Operations Officer, US Environmental and Economic Justice Program

Position description

A highly organized, proactive professional who will lead our program’s operations, enabling us to effectively advance grassroots-driven reforms across the Mid-Atlantic region

About Namati

Since 2011, Namati has worked to build a movement of grassroots justice advocates worldwide. We’ve grown tremendously, from a small founding group of big-hearted change-makers to a global staff of 170+ people across 12 time zones in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The Grassroots Justice Network, which we co-founded and convene to this day, has grown from 30 people in one room to the world’s largest community of justice advocates. Today, our membership comes from 3,300 organizations across 175 countries.

We have supported local communities to take on thousands of justice issues, directly improving the lives of over 1.5 million people since our founding. Together with communities, partners, and Network members, we’ve envisioned, and won, transformative changes like the Customary Land Rights and National Land Commission Acts of Sierra Leone, and the world’s first Legal Empowerment Fund.

About the US Environmental and Economic Justice Program

In the mid-Atlantic region of Delaware, Maryland, DC, and Virginia, like so many other places in the world, environmental harm is concentrated in communities with less wealth and power. That includes toxic pollution—from chemical plants, trash incinerators, mining sites, fossil fuel production and transport, and factory farms, among others—as well as harms caused by climate change, including floods and heat waves.

And yet we see great possibility in this moment. With deep, multi-racial organizing, the people most affected by the twin crises of inequality and environmental destruction have a shot at leading the way out of both.

Namati works with community paralegals in the mid-Atlantic who support their people to 1) remedy harms caused by pollution and other injustice, and 2) imagine and build a better future. Namati also co-founded the Mid-Atlantic Justice Coalition (MAJC), an alliance dedicated to advancing economic and environmental justice.

Check out this short film about a live campaign in Washington DC, and this essay describing how the Maryland chapter of MAJC codified the Biden Administration’s Justice 40 principle into the state budget, a first in the country.

About the Position

We are searching for an Officer to oversee the operational aspects of the US Environmental and Economic Justice (US EJ) Program. We’re looking for someone who is tenacious, organized, and extremely effective at managing complex operational details - someone with a burning passion for working with communities and grassroots movements to advance economic and environmental justice.

The position will focus on the following:

• Procurement: Serve as the primary point person within the US EJ team for Namati’s Global Finance team for US EJ procurement requests, including managing contracts with external parties.
• Subgrants management and partnership implementation: The Officer will serve as the primary point of contact with Namati’s funded implementing partners for subgrant agreements, reporting, and funds disbursements, supporting partners’ subgrant management work. This requires skilled communication, navigating tone and message differences across internal and external stakeholders on nuanced operations topics such as stewarding potential partners through the pre-assessment process, coordinating with operations colleagues to finalize subgrant agreements, working with partners to ensure required reports are submitted timely, and carefully analyzing grantee information to ensure compliance and spot unusual issues.
• Community organizing operations: Lead event planning project management and logistics for in-person, virtual, and hybrid community events and activities.
• Systems and tech: Serve as the primary administrator for US EJ Program systems, in partnership with Namati’s Global Operations team, helping program teammates effectively use systems like Google platforms (Mail, Drive), CRMs (EveryAction, Salesforce), organizing platforms, and password management apps.
• US EJ team coordination: Help program leadership coordinate the US EJ team by, for example, preparing internal meeting agendas, taking notes, and tracking follow-ups.
• Fundraising operations: Support program leadership and Namati’s Global Resource Mobilization team in fundraising efforts including donor relations, proposal development, and reporting.
• Budgeting and financial operations: Help create and manage the US EJ Program’s annual budget and work plans, including planning and tracking spending against budget and revenue projections.
• Other operational support as needed: Support broader organizing, policy, and communications work, such as drafting calls to action to send to our mailing lists and tracking actions taken by recipients.

Specific responsibilities may be adjusted depending on individual selected candidates’ strengths, level of experience, and complementarity with existing team members.

