Policy Advocate Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Job Title: Organizing & Advocacy Team, Public Policy Advocate

Reports To: Senior Public Policy Manager

Application Guidelines:

• First review of applications will occur on August 17. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.
• A cover letter is required for consideration.
• This position is currently hybrid.
• Out-of-state selected candidates will be required to relocate to the Oregon/SW Washington area before their date of hire and within 60 days of signing an offer letter.
• We recognize that people gain skills and experience in many different ways. If you’re excited about this role and believe you could succeed in it, we encourage you to apply — even if you do not meet every qualification listed. We especially welcome applications from people with lived experience related to hunger, poverty, and systemic inequities.

Who We Are:

Oregon Food Bank (OFB) believes that no one should be hungry. Our mission is to eliminate hunger and its root causes. We believe that food and health are basic human rights for all. We know that hunger is not just an individual experience; it is also a community-wide symptom of systemic barriers to employment, education, housing and health care such as systemic racism, sexism, and cissexism. That’s why we work systemically to achieve our mission to end hunger: we foster community connections to help people access nutritious food, and we build community power and strengthen networks of support and the safety net to eliminate the root causes of hunger for good.

We build community power to dismantle systems and policies that drive hunger and poverty.

Oregon Food Bank is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and we strongly encourage applications from candidates who can increase the diversity of our organization and strengthen our capacity to eliminate hunger. We believe strongly in the power of lived experience — and we actively seek individuals who have experienced hunger and its root causes to join our team. Our organization is stronger because of the leadership of people who have faced food insecurity in their own lives and/or hail from historically under-represented communities. Learn more about our commitment at oregonfoodbank.org/equity.

Who You Are:

You care deeply about community, about people experiencing hunger and hold them in the center of all that you do. You are committed to apply equity as a process and an outcome of your work to disrupt systemic social patterns that promote hunger such as racism, sexism, and cissexism. You have a strong affinity with OFB’s 10 Year Vision and are profoundly excited to achieve this vision for and with our community.

Position Summary:

The Public Policy Advocate works to co-create, advocate for, and win proactive and high impact policy solutions rooted in the needs of our communities. The position ensures that OFB cultivates and sustains strategic relationships with elected officials primarily at the state level and is a lobbyist in the Oregon Legislature.

Primary Responsibilities (Essential Functions):

• Together with our team of advocates and organizers, work collaboratively across OFB communities to develop and drive a high impact equity driven policy agenda supported by a vibrant and powerful community base.

• Manage a portfolio of issues relating to ending hunger and its root causes and represent OFB as a lobbyist in the Oregon Legislature. May organize grassroots campaigns to build public support for legislation or other OFB-supported causes.

• Develop and maintain effective relationships with legislators, policy advocates and community organizations pursuing an aligned OFB equity driven public policy agenda.

• Ensure that OFB cultivates and sustains strategic relationships with elected officials at the state level and relevant state agencies.

• Write policy analysis or other collateral to support engagement of multiple audiences.

• Act as spokesperson, when appropriate, to media or other audiences. Gains support from key stakeholders including members of the media or community leaders.

• Participate fully in OFB’s Advocacy, Volunteer and Organizing Team, share leadership across the team in peer to peer collaboration and team development.

• Participate fully in cross-department teams as assigned or as critical to position responsibilities.

• Participate fully in OFB’s organizational planning processes.

• Participate fully in data and technology systems by preparing reports that detail the status of bills or proposals, including lobbying activities and outcomes.

• Organizational level responsibilities of exempt employees include:

  • To be an ambassador and a leader for OFB’s vision and mission, a cross-departmental collaborator, and an active contributor to building a movement to end hunger for good by addressing the root causes of hunger: systemic oppressions such as racism, xenophobia, sexism, and cisexism.

  • In consultation and coordination with the supervisor, actively contribute to:

    • cross-departmental efforts

    • work culture activities and programming

    • advisory and consultative groups such as the compensation committee, affinity groups, Equity Ambassadors, Equity Think Tank meetings, among others

    • plan and engage in professional development activities that strengthen your capacity for your specific role as well as your capacity to contribute and advance organizational goals, OFB’s vision and mission.

• Identify, share, engage in, and collaboratively adjust and make necessary changes to this description of duties according to the inevitable evolution of the role over time.

Skills and Experience Required:

• Deep passion for eliminating hunger and its root causes.

• 4+ years experience in public policy campaigns – legislative, electoral and administrative.

• 2+ years lobbying and/or government relations experience.

• Experience engaging communities in all phases of policy making.

• Demonstrated capacity to identify strategic opportunities for public policy change and leverage those opportunities into actionable campaigns that are mission and strategy aligned.

• Demonstrated excellence in conceptualizing project work plans and project managing from conception to evaluation.

• Demonstrated skill with researching, capturing, analyzing and reporting on scientific or technical concepts and information utilizing computerized applications, databases, spreadsheets and reports.

