Essie Justice Group is hiring an
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 nine 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. As our campaign work grows, we are seeking an experienced and politically-aligned Associate Director of Campaigns & Advocacy to build and lead strategic campaigns that are rooted in power analysis, serve to build and develop the leadership of our base, and transform systems of control and confinement.
The Associate Director of Campaigns & Advocacy is a collaborative leader committed to leveraging and enhancing the power of our members and staff to achieve concrete and transformative change. Goal-oriented and tuned in to the political landscape, the Associate Director of Campaigns & Advocacy wields their expertise, experience, and influence in focused ways that strengthen our members’ ability to move decision-makers to make policy that divests from the carceral state and invests in the care infrastructure our communities need. The ideal candidate for this role is a natural and enthusiastic systems-builder who is deeply familiar with the ebbs and flows of power-based campaigning work and skilled project manager who can discern between urgent and important needs and appropriately triage multiple incoming requests. The Associate Director of Campaigns & Advocacy also has the emotional intelligence to stay attuned to team morale and can press pause in a fast-paced work environment to coach team members when they encounter challenges.
Core Responsibilities
Department Leadership - In partnership with the Director of Member Strategy & Impact, strategically steward the department's resources in alignment with organizational and departmental priorities.
Campaign Development
Implementation & Systems-Building - Oversee the development and day-to-day operations of campaigns and manage internal coordination between campaigns, coalitions, members, and across other Essie Departments.
Knowledge Management & Staff Development - Ensure Campaigns & Advocacy staff and members have the training and support they need to execute power-based campaign plans successfully and as the department grows, codify best practices.
Who We’re Looking For
Ideal Qualifications
Qualities
Values people, process, and results. You care deeply about winning on the issues we work on because you understand the transformative impact it will have on people’s lives, so you strive for excellence in all you and your team do. While you push yourself to meet high standards, you also have the patience to attend to the human needs of the work that sometimes calls for adjustments to sustain a healthy work culture.
Politically astute. You routinely track the changing political dynamics and policy trends in our field, can skillfully assess windows of opportunity, and bring new ideas to strategic conversations that will result in impactful decarceration and criminal justice campaigns.
Discernment and honesty we can trust. You are a thoughtful team member who aligns with your integrity and is unfailingly trustworthy. You earn rather than demand the trust of people by listening and making decisions thoughtfully.
Committed to evolution. You are committed to continuously deepening and evolving your own understanding of systems of oppression through study, openness, and humility. And you easily recognize your own relationship to privilege and power, examining and shifting your behaviors as appropriate.
Uplifting and additive. You see mistakes as opportunities for growth, problems as catalysts for solutions, and inspire others along the journey. You carry a positive approach, a can-do attitude, a sense of humor, and authentic kindness wherever you go.
The Position
The Associate Director of Campaigns & Advocacy is a full-time, salaried, exempt position. This position is supervised by the Director of Member Strategy & Impact The salary for this position is between $100,000 - $110,000 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 has a mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy.
To Apply
Please address a personal, specific, and thoughtful cover letter to the “Essie Hiring Committee” and submit along with a resume through our hiring portal (https://essiejusticegroup.bamboohr.com/jobs). Your resume tells us what you can do; your cover letter should tell us who you are and why you want to work with Essie.
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.
Essie values and specifically seeks applicants who are people with incarcerated loved ones; formerly incarcerated people; people of color; women; queer, transgender, gender nonconforming (GNC), and gender fluid people.
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.
About Essie Justice Group
Essie Justice Group is a non profit organization of women with incarcerated loved ones taking on the rampant injustices created by mass incarceration. Our award-winning Healing to Advocacy Model brings women together to heal, build collective power, and drive social change. Essie is Great Place to Work-Certified™ by Great Place to Work.
Learn more at www.essiejusticegroup.org.