-for profit board of directors and senior staff. We practice a non-traditional governance structure of self-management by committee, with a working board and a member-staff supervision structure that recognizes, supports and encourages the contributions of its members, staff, and directors. [More details provided during interviews and staff orientation.] ONE DC desires applicants who are self-starters, continuous learners, are motivated to perform at high levels, passionate about organizing, and can meet strict deadlines.
Black Workers and Wellness Center Community Organizer -Job Description (full time)
The BWWC Community Organizer will guide the development of the BWWC space, mission and stakeholders. The community organizer will support advocates and community members in their journey to becoming leaders in their community. The Community Organizer is responsible for building the capacity of groups by providing resources to analyze problems and develop action plans to reach their goals. Ultimately, the Community Organizer will support a team of community leaders who will hold local and national government and institutions accountable to the human rights (affordable housing, living-wage jobs, decent dignified work, equitable community development) of people.
The Community Organizer must be comfortable in community settings as frequent outreach, door-to-door interviews, and resident and community meetings are essential to this work. The Community Organizer must also be willing to listen and build trusting relationships with and among ethnically, economically, racially and language diverse groups of residents by using anti-racist and community building processes.
The Community Organizer must be committed to ONE DC’s political and economic vision and agenda and be comfortable working in a democratic and accountable manner with its entire staff. The Community Organizer must understand the administrative responsibilities for oversight of programs, the building, and the project budget. The Community Organizer must also have excellent written and verbal skills to communicate internally with colleagues and oversight committees on organizational and programmatic planning and implementation.
Responsibilities Include:
Community organizers are responsible for coordinating weekly outreach goals and outreach strategy, membership recruitment, leadership development, one-on-one’s, and coalition building activities:
- Conduct 15-20 hours of outreach per week, including door-knocking, with Right to Income and Right to Housing members and other primary members.
- Conduct at least ten weekly one-on-one’s with ONE DC recruits representative of our organization’s base- primarily long-time, low-income Washingtonians of color.
- Host monthly Outreach Days with ONE DC’s base.
- Participate in planning People’s Platform monthly general body meetings, which must include a political education component.
- Perform organizing campaign-related administrative tasks as needed and appropriate to sustaining the organization.
- Attend regular staff meetings, Shared Leadership Team meetings, and other campaign-related sessions, etc.
In addition, a creative and dynamic BWWC Community Organizer with a proven track record will:
- Serve as a strategic principal for the Right to Income campaign work.
- Oversee day-to-day operations of BWWC programs and campaigns; and collaboratively manage the physical space of the Black Workers and Wellness Center.
- Collaboratively plan Black Workers and Wellness Center monthly general body meetings, which must include a political education component; and work with the Organizing and Membership Development Committee to implement popular education and organizing strategies to achieve community-controlled development, living wage jobs, local hiring policies, and worker cooperatives in Washington, DC.
- Work closely with Cooperation DC.
- Build coalitions with partner organizations to achieve citywide employment policy goals with the People’s Platform; and city-wide cooperative development, particularly worker co-op development goals with Cooperation DC.
- Assist in mentoring ONE DC organizing apprentices.
- Assist in the planning and implementation of BWWC, Cooperation DC, and ONE DC organizational events.
- Perform BWWC property related and campaign-related administrative tasks as needed and appropriate to sustaining the organization.
- Represent ONE DC and its campaigns in community meetings and forums.
- Maintain good working relations with ONE DC colleagues and organizing allies.
Requirements:
- 6+ years of demonstrated experience, training or education in direct organizing, base building, program coordination, and in particular labor rights organizing.
- Self-motivated and skilled at working as part of a team.
- Willingness to engage in honest, constructive, mindful, and compassionate reciprocal critique of self and work of team members with teams and other staff.
- Knowledge of Washington, DC communities, history, issues and organizations. DC residents are strongly encouraged to apply and given strong preference.
- Must be willing to commit to at least a 2-year involvement in ONE DC.
- Willingness to learn about and commit to ONE DC’s organizing model.
- Ability to build unity and motivate others to action.
- Willingness and ability to work with diverse community residents, particularly low-income residents, to overcome barriers to developing their strength as a community; as well as practice and develop resident-led leadership.
- Strong computer, internet, social media skills.
Desired Skills:
- Bilingual speakers are welcome, especially Spanish, Amharic, or Chinese language proficiency.
- Strong research skills: knowledge of Participatory Action Research (PAR); Labor Studies.
- A desire to deepen political analysis and knowledge about cooperative solidarity economics.
- Good public and interpersonal communication skills, written, verbal.
- Ability to see the broad picture and have an eye for detail.
- Creativity and sense of humor.
ONE DC offers a generous salary and benefits package. ONE DC is strongly committed to staff development and training. This is an opportunity for an individual to build meaningful relationships with grassroots communities and to be a part of real, concrete social change. People of color, women, LGBTQ and bilingual applicants are strongly encouraged to apply.
To Apply:
Please submit resume and cover letter (including salary expectations) electronically to [email protected]. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.