Associate Organiser - Newham Citizens

Job Title: Associate Organiser - Newham Citizens

Salary: £30,490 pa including London Weighting (salary subject to review on 1 April 2023)

Hours: 5 days a week, 37.5 hours per week. Open to requests to work flexibly e.g. 4 days or 30 hpw. Some planned evening and weekend working required.

Contract: Permanent

Base: Newham

Interview Date: Monday 20th March 2023 (10am-4pm).

Citizens UK

Citizens UK is a people power alliance of diverse local communities working together for the common good. Our mission is to develop leaders, strengthen civic organisations and make change. Our 550 member communities are deeply rooted in their local areas and connect every day to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Through the method of community organising we enable people experiencing powerlessness to develop their leadership and come together with the power and strategy to make change.

This leads to hundreds of neighbourhood improvements - from zebra crossings outside primary schools to renovated public toilets in cemeteries. And it leads to some of the biggest campaign impacts in the UK, such as winning over £2 billion of wages through the UK Living Wage campaign, securing a legal cap on the cost of credit to control exploitative lending, and ending the detention of children for immigration purposes. We enable local campaigns to grow into large-scale social change projects such as the Living Wage Foundation, Parents and Communities Together (PACT), Sponsor Refugees, and Refugees for Justice, that form an integral part of our theory of change. The most prominent of these is the rapidly growing Living Wage Foundation with a network of over 11,000 accredited Living Wage Employers across the UK.

Newham Citizens

In this role you would work with Newham Citizens, a fast-growing alliance of 25 organisations who work for social justice in Newham. The role will require you to support people to take public action on the issues they care about in Newham. The alliance has 4+ active campaigns across the issues of community led affordable housing, a Living Wage for workers, Youth Safety and Health Inequalities. If you’re the sort of person who hates injustice and loves working with and relating to people, this is the role for you. In return you will receive excellent training in how to run effective campaigns and space to grow your skills at one of the UK’s leading campaigning organisations.

Associate Organiser Purpose

The principal responsibility of an Associate Organiser is their own development: learning the craft of Community Organising. They work intensively with member organisations under close supervision, growing their experience, skill and responsibility incrementally. An Associate Organiser is working towards becoming a competent practitioner of broad-based community organising and focuses on the building people power, the recruitment and retention of fee-paying member organisations, the development of leaders, the strengthening of member organisations, leader-led public actions, and the winning of systemic change.

Broader Responsibilities of an Associate Organiser

This role reports into a Senior Community Organiser. Working as an Associate Organiser in Newham for Citizens UK your main responsibilities will include:

Build relational power to further Citizens UK goals:

• Actively participating in the development of a comprehensive power analysis or mapping of power holders within Newham and East London.

• Establish working relationships with identified leaders and demonstrate ability to move them into action, including as part of the wider alliance; taking the initiative to establish new relationships as required.

• Conduct 121s to develop relationships with leaders across Newham and understand their concerns.

• Tell a wide range of Community Organising stories effectively to influence others and achieve Citizens UK’s goals

Identify and develop relational leaders prepared to act with others for the common good:

• Identify and discern actual and potential Newham leaders who want to make change on an issue and drive change.

• Proactively create opportunities for leaders to develop and nominate leaders for training on the core taster curriculum.

• Successfully deliver training workshops in member organisations on the community organising curriculum at a local level.

Strengthen institutions and develop Newham Citizens as a Broad Based Organisation:

• Ensure good understanding of the basic interests and traditions of member institutions: Schools, Universities, Churches, Mosques, Charities.

• Organise a group of up to 5 standard member institutions to take actions on 4 core campaigns: Living Wage, Housing, Youth Safety and Health Inequalities.

• Support pre-existing teams of people in organisations to translate organising into their organisation.

Support leaders through a ‘Cycle of Action’ to create change:

• Support up to 18 member institutions in running listening to campaigns and acting on the issues they care about alongside other member organisations.

• Take the lead in supporting groups of leaders to take public action on neighbourhood issues; aiming to achieve change.

• Evaluate the effectiveness of actions; demonstrating ability to incorporate lessons learned into future actions.

Contribute to CUK’s financial viability through effective fundraising and financial management:

• Recruit new dues paying institutions; work together with a senior organiser to negotiate annual membership fees, write membership plans and letters of understanding.

• Contribute substantively to fundraising by securing £60,000 pa overall, at least half of which should be the membership fees by retaining and recruiting member institutions.

• Liaise with the Finance & Operations team to update the membership database and ensure timely invoicing for membership fees.

Contribute to effective teamwork:

• Be proactive concerning personal professional development and wellbeing, i.e., by reading widely on organising, developing a healthy work-life balance, and demonstrating ability to reflect on own organising craft & improve on self-identified weaknesses.

• Demonstrate ability to work effectively with colleagues and participate in teams.

• Produce all required reports and follow CUK’s procedures on time and to the required standards.

Participate in the development of the craft of Community Organising and play a role in the Guild of COs:

• Schedule an average of at least 3 1-2-1 relational meetings into your daily schedule as a core part of your professional practice.

• Commit 10 working days pa (pro rata for part-time staff) to the preparation, delivery and evaluation of Citizens UK National Community Leadership Training or other local or regional trainings.

• Participate in a Guild Team and help it develop as a Community of Practice that enables Organisers across the UK to develop their skills and experience.

Person Specification (E=Essential, D=Desirable)

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree in any subject (D)

• Subject of relevance to community work or community organising (D)

EXPERIENCE:

• Previous experience of being involved in or running a campaign (E)

• Evidence of having acted with peers or through local community activities (e.g., organising clubs or societies) (E)

• Experience of project management; evidence of having delivered work on time and to standard (E)

• Able to demonstrate previous experience of ‘learning by doing’ in work environment or on a project; evidence of being open to feedback and learning from mistakes (E)

• Good organisational skills and experience of planning time strategically and managing time of yourself and others effectively (D)

• Working to secure online, local or regional press coverage for campaigns (D)

KEY SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE:

• Excellent interpersonal awareness – ability to listen well and appreciate a viewpoint or opinion that is different to your own (E)

• Excellent concern for impact – ability to adapt own behaviour to address the needs or concerns of someone else (E)

• Good communication skills – able to speak with conviction and passion; and to make a logical argument (E)

PERSONAL QUALITIES & VALUES:

• A self-starter with ability to take initiative and work independently (E)

• A hunger for justice (E)

• A positive enthusiasm for working with faith congregations, trade unions, schools, and other community organisations (E)

• An interest in politics and public life (E)

• Able to work in a team (E)

• Willingness to work within accountable relationships (E)

• Self-motivated to achieve the goals agreed and being adaptable to working in a fast-paced environment (E)

• An interest in leading through and developing others (D)

• Commitment to work to Citizens UK Values: Kindness, Relational, Inclusive, Courage, Solidarity and Integrity.

The successful applicant will be required to undertake a satisfactory Enhanced DBS check. DBS checks are renewed on a 3-year cycle.