Associate Organizer for Milwaukee’s Northside

Common Ground (CG) seeks an associate organizer to identify community issues and solutions, find and develop leaders, build power, and take action for racial justice and the common good. 

CG is a multi-racial, multi-faith, nonpartisan alliance of 45 member organizations with 40,000+ everyday people dedicated to building power to bring about more racial equity and economic justice, to hold elected and corporate officials accountable, and to create positive change in the Greater Milwaukee area. CG’s success is rooted in the commitment of its forty-five member organizations: congregations, neighborhood groups, non-profits, small businesses, unions, and schools. 

We have a 17-year track record of creating meaningful change around foreclosure, education, youth jobs, health care access, voting, safe neighborhoods, public housing and more. We have taken on over 35 issue campaigns and won most of them, including creating the non-profit Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative which provides affordable health insurance to over 50,000 in Wisconsin, winning $33.8 million from big banks to repair the damage of predatory lending in Sherman Park, securing $6 million of annual state funding for driver’s education for low-income students across the state, getting new leadership at the Housing Authority.

We listen and identify everyday people who want to act on issues affecting them. We set daring goals, create savvy strategies, and are willing to stand up to powerful interests. We get results. You, too, can make an impact. Visit our website to read more: www.commongroundwi.org.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

CG is seeking highly-motivated applicants with the following qualities:

• Relational and Curious: able to build relationships and work with people unlike you — people of other races, classes, generations, faiths; willing to invest in the slow, deep process of building power through relationships
• Us/We Mentality: committed to developing leaders and working with people to build collective power, not coming in to “save” people
• Acts on Righteous Indignation: gets angry at injustice and has a record of trying to correct wrongs
• Willingness to Create Tension/Conflict in order to create change 
• Imagination/vision: imagines the world as it should be 
• Success and Ambition: has a record of significant accomplishments in personal or professional life
• Intelligence: the ability to think, reflect, evaluate, communicate, challenge conventional wisdom, make judgments in complicated situations, and show flexibility. 
• Interested in Growing and Developing themselves and others
• Entrepreneurial – able to recognize opportunities and act on them
• Able to Work independently and with Others

Experience:

• A Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required.

RESPONSIBILITIES AND COMPENSATION

Responsibilities of this position include: 

• Setting up and conducting 15 one-to-one meetings per week or the equivalent in canvassing. (A one-to-one meeting is a focused 45- minute meeting with a person to begin to build a relationship and to look for leaders for public action.) 
• Going door-to-door in target areas to build tenant groups or neighborhood associations. 
• Finding and developing leaders. 
• Building organizing teams and working with them to identify and research issues and solutions, develop a power analysis and then taking action with those leaders to get results. 
• Raising money by recruiting new member organizations, collecting organizational dues and soliciting individual Friends of Common Ground gifts.
• Participating in local and national trainings; learning to lead trainings. 
• Writing a weekly report and reflection and participating in a weekly check-in with the Lead Organizer.  Participating in staff and Strategy Team meetings. 

• Effective oral and written communication.
• Stay abreast of news and politics.

Compensation and Benefits: 

• $50,000 – $70,000 based on experience 
• Health Insurance Stipend
• Holidays and Paid Time Off 
• Expense and travel reimbursement  

Common Ground is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  Women, people of color, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ are strongly encouraged to apply.