Job description

Community Organizer

Food AND Medicine (FAM) is seeking to fill the new position of Community Organizer to build collective action for FAM programs, and to coordinate development and fundraising activities for the organization in conjunction with the Food AND Medicine team.

Background: Food AND Medicine is a grassroots, volunteer-led, community organization fighting for workers’ rights, economic justice, food access and health care for all. We work with local labor unions, farmers, churches, community groups and progressive activists, to organize laid-off, low-income, and unorganized workers. Through solidarity and collective action, we resist the negative impacts of corporate globalization and stand up for the economic and social rights of working families. Our offices are located at the Eastern Maine Labor Council’s Solidarity Center in Brewer, Maine.

Key Responsibilities:
Agriculture Program Organizing
• Organize food insecure people and allies to support a sustainable, just local food system.
• Develop and maintain relationships with key allies, farmers, universities, SNAP customers and other stakeholders in a range of agricultural related activities
• Attend and/or engage leaders to attend statewide coalition meetings, including Maine Network of Community Food Councils and Maine Nutrition Incentive Program Strategic Planning Committee
Member Leadership Development
• Involve FAM’s constituency of workers, unions, farmers and low-income people as volunteers and leaders in programs and as active FAM members generally.
• Organize members to attend events, reach out to allies, meet with funders, speak to the media, attend committee meetings, volunteer at the office, and otherwise become more involved in the organization.
• Facilitate members’ consciousness and foster analysis of obstacles to low-income access to local food and of local farmers’ economic challenges in relation to broader social issues and systemic inequality.
Development
• Help manage FAM’s membership database
• Help coordinate periodic mailings to members to solicit support for events and the annual budget
• Research grant opportunities, and prepare grant applications along with other staff.
• Join in with other staff in membership fundraising and organization-wide events including the Farmer-Labor legislative breakfast, Labor Day, and Solidarity Harvest.

Qualifications:
The ideal candidate will have:

• Demonstrated leadership and organizing skills at work, on campus, or in the community. Experience as a union or community organizer preferred.
• Experience in nonprofit fundraising and development including grant-writing, solicitation and event planning.
• Current knowledge of labor and local food issues and a commitment to building a progressive movement.
• Strong writing skills, and the ability to represent FAMs goals, objectives and outcomes for programs and projects, both verbally and in writing.
• Experienced in public speaking. Able to comfortably articulate FAM’s initiatives to the press.
• The capacity to work with diverse communities and to develop and maintain collaborative relationships.
• Strong computer, problem solving and analytical skills. Comfortable working with a variety of office software, internet and e-mail environments, specifically Microsoft Word, Access, Excel, and Power Point.
• Highly self-motivated, self-sufficient and directed. The ability to prioritize and manage multiple tasks and to complete assigned projects under deadlines. Excellent attention to detail and follow through.
• Three years relevant experience in staff supervision and/or volunteer management, preferred.
• Physical requirements include ability to spend hours listening and talking; working via computer and telephone; driving frequently to meetings and events; light lifting of equipment and materials; occasional night and weekend work, long days and overnight travel.
• A commitment to connecting union members and workers’ rights issues into local agriculture movement.
• A commitment to FAM’s approach, which focuses on grassroots organizing, leadership development and social and economic justice in Maine.
• A collaborative working spirit and desire to explore ideas, test assumptions, and find solutions as a team.

Reporting and Authority: The Organizer reports directly to the Director.

Compensation

this position is:

Application instructions

Deadline

no deadline