California Campaign Organizer

Job Title: California Campaign Organizer

Position Status: Full time, salaried, exempt.  This is a fixed term 2-year position with continuance dependent on funding and other strategic considerations.

Work Location: California remote office.  Northern California location preferred.

Posting date: 6/16/22

Free Press works to uplift people's voices in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, accountable and diverse media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what’s actually happening in their communities. We work at the intersection of media and technology to strengthen our democracy.

Free Press is looking to expand our work in California to hold media and tech companies accountable and fight for innovative state-level policies and legislation. We’re working to expand access to information that addresses community needs and to hold corporate actors accountable for their role in the spread of hate and misinformation.

Position summary:

The California campaign organizer anchors Free Press’ state-based organizing, network building and policymaking efforts to fight hate and disinformation and create a more liberatory media system. This work will involve pressuring major tech companies like Meta, Twitter and Google, as well as fighting to ensure Californians have a say in state and federal policies that impact local journalism and digital civil rights.

In collaboration with our campaign, communication, programmatic and policy staff, the California campaign organizer mobilizes members and allies, coordinates around rapid-response opportunities and leverages coalitions, online organizing and mobilization efforts to achieve our campaign goals. The California campaign organizer is responsible for fostering collaboration and communication internally and externally and represents Free Press in public.

Our campaign work occurs both online and in the field; this position builds local ally relationships, executes creative tactics, and develops engagement strategies to advance our campaigns. The campaign organizer will mobilize our network of more than 100,000 active members in California, coordinating and activating coalitions around our short- and long-term campaigns. The campaign organizer must bring an intersectional approach to our work that includes a race, class and gender analysis and create opportunities to elevate the relevance of tech justice to people in California.

The campaign organizer reports to the managing director and works closely with the platform accountability team. This job requires flexibility in work schedule, generally aligning to Pacific Time  hours but including overlap with colleagues primarily working on Eastern Time. This position requires evening and weekend work during peak campaign cycles or in the lead up to special events. Local, regional and national domestic travel is required, including to events or meetings hosted by others.

Free Press is composed of two separate organizations, Free Press and Free Press Action Fund. Both entities share the same overall mission and employees will have time assigned to one or both entities. This job description refers collectively to the two organizations under the name “Free Press.”

Primary Responsibilities:

• Campaign Implementation: Anchor the execution of our California-based strategy. Organize public pressure campaigns that capture media attention, advance the narrative and achieve our campaign goals and priorities, targeting major California-based tech platforms, media companies, policymakers and regulators.

• Policy Tracking and Grassroots Education: Track California tech, media justice, and journalism policy in the state legislature and help coordinate grassroots and advocacy campaigns to pass legislation to improve our information ecosystem.

• Network Engagement and Ally Relationships: Engage with allied organizations to cultivate relationships and partnerships with allies to execute advocacy initiatives and other campaigns. Represent Free Press in coalition meetings, strategy sessions, actions and listservs.

• Content Creation: Contribute to the creation of compelling public narratives and public-education materials for a variety of audiences to advance campaign objectives.

• Public Speaking: Serve as a Free Press spokesperson for the media, as well as at events such as rallies, protests or panels and in lobbying opportunities with policymakers.

• Advancing Race Equity: Clearly and consistently articulate an understanding of racial equity and structural racism and the centrality of this analysis to the work Free Press does and how we operate. Integrate that knowledge into work projects and interactions by addressing structural implications and disproportionate impacts of policies, activities and decisions on race, class, gender and other group identities within the context of job responsibilities and projects.

Desired Skills and Attributes:

• Must have a commitment to racial equity and experience working with communities of color.
• Must be a creative self-starter, able to work independently and with limited oversight to accomplish agreed upon objectives and to evaluate results.
• Must be able to work under tight deadlines, navigate competing priorities and effectively adjust work plans to respond to emergent challenges or opportunities.
• Must be able to remain positive, tactful and composed under pressure.
• Must have a personal approach that values the individual and respects differences of race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, ability and socioeconomic circumstance.
• Must be a team player with a low-ego approach to collaboration with both internal and external colleagues.
• Must be able to develop and maintain relationships with a wide range of external organizations.
• Must demonstrate excellent interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills
• Fluency in Spanish and/or languages other than English is a plus.
• Must value and respect differences of race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, ability and socioeconomic circumstance.
• Dedication to Free Press’ mission of fighting for everyone’s rights to connect and communicate, in addition to the overall success of the organization.

Experience and Qualifications:

• No minimum education is required; a bachelor's degree may be an indicator of capacity for this position.
• 3 or more years of directly relevant experience in a nonprofit public interest organization or similar setting is required.
• Experience working with, building and leading coalitions.
• Experience working with and knowledge of local and state level organizations.
• Strong interest in media and technology issues and demonstrated experience working on those or similar issues.
• Demonstrated capacity for full-charge “ownership” of program or administrative areas that are integral to day to day organizational functions.
• Experience supervising  volunteers or interns.
• Experience liaising with colleagues in allied organizations.
• Attention to detail, flexibility and demonstrated capacity to operate in a fast-paced environment
• Must have ability to succeed in a predominately telework/remote office  environment, including working with an off-site manager, adopting and maintaining strong digital security practices, and fostering connection and community with colleagues located throughout the U.S.

Covid-19 Vaccination:

All Free Press employees must be fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus or have an approved medical or religious/ethical/moral accommodation.

Compensation:

Free Press is committed to offering competitive pay and generous benefits, including group medical insurance, short- and long-term disability insurance, retirement benefits, health-reimbursement accounts and paid family leave. Annual paid time off is a total of nine weeks, including vacation, health-care leave and holidays.

We provide a remote work stipend. All positions receive a cell phone stipend, a computer and other needed equipment and furniture as applicable.

This position is categorized as a tier two manager position, in the context of five possible functional classifications at Free Press, ranging from coordinator (tier one) to executive (tier five).

The starting salary at Free Press for a campaign organizer who meets the above qualifications is $62,000-$67,000. Starting salary is based on the selected candidate’s qualifications and experience. To counter pay inequality and uphold internal parity, we use a nonnegotiable starting salary system, while benchmarking our pay to highly competitive markets in the nonprofit sector.

Free Press Is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value excellence and diversity in our workforce. People of color, women, people with disabilities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, gender-nonconforming and formerly incarcerated individuals are strongly encouraged to apply.

If you meet some of the qualifications above, we encourage you to apply or to reach out for more information. We know groups subjected to systemic oppression– including people of color, women, people from working class backgrounds, and people who identify as LGBTQ+ – are less likely to apply unless and until they meet every requirement for a job. Therefore, we strongly encourage applications from people with these identities or who are members of other communities who are marginalized.

We provide reasonable accommodations for the application, interview, or any other aspect of the employee selection process to applicants with disabilities. Please email amartyn@freepress.net to request an accommodation.

Key dates:

This position was posted on June 16, 2022. We encourage early applications and will begin our screening process on July 29, 2022. This search will remain open until the position is filled. The ideal candidate will be available to begin work in August 2022.

How to apply:

Complete our online application at the link. Fully answering the application questions is an important part of the application process; 4-5 sentences in response to each question will help us understand your thinking.

Please add "apps.bamboohr.com" to your contact list so you won't miss any emails from us regarding the application.