The Advocacy Institute was created to support the legislative advocacy of social justice and movement-building organizations in across New York State. In the last 5 years, we’ve helped hundreds of organizers and advocates engage in more efficient and effective legislative advocacy. The Advocacy Institute is a high impact work-environment. We create and sustain this environment by engaging proactively in intentional and transparent discussions about identity, power, oppression, trust, capacity building, teamwork, and performance. Throughout, we ground ourselves in a commitment to feminist, multiracial leadership. 

Role Overview

We’re looking for an Engagement Manager to run digital engagement, and project manage the delivery of our training and membership programs. We’re looking for someone who’s excited to put their communications savvy, team coordination skills and ability to rapidly execute to work on behalf of social justice movement building! You’ll be a part of a team that is delivering innovative trainings and tools, committed to legislative advocacy wins, and strengthening the statewide network of social justice advocates. Our constituency includes grassroots, direct service, and policy organizations as well as philanthropic organizations in regions across the state, including but not limited to New York City, Western New York, Long Island and the Hudson Valley.

In this role, you will implement our communications, outreach and member engagement efforts, coordinate the implementation of our training programs and grow our statewide network of organizers and advocates. You will also support the development and assessment of our team’s program goals. The Engagement Manager will report directly to the Executive Director.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

• Implement Communications, Outreach & Member Engagement. Engage active and prospective members to participate in AI programming and utilize AI’s tools and video curriculum in order to boost their legislative campaign efforts. Responsibilities here include:
  • Managing the communications calendar
  • Drafting and editing communications contents and layout design
  • Producing communications campaign reporting.
  • Producing and managing training applications and registration forms.
  • Using tools like Autopilot & Heap to drive member communications (e.g engagement, tracking, mix of automated and personal messaging, etc.)
  • Coordinate with Product Development team to ensure website is up to date with dates and timely links
  • Managing social media accounts
  • Customer service to members and users of AI’s free tools
  • Quick responses to inquiries and requests for support
  • Coordinating member connection with consulting resources from AI’s network
  • Closing deals on membership sales and renewals
  • Managing the administration of the membership program
     

• Coordinate the Curriculum Team. Schedule and track priorities for the Curriculum Team and draft agendas for and facilitate Curriculum Team meetings, which are regularly used to ensure effective implementation of AI’s communications and engagement efforts and its alignment with the organization’s overall goals.
   

• Project manage the successful delivery of AI’s training programs. Ensure the successful delivery of AI’s training programs—including in-person events, live webcasts / webinars, and member-facilitated curricula—through project management and team coordination of staff, consultants and trainers, as outlined in our planning process guide. Execute administrative tasks to support these aspects of program delivery: Curriculum Development, Teaching team preparation, Evaluation. Manage and refine documentation of AI’s standard processes for training delivery.
   

• Data Management for CRM and Data Tools. Coordinate with the Product Development team to ensure that our data tools are regularly updated and maintained with appropriate standards. Coordinate with the Team Administrator to make sure CRM data is accurate and up to date syncing across various web tools.
   

Other Duties & Responsibilities

• Writing & Editing
• Using digital engagement strategies to deliver programmatic value
• Leveraging data to support advocacy campaigns.

How your time will generally be allocated

• Engagement (General Communications, Member Support) - 40%
• Project Management (Team Coordination) - 40%
• Data Management - 20%

Education and/or Experience

• Experience with social justice movement work
• Experience managing a team and fostering high team performance.
• Experience managing databases
• Experience with marketing and/or customer service delivery

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Must have:

• Ability to develop and manage a wide range of stakeholder relationships, including members, clients, partners and funders
• Ability to manage multiple bodies of work, both short and long term effectively, simultaneously
• Ability to manage a team of highly skilled facilitators.
• Ability to motivate team members, understand obstacles to high performance and remove them
   
• Knowledge about the social justice landscape in New York
• Knowledge of how legislative advocacy campaigns work, the roles and responsibilities involved, common pain points and what organizations need in order to achieve wins
   
• Skills: Project and event planning with an emphasis on logistical details
• Skills: Meeting facilitation and time management
• Skills: Use of digital platforms to effectively communicate and deliver value to members
• Skills: Basic online research about individuals, policies, campaigns, etc.
• Skills: Creating online surveys from educational specifications
• Skills: Strong writing and proofreading skills
• Skills: Basic graphic design
• Skills: Digital file organization
• Skills: Account management proficiency for online tools and services (aka getting the most out of customer support!)

Nice to have:

• Knowledge of how the legislative and budget processes works in New York State.

Physical Demands

• Must be able to lift boxes of training materials.
• Must have the physical ability to move boxes weighing 20 to 30 pounds each 10 to 15 % of work time.
• Able to climb stairs.
• Must have the physical ability to navigate 2 flights of stairs daily
• Must be able to walk around office.
• Must be able to move around the office to deliver packages to other departments 1-2 times per week.
• Must be able to attend conferences throughout the United States.
• Must be able to travel domestically on an airplane 6-8 times a year.

Work Environment

• This position is based in a shared office space in Brooklyn, NY with elevator access
• This position requires national travel between 3-5 times a year
• The assigned workspace is a desk in an small open office within a larger shared work area. It has a moderate level of noise and interruptions.

Time & Compensation

• This is a full time position of approximately 40 hours per week starting as soon as the position is filled
• Competitive benefits package includes full medical, dental and vision coverage as well a 403b retirement account
• 12 days vacation as well as two-week winter holiday in year 1
• Salary range is $65,000 to $70,000, correlated to alignment with experience and skills

Apply

Thank you for your interest in the Advocacy Institute!

• To apply, please submit an application package that includes the following:
  • Resume
  • Cover letter
  • Written response to these prompts:
    • How do you know that you have a great attention for detail?
    • Walk me through a moment when you discovered that you’d made a mistake that affected others and how you handled it.
    • Is it important for you to work at a social justice organization? If so, why?

Also, please note:

• No telephone calls please.  
• Because of the high volume of anticipated applicants, we regret that we will be unable to respond to all submissions.
• The Advocacy Institute is a project of the Tides Center, an Equal Opportunity Employer.  Women, people of color, transgender and gender non-conforming people are encouraged to apply.
• We will begin to process applications on January 7, based on the order in which they were received. We will fully consider all application packages that are submitted before we close the application portal.