3/6/23 APPLICATIONS ARE CLOSED:::::::::::::::::::::::::::: DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS & RESOURCE SHARING
Date posted: January 9th 2023
Type: 1099 contract, renewing annually, estimating this work will take 32 hours per week
Location: Fully remote with occasional travel for US-based retreats
Compensation: $60,000 annually
Support and Supervision: The Director of Communications & Resource Sharing will meet regularly for supervision with the Managing Director and supported by an external paid coach. The three co-directors will meet together regularly to support and accompany each other in moving the work forward.
To apply: Please submit a resume and cover letter detailing why you want to do the job and how your experience and skills are a match for this role to tzedeklab@gmail.com with “Director of Communications & Resource Sharing Application” in the subject line.
OVERVIEW
Tzedek Lab is a national multiracial network of political education trainers, organizers, spiritual leaders, and cultural workers, Jews and allies, established to build collective competency to better politicize, transform, and inspire the Jewish community into collective action against racism, antisemitism, and white supremacy. Tzedek Lab exists to support our 318 member-practitioners across the US, Canada, with some outside Turtle Island, bringing the diverse Jewish communities that we are connected to a stronger sense of belonging and safety, more support, and encouragement to take bold action for justice.
Our sustaining activities include national and regional convenings, regular full network calls for spiritual care and cross-pollination, ongoing building and deepening of one-on-one relationships, racial/ethnic identity-based caucus groups, bi-monthly calls for communities of practice, and member-initiated working groups around topics of relevance to our mission.
Read more about our Purpose, Outcomes, Guiding Principles, and Components here.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Tzedek Lab is hiring a Director of Communications & Resource Sharing whose role is to craft how Tzedek Lab tells its own story and shares about the impact of its member-practitioners to the external world, as well as to develop internal systems for easeful and creative resource sharing that supports collaboration and emergence. The person in this role will support Tzedek Lab members towards deeper and more aligned political analysis, making it possible to get into formation as a network when facing a divisive political landscape. “Getting into formation” brings to mind a murmuration of starlings; in our context this means being able to coordinate and mobilize strategically and with agility around the issues and moments where there is the most need and the most alignment. This is a new role.
This is the perfect position for someone who loves story sharing, building powerful messaging, and relationship-building through political education. This workplace is a good fit for someone who is culture and structure-loving, people-centered, detail-oriented, highly collaborative individual who is excited about building cross-class, pro-Black, anti-ableist equitable systems and culture at a mission-driven and member-driven organization.
Since its inception in 2018, Tzedek Lab has been growing slowly but surely to support and strengthen a Jewish left based in the US. The network’s member-practitioners have self-organized with basic support from a small staff team, and it is time to grow the capacity of the staff team in order to strengthen the network, its members, and the communities they lead.
What is needed now is someone with the skills and readiness to take on communications systems both internally and externally. We are seeking a skilled individual to lead the development of a comprehensive communications strategy for a network of practitioners that, so far, has largely focused internally on the connectedness of its members, and is ready to emerge more intentionally into the public eye. In addition to an external communications plan, we are seeking a creative and tech fluent person and to lead on sharpening our political analysis and shaping the ways we can be sharing resources at the intersections of addressing racism, antisemitism, white supremacy, and white nationalism.
Tzedek Lab is unique because it is a network and thus an evolving organism which means that this and all staff roles have the potential to evolve to meet the needs of the network’s members. A person will be successful in this role when they can find the possibilities in the gray areas, and can bring the combination of an organizer’s mindset with attention to leadership development and following the lead and interests of members along with a readiness for taking responsibility for the whole and encouraging individuals, other staff and members, to take responsibility for parts.
Responsibilities
Tzedek Lab is in a time of transition and growth and we are building an energetic and visionary leadership team which can use an equity and racial justice based lens and community organizing approach to our internal and external work around story, narrative, and knowledge systems. The Director of Communications & Resource Sharing will develop and implement a communications strategy for the Lab, facilitate systems and platforms for resource sharing, encourage new and longtime members to use and add to the shared resources within the Lab, steward the ongoing development of our political analysis for the sake of increasing alignment, liaise with movement and Jewish community partners, and support emergence in the network.
Specific areas of work:
Facilitate accessible and adaptable resource and information sharing and communication between and for members
Build and manage “virtual lab”/ digital platform for all Tzedek Lab resources so they are easy to find, navigate, and contribute to..
Tend to and organize Tzedek Lab community communication platforms including the listserv and facebook group
Set up systems for digital security
Tell the story of Tzedek Lab
Build and implement communications strategy. Initial areas of focus include logo and branding design, how we share our story, sharpening our co-sponsorship policy, communicating with non member but interested individuals
Build plan for partnership relationships: Actively deepen relationships with Jewish community organizations and leaders, with Jewish social justice organizations and leaders, and social movement organizations and leaders
Website management
Evolve our Political Frame / political analysis
Facilitate a network-wide process for growing and sharpening our political analysis, integrating new insights into our shared and iterating political frame as external conditions shift.
Shepherd the Network towards alignment and agility when it comes to an intersectional analysis of how antisemitism, racism, white supremacy, and white nationalism are connected.
Maintain long term connection with the stated purpose of the Lab.
