Associate Policy Director

ABOUT CAUSE:
CAUSE is a base-building organization committed to social, economic, and environmental justice for working-class and immigrant communities in California’s Central Coast. We build grassroots power through community organizing, leadership development, coalition building, civic engagement, policy research, and advocacy.  CAUSE envisions a thriving Central Coast that provides a sustainable and just economy created by and for workers, immigrants, and communities of color.

POSITION OVERVIEW:

CAUSE is currently seeking an Associate Policy Director to help lead our team with public policy advocacy, multimedia communications, and staff supervision.  The Associate Policy Director will supervise, train, and mentor a team of up to four Policy Advocates throughout the Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties region who support our grassroots base of working-class immigrant families to envision systemic changes to their lived experiences and take on campaigns to achieve structural policy change for tenants’ rights, environmental justice, and immigrant worker power.  CAUSE’s Policy Team supports our organizing work and our grassroots base by providing them with legislative analysis, policy advocacy, coalition-building, messaging, earned media coverage, and multimedia content production. The Associate Policy Director will be part of CAUSE’s senior staff team, report to CAUSE’s Policy Director, and will work closely with CAUSE’s Organizing Team to meet their policy and communications needs.  This position is regional and can be based in any of CAUSE’s offices including Oxnard, Ventura, Santa Paula, Santa Barbara, or Santa Maria.

The Associate Policy Director’s responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Directly supervising CAUSE’s up to 4 Policy Advocates, providing coaching, work planning, feedback, and accountability to their supervisees and taking responsibility for their successful development and performance
• Training Policy Advocates in building coalitions, lobbying policymakers, conducting research, developing messaging, persuasive writing, digital and traditional media communications
• Coordinating with the CAUSE Organizing Team to meet their needs for policy and communications support for organizing campaigns and working collaboratively with CAUSE’s team of supervisors to ensure strong staff collaboration
• Planning, reviewing, and editing language, content, and graphic design of Policy Advocates’ public communications including flyers, newsletters, press releases, opinion editorials, talking points, surveys, petitions, social media posts, videos, webpages, mass emails, fact sheets, and infographics
• Provide regular feedback and conduct annual staff evaluations, review and approve timesheets, PTO, and documentation/reporting
• Take a leadership role in regional and priority campaign strategy and direction, including building relationships with coalition partners, policymakers, and journalists
• Act as the City Team Lead for one of CAUSE’s five city-based chapters, coordinating the team’s strategic vision, facilitating weekly city team meetings, serving as the senior staff member in the office, and maintaining CAUSE’s relationships and visibility within the community of that city
• Becoming familiar with a wide range of different policy issues and communities within the Central Coast region
• Representing the organization in regional and/or statewide coalitions
• Participating in some grassroots fundraising, grant writing and reporting

Job Requirements/Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent required
• Fluency in Spanish strongly preferred
• 1+ year of supervision experience, can include temporary/part-time staff, interns
• 4+ years of experience in public policy advocacy and/or multimedia communications, ideally in one or more of CAUSE’s priority issue areas of housing, labor, and environmental policy
• Strong writing and public speaking skills
• Eye for graphic design and visual media
• Knowledge of Central Coast regional political landscape a plus
• Experience with and desire to work with diverse cultures and the ability to engage people from a variety of backgrounds
• Ability to interact professionally with elected officials, donors, board members, leaders of ally organizations, and news reporters
• Strategic and analytical approach to political issues
• Able to work independently and as part of a team
• Able to set own work priorities, manage responsibilities and time
• Flexibility and willingness to sometimes work evenings and weekends, and be able to travel throughout region, state and nation.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS 
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

OTHER REQUIREMENTS
Valid drivers’ license and dependable access to a car to drive for work required. 

WORK SCHEDULE
This position has flexible hours and may sometimes include evening and weekend work.  CAUSE provides flexible paid time off and holidays.

COMPENSATION
Starting pay for this salaried position is $83,200 per year. Benefits include 100% paid medical and dental coverage including dependents, paid sick and mental health days, holidays and flexible paid vacation days, paid family leave, paid sabbatical after 5 years of employment, monthly stipend for use of cellphone and travel, and annual professional development budget. CAUSE also typically provides two weeks of paid annual holiday shutdown and an annual retirement contribution.  

To ensure pay equity across our team, salaries at CAUSE follow a formula based on position and tenure and are non-negotiable for individual candidates.  However, we have a fixed salary scale providing additional pay for candidates with years of relevant job experience significantly beyond the minimum qualifications listed in this job description.

APPLYING
CAUSE will be accepting resumes through Friday, November 29th.  Please e-mail resumes with cover letter to Lucia Marquez at [email protected].  Applicants who do not meet the minimum requirements will not receive a response.

CAUSE IS AN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EMPLOYER. WOMEN AND PEOPLE OF COLOR ARE ENCOURAGED TO APPLY.