Here’s what you might have tackled last week –

• Managed logistics and event planning for a hybrid (in-person and online) community meeting with Dover residents most impacted by economic and environmental injustice, including managing community outreach and invitations, event agenda, social media and other advertising; ensuring venue, equipment, and supplies procurement; handling catering; and volunteer management; and providing on-site event support like taking notes; and anticipating post-event follow up.
• Submitted an internal procurement approval request to the Global Finance team for the US EJ Program to purchase program-branded t-shirts to be worn during door knocking activities, after researching three potential vendors.
• Reviewed a funded partner’s recent financial and narrative reports for last quarter and coordinated reviews and approvals from other relevant Namati colleagues, including communicating with the partner about any internal colleagues’ questions regarding the report contents, so the next tranche of funding can be disbursed on time.
• Helped revise the program’s annual budget in light of spending so far during the year.
• Collaborated with Namati’s Global Finance team to track program spending, including requesting general ledger reports, reviewing spending rates of the program’s various active grants, and flagging potential over- or under-spending in relevant budget categories.
• Assembled a project workflow in Asana for a grant report due in three months, creating to-dos for every item that needs to be drafted and every review that needs to occur, up to and including submission of the report. You would have assigned relevant colleagues to their respective tasks within Asana, and communicated with each colleague about their responsibilities and timeframes.

Qualifications

• Track record of excellence in program operations: You have three or more years of directly relevant work experience -- in areas such as budgeting, event planning, finance, partnerships, procurement, etcetera -- ideally within a social justice context. You are known for quickly and efficiently churning out excellent, on-point work products in short timeframes; you always nail deadlines. You manage collaborative processes confidently and efficiently and you know how to work with input from a variety of stakeholders, while maintaining control, scope, and timeliness.
• All-hands-on-deck orientation: You thrive in a small team work environment where things are evolving constantly, and are happy to contribute however is useful. You’re excited to participate in - and help creatively shape - the direction of the work.
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills: You are an outstanding communicator with experience engaging diverse communities in a respectful, inclusive, and sincere manner.
• Passion for environmental and economic justice: You have a passion for addressing the human rights and social justice dimensions of economic and environmental problems in solidarity with the people who are most affected. You have a general understanding of advocacy; experience in organizing, campaigns, coalitions, and/or direct action is a huge plus.
• Technologically savvy: You’re comfortable working with technology as part of a remote-first team, and when given the opportunity to work with a new program or application, it is not difficult for you to become fluent. Knowledge and comfort with using Google Sheets/Excel required. Prior knowledge and experience with effective use of field organizing and voter outreach tools and customer relationship management (CRM) software is a plus, but not required.

We always look for incoming staff to be:

• Collaborative and service-oriented: You greet everyone you encounter with a collaborative spirit, kindness, and empathy, and you’re happy to contribute however you can to advance Namati’s mission.
• Growth oriented: You’re always seeking to better yourself and your work, and you will push yourself to the peak of performance to help fulfill our mission. In service of that growth, you welcome and delight in feedback from supervisors, peers, and anyone else.

Location

This position will be based in Washington, DC and will follow Namati’s hybrid office policy, which calls for staff to report to the office two days per week between Tuesday and Thursday. Please note, you must already be legally eligible to work in the US to be considered for the position (Namati cannot sponsor visas).

Our US EJ program team is spread across the Mid-Atlantic and relies heavily on electronic communications and channels to collaborate and stay in close touch (Slack, email, text messages, Asana, Google office suite, Microsoft office suite, EveryAction, to name a few).

This position will travel occasionally to attend program activities elsewhere in the region (less than 20%); additional travel, including potential international travel to visit other Namati program teammates, may occur once per year.

Namati's staff position bands range from 1 (entry level / assistant) to 9 (Managing Director). This position is at band 4. We base our compensation on the markets where our staff operate. The offer range for this position is likely to fall between $70,000 - $77,500 based on the final job level determined by the responsibility, scope, and complexity of the position; most offers are made in the first half of the offer range.

Namati offers a broad range of benefits, including:

• Health insurance: we pay 80% of the base plan premium for employees, and 50% for dependents.
• Paid time off: new staff have 12 sick days and 3 personal days, and accrue 15 days of paid vacation (increasing to 20 after two years). Namati closes its offices organization-wide for “winter break” from December 25 to January 1, as well as federal holidays. Additionally, we provide six weeks of paid parental leave.
• 401(k) retirement planning: Namati contributes 5% of your salary plus matches your contribution up to an additional 5%.
• Professional development: we value – and set aside a professional development fund toward – staff having access to external professional development opportunities.

Application instructions

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