Senior Community Organizing Jobs (NOW HIRING)

About the Legal Aid Justice Center:

The Legal Aid Justice Center is a nationally recognized, non-profit organization that partners with low-income clients and communities of color in Virginia to fight for racial, social, and economic justice. We understand that the harms our clients endure are inextricably linked to overarching systems of injustice. Together we are dismantling those systems through a combination of community organizing, litigation, policy advocacy, public relations, and individual legal services.

Founded in 1967, LAJC has offices in Charlottesville, Richmond, Petersburg, and Falls Church and provides services under six key program areas: Civil Rights & Racial Justice (focuses on the criminal legal system), Housing & Consumer Justice, Youth Justice, Health Justice & Public Benefits, Immigrant Justice, and Worker Justice. As examples of LAJC's recent work, our lawsuit and organizing against the state forced reform of Virginia's unemployment insurance system, including advocacy that resulted in the distribution of over $1 billion in illegally withheld payments to over 160,000 Virginians. During the pandemic, we demanded and secured a statewide eviction moratorium and emergency pandemic protections that helped hundreds of families avoid eviction. We reduced incarceration across the state, including reducing the population of a local immigration detention center down to historically low levels through a coordinated effort of organizing paired with impact and individual litigation. Our staff are on the front lines of some of the most important anti-poverty fights happening today.

With a staff of over 90, the past few years have been a time of exciting growth and opportunity for the organization. In addition to the growth of programmatic efforts including increased organizing capacity, LAJC has expanded its operations and administrative capacity, created new opportunities for professional growth and leadership among staff, engaged in ongoing race equity work, and explored changes to organizational structure to deepen its efforts to create long-term, sustainable, community-driven change.
LAJC's latest strategic plan is available at https://www.justice4all.org/lajc-strategic-plan-2022-2026/#area%20d.

For more information about LAJC's work and programs, visit www.justice4all.org.
About the Position:

This position reports to the Program's Senior Supervising Organizer, who reports to the Program Director of the Housing & Consumer Justice Program and will work or report closely with the Director of Organizing. This position will also work closely with attorneys and organizers and community organizers in the Richmond/Petersburg offices.

The LAJC organizer forges authentic relationships with directly impacted individuals in the communities we serve (namely, low-income, low-wealth people in Virginia) and continually comes back to these relationships for partnership and accountability in our campaigns. Our organizers listen deeply, learn from community members, and amplify the needs and expertise of the individuals and groups we work with. Campaigns are community-driven and the goal for the campaigns is to be community-led. LAJC Senior organizers are expected to lead or support campaigns depending on the leadership development of the group or community. LAJC organizers lead and support various strategic campaigns, including expanding statewide efforts to defend tenants' rights, fight mass eviction, dismantle legal and other barriers to safe and affordable housing, partner with tenants and community organizations to fight for affordable housing and equitable housing policies, support tenants facing eviction or unfair housing conditions, and protect consumers targeted by predatory merchants and lenders through legal services and systemic reform advocacy. This is achieved through outreach legislative and policy change, working in coalition, and building power in directly impacted communities. As a senior organizer, the ideal candidate should have at least 3-4 years of experience organizing. The work addresses important intersections of race, immigration, and criminal justice that disproportionately impact Black and Brown low-income communities of Virginia. The ideal candidate can work successfully at both grassroots and grass-tops levels, and understand organizing on policies across local, statewide, and federal levels.

Job Duties:

Campaign Development & Strategy

• Lead and support existing strategic campaigns and organizing initiatives
• Build new campaigns from the ground up
• Work within teams to develop and implement organizing strategies incorporating impact litigation, direct legal representation, and policy advocacy
• Evaluate campaign progress and measures of effectiveness through data collection and key metrics

Community Engagement & Relationship Building

• Build leadership and power with those directly impacted by inequities in public housing communities managed by the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority and to some extent, this position will do the same with those directly impacted by inequities in other types of subsidized housing and/or manufactured home communities.
• Conduct relationship building, outreach, and community education with individuals, organizations, and coalitions active in relevant program areas
• Conduct face-to-face meetings with impacted community residents
• Refer individuals to other community resources and legal services as appropriate
• Connect impacted community members with the policy process as needed
• Relationship and partnership building with individual tenants, community partners, other legal aid and/or legal service or other service provider organizations, and government agencies active in the City of Richmond or surrounding counties, as necessary.

Leadership Development & Training

• Prepare leaders for meetings, public speaking, and media interviews
• Mobilize and support community groups to win policy change, including events and actions such as campaign rallies, town hall events, listening session, and lobby days

Communications & Media

• Work with the communications department to use multiple forms of media to educate community members on their rights and relevant policies
• Represent organizational priorities (including campaign and coalition priorities) to public officials, partner organizations, and media

Legal Support & Client Services

• Work in partnership with attorneys and legal assistants to support clients and case work as needed to advance campaign goals by:
• Serve as point of contact for clients or impact litigation
• Perform specialized intake (using online intake form) and client interviews in the field when doing so supports organizing and campaign goals
• Translate and interpret legal documents or information
• Provide pre-approved legal advice, collect documents, and provide other client support as needed

Racial Equity: Promote racial equity across all dimensions, including within LAJC, by doing the following:

• Helping to recruit, retain, and support both staff and leadership that reflect the racial composition of our community;
• Cultivating respect for the work of and expanding resources for non-attorney staff that are disproportionately people of color;
• Creating spaces for staff to discuss issues of racial, gender, and all other issues of marginalization; and
• Pushing for institutional and cultural changes by management, the board, and staff to further promote racial equity.

Administrative Duties

• Complete administrative task, including work plans and activity reports, thoroughly and promptly
• Perform miscellaneous duties as directed, including administrative and clerical duties as assigned by supervisor
• Enter outreach events, campaign activities, and relevant case notes in Legal Server
• Organizers may be assigned to cross-program teams or to assist other programs as needed

Senior Responsibilities

• Serve as organizational representative in strategic meetings and speaking engagements.
• Work with a team to develop and implement strategies incorporating impact litigation, direct representation, policy advocacy, and community organizing.
• Serve as an informal mentor and coach to staff and organizers by training newer team members on advanced techniques, sharing institutional knowledge, developing junior colleagues' skills, and conducting onboarding as needed.
• Provide structured trainings and regular support, offering accountability, and acting as a resource for problem-solving when peers encounter roadblocks.
• Ensure strong collaboration and coordination with other programs and staff while holding your team accountable to external stakeholders and supporting cross-program initiatives that depend on your team's deliverables
• Lead coalition-building efforts by serving as organizing project/campaign lead to coordinate coalition members' participation, timelines, materials, and cross-issue collaboration while managing relationships with elected officials and spearheading complex policy initiatives that require a nuanced understanding of political landscapes to meet all deliverables.