• Demonstrated expertise with research skills and with analyzing complex policy concepts related to food security, poverty, and economic insecurity through the lens of equity and racial justice —and to translate that analysis to multiple audiences.

• Excellent written and verbal communications. Ability to create persuasive arguments and strategies to influence positive outcomes in alignment with OFB mission, values and goals. Communicates diplomatically yet effectively with all audiences.

• Outstanding relationship building skills. Ability to develop and maintain relationships in the context of building relationships for the organization and its mission.

• Demonstrated ability to navigate conflict through effective leadership and problem-solving and ability to handle sensitive information effectively and confidentially.

• Ability to travel to Salem during legislative sessions full-time or as-needed.

• Ability to travel within and outside of Oregon up to 4 days at a time up to 4 times per year.

• Organizational level skills and experience required for exempt employees include:

• Disposition and willingness to maximize multiple perspectives to innovate, problem solve and seek creative solutions.

• Experience in modeling intercultural competence and demonstrated commitment to equity and social justice.

• Demonstrated ability to think strategically, collaborate, take initiative, and to maintain confidentiality.

• Project coordination and organization skills; ability to manage multiple projects with attention to detail; ability to handle interruptions, and produce timely, accurate work.

• Ability to both work independently and as part of a team; comfortable working in an office environment and offsite.

• Ability to thrive in a diverse, creative, responsive, mission-driven, and fast-paced work culture.

• Experience of successful multicultural immersion working and/or living within OFB's Equity Constituencies: BIPoC, Immigrants & Refugees, Single Mothers, Trans and Gender-Non-Conforming folx.

  • Multicultural Immersion defined as: Actively integrated in one or more communities, interacting with individuals and groups, and seeking to understand the diversities within and between communities by being there and engaging in daily life activities.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Personal lived-experience of systemic hunger and/or its root causes (racism, sexism, heterosexism, cis-sexism, ableism, ageism, size-ism, ethnocentrism, and classism)

• Organizational level preferred qualifications of exempt employees include:

  • Multilingual skills at a minimum professional level of proficiency or greater in English and any additional language/s, defined as being able to speak the languages with sufficient structural accuracy and vocabulary to participate effectively in most formal and informal conversations on practical and professional topics.

  • Multicultural skills of adaptation and integration are strongly preferred.

    • Adaptation is defined as the capacity to communicate and interact with people of multiple cultures, backgrounds, and styles by incorporating and adapting to the world view and perspectives of others.

    • Integration is defined as being able to “code-switch” or move in and out of one's worldview and help others understand different cultures, backgrounds, and styles to promote diversity and inclusion.

  • Commitment to continued professional development to strengthen capacity to work through an equity lens for equity and racial justice.

  • Strong capacity to consider multiple perspectives, to pivot to respond to emerging needs and lead through organizational changes.

  • Years of successful multicultural immersion either working with and/or living within one or more of OFB’s Equity Constituencies at the time of hire. An additional step for at least 10 years above minimum required of successful multicultural immersion working with and/or living within one or more of OFB’s Equity Constituencies at the time of hire.

    • Multicultural Immersion defined as: Actively integrated in one or more communities, interacting with individuals and groups, and seeking to understand the diversities within and between communities by being there and engaging in daily life activities.

The Fine Print:

Work environment:

• Work is performed in an office (or home office) environment while sitting in meetings or at a computer screen for extended periods inside and outside of Oregon Food Bank and will use computers and phones extensively.
• May work outside of general working hours of 8:00 – 5:00 p.m., such as evenings and weekends, and occasional travel out of town may occur.
• This role requires travel/personal vehicle use /work outside normal hours.
• Work may require to lift, move and carry objects from 20 to 40 pounds, such as boxes containing office and other supplies. Crouching, bending, kneeling and reaching when filing. Accommodations may be available upon request.

Background Check:

This position doesn’t require a criminal background check.

Inclement Weather, Service Disruptions and Disaster Response expectations:

OFB is part of the regional disaster response network and, as part of our commitment to our community, we all are expected to report to work as soon as it’s safe to do so and to respond to the disaster, emergency, inclement weather or extended service disruption as needed and as possible. Work and paid designations are described in OFB’s Inclement Weather Guidelines. At all times staff is supported to prioritize their safety and those of their dependents, families and loved ones while in communication and coordination with supervisors.

1. Exempt classification refers to employees who earn a salary rather than an hourly rate for the work they do instead of the number of hours they take to complete the task. Exempt employees are not eligible for overtime pay or minimum wage. They; 1) Supervise two or more full-time employees or four part-time employees regularly; 2) Are responsible for managing at least part of a business; 3) Play an important role in the job status of other employees, including hiring and delegating tasks; or 1) Perform office or non-manual work directly related to the business operations or management of an organization and its customers; and 2) Exercise independent judgment and discretion over important business decisions.