Caucus & Kabal (community of practice) support
Be the lead organizer for 1-3 of the smaller communities of practice and identity-based caucuses that resonate and align for you. There are currently seven core groups that the staff team will collectively hold.
Support emergence
Tzedek Lab activities and direction is discerned by the energies, capacities and needs of members. Attuning to the members, in their different places, roles, and identities, is what makes it possible to identify ripe places for conversation, collaboration, and network activity.
Collaborate with the staff team on projects collectively determined including grants and fundraising campaigns.
WHO WE ARE SEEKING
Skills and Experiences
The candidate must have:
Proven track record of designing and guiding strategic internal and external communications. .
Excitement about and familiarity with resource sharing platforms, fluent in current and emerging technology, and eager to explore how it can support and grow our work. Our platforms so far include: GoogleSuite, Zoom, Wix, and social media.
Facilitation skills: Experience holding and moving groups of different sizes and identities through challenging, energizing, and meaningful topics both in person and on zoom.
Technologically savvy.
Demonstrated experience building strong and trusting relationships across lines of difference.
Creative and collaborative problem-solving abilities with experience accomplishing projects independently, with collaborators, and through developing participant leadership.
Skills in giving and receiving direct feedback.
Strong attention to detail.
Exceptional written, oral, interpersonal, and presentation skills using text and creative alternatives.
Demonstrated ability to capture, synthesize, and present programming and organizational successes and lessons learned.
Experience developing the leadership of Jews of Color, Indigenous Jews, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews or People of the Global Majority/ People of Color.
Grounding in rigorous, years-long Jewish social justice community and/or social movement work.
Additionally, an ideal candidate may also have:
Capacity for and interest in democratically held work and decision-making.
Comfort in a team environment, and experience working in both a lead and support role.
Graphic design experience.
Experience building systems that make resource-sharing transparent, accessible, and enjoyable.
Strong preference for experience operating and leading in an organization that holds a network of members.
Experience with political education rooted in popular education.
Commitments & Values
Commitment to dismantling classism, racism, sexism, ableism, and antisemitism in our network and beyond. Rooted in a commitment to understanding how classism, ableism, sexism, racism, and antisemitism impact organization structures and interpersonal dynamics.
Committed to organizing based on emergent strategy, relational organizing, and relational culture, and/or committed to learning about and deepening in these approaches.
Committed to the Black and Indigenous led movement landscape and fighting for Black liberation.
Committed to the goodness and worthiness of all Jews. With that, being willing to engage with all Jews, understanding that working with Jews associated with establishment organizations is a key component in bringing our communities towards justice.
Committed to Palestinian liberation and to supporting nuanced action around Israel/Palestine with intention, appropriate urgency, and strategy.
Committed to interrupting Ashkenazi and white Jewish normativity and to bringing the reality of who Jews are in both Jewish and movement spaces.
Committed to grounding in social movement history and Jewish traditions.
Committed to and excited about ongoing learning, experimentation, and creative disruption of the status quo.
Passionate about building a “leaderful” organization.
Passionate about Tzedek Lab’s mission and purpose!
WORK ENVIRONMENT
Tzedek Lab uses a network weaving model to increase connection and collaboration between members who are integrating our intersectional political analysis into multiple arenas from direct action campaigns and political education and organizational change work, to leading spiritual communities and movement organizations and organizing cultural projects that interrupt assimilation and dominance of white supremacy culture. We are growing a team where each person holds a portfolio of responsibilities towards increasing role clarity and support for staff. The work environment is remote and so far work occurs remotely, on Zoom, Google suite, and email. Strong collaboration occurs between staff and between network members and staff. We currently embody and continue to strive for a decentralized leadership model that encourages strong participation and direction from network members to shape Tzedek Lab spaces and projects.
The work environment has a combination of flexibility and structure. Staff members can set their own “office hours” and schedule, alongside working with members to set regular small group calls. This model intentionally allows for multiple life commitments towards welcoming parents, those caring for elders, those managing disabilities, participation in movement and other community spaces, and people to bring their whole selves to this role. Tzedek Lab is fiscally sponsored by Jews for Racial and Economic Justice Community Inc.
How to Apply:
Please submit a resume and cover letter detailing why you want to do the job and how your experience and skills are a match for this role to tzedeklab@gmail.com with “Director of Communications & Resource Sharing Application” in the subject line. Interviews will take place in February. Start date is flexible, anticipating Spring.
Below is our anticipated hiring process for this role:
● First interview with 1-2 members of our hiring team, March 6-17
● Take-home exercise followed by group interview March 17-April 4
● Reference checks after the group interview
● Offers made to finalists with flexible start date in the late Spring
Frequently cited statistics show that women and structurally marginalized and/or underrepresented groups apply to jobs only if they meet 100% of the qualifications. Tzedek Lab encourages you to apply and break that statistic, as no one ever meets 100% of the qualifications. If you do not have all of these qualifications but think you could still be a good fit for this role, we encourage you to apply and look forward to your application.
For this and all roles with Tzedek Lab, people of color, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, women and gender nonconforming people, people with disabilities, immigrants, LGBTQIA+, and people who live or have lived in poverty are strongly encouraged to apply.