Civic Engagement Strategist – Cleveland VOTES

Cleveland VOTES seeks a candidate that is an entrepreneurial, resourceful, highly collaborative team player who possesses strong coalition building skills, partner engagement experiences, and excels at managing a realistic balance among multiple priorities. We seek a candidate who has tangible experience demonstrating how they have embedded racial justice, equity, and inclusion in their prior work. Our ideal candidate thrives in an environment where they can work independently on projects from conception to completion, while also adhering to timeliness/meeting deadlines, collaborating with teammates, designing and refining processes to ensure programs run smoothly. The ideal candidate for this position possesses a high aptitude for developing presentations/trainings and thoughtfully engaging the audience/participants; this includes high comfortability with public speaking. The ideal candidate demonstrates empathy and the ability to work with a wide range of multicultural/racially diverse stakeholders.

Responsibilities:

• Manage Cleveland VOTES’ Equitable Civic Engagement Fund: develop requests for proposals; administer, review and score submissions; develop quality assurance protocols; technical assistance and reporting. Cleveland VOTES currently uses the platform Submittable to manage our grantmaking.
  • Support and strategize with grantee partners in the development of their civic/voter engagement and democracy-building programs, including but not limited to canvassing, field/data tracking, forums/townhalls, nonpartisan voter education and registration, strategic communications and turn-out/mobilization plans.
  • Support and co-facilitate Cleveland VOTES’ grantee partner meetings, including scheduling, developing the agenda, note taking, and sharing follow up information. 
• Develop (or co-develop) mobilization strategies, utilizing civic engagement digital technology and databases, such as the Voter Activation Network (VAN) and peer-to-peer (texting and phone banking).
• Identify and cultivate key partnerships with community-based organizations in the Greater Cleveland area, as well as statewide partners with the goal of strengthening our civic infrastructure. 
• Coordinate local coalition-building meetings that foster connectivity and strengthen the democracy-building ecosystem. 
• Conceive, develop and execute civic engagement trainings/workshops to increase the capacity of Cleveland’s democracy-building ecosystem. 
  • Assist with Cleveland VOTES-led speaking engagements, presentations and tabling events. 
• Serve as the primary staff member to develop, coordinate and execute programming related to Civic Holidays (e.g. National Voter Registration Day, Vote Early Day). 

• Identify credible sources for election-related information, gather and analyze relevant data, maintain a database of research, and disseminate to the organizations’ network.
  • Produce internal election and voter analysis reports to guide and support equitable civic engagement efforts.

Qualifications:

• Deep passion and understanding for racial equity, as well as advancing and strengthening equitable democracy.
• Demonstrated or tangential experience in developing requests for proposals, developing metrics and evaluative tools. Experience with grants management and quality assurance. 
• Demonstrated experience in design and systems thinking and critical analysis; takes initiative to solve problems and displays excellent judgment during difficult situations. 
• Demonstrated experience in project management; conceiving, developing and implementing events/projects/trainings with minimal supervision. 
• Excellent prioritization and time management skills with demonstrated success supporting an organization’s executives.
• Proficiency in synthesizing and reporting data and research findings, as well as comfortability presenting findings to various stakeholders. 
• Proficiency in collaborating with team members and delegating tasks when appropriate. 
• High comfort with digital tools such as Microsoft Office Suite,  Google Suite,  Zoom, and Submittable.
• Bachelor’s degree preferred or 2-4 years of comparable experience practical experience in civic engagement programming, data analysis, grants management, research, and voter education

How to Apply: 

Please submit your cover letter detailing why you are the ideal candidate for this position, a resume and (3) professional references that may describe how your credentials align for this employment opportunity to jobs@clevotes.com.  *Please note that their office is closed (Dec. 22, 2023-Jan. 2, 2024) for the winter holiday and acknowledgement of receipt may be slightly delayed.*