This VPIRG Fellowship is a full time, one-year entry-level organizing and advocacy position (with likely extension through August 2022) that allows you to make an immediate impact while giving you the training and hands on experience to be a leader in the non-profit, campaigns, or policy fields.
In your first months on the job, you’ll focus primarily on supporting our elections & government reform work, with a focus on universal vote-by-mail and ranked choice voting. Throughout your Fellowship, you’ll work alongside seasoned advocates and members of our communications & engagement team to do everything from helping conduct policy research to creating compelling digital communications to aiding action in the State House. And as a member of our canvass leadership team, you’ll help plan, recruit for, and execute successful annual canvass operations.
About VPIRG
VPIRG is a fast-paced nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote and protect the health of Vermont’s people, environment and locally-based economy by informing and mobilizing people statewide.
Job Responsibilities
The Organizing & Advocacy Fellow, who is based in Montpelier (though staff are primarily working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic) and reports to the Communications & Engagement Manager, is responsible for the following:
- Mobilizing Vermonters to participate in VPIRG’s elections & government reform campaigns through a variety of avenues, including generating petition signatures and legislator contacts, organizing events, and conducting strategic partners and networks
- Aiding in the creation of web posts, emails, videos, social media content, and other communications
- Monitoring legislative and/or administrative proceedings and conducting research as needed
- Participating in various aspects of fundraising, including major donor campaigns and phone banks
- Serving as a director for VPIRG’s canvass operation, a role which includes, but is not limited to:
- Participating in pre-canvass planning and preparation
- Recruiting, training, and managing canvass staff
- Taking responsibility for a specific realm of the canvass operation
- Helping ensure that overall performance goals are met
Qualifications
We’re seeking candidates who are proactive, efficient, and detail oriented. You should have…
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Desire to learn and grow, refusal to make the same mistake twice
- Ability to proactively anticipate needs and spot new responsibilities you can take on
- Commitment to VPIRG’s priorities, and a mission driven approach
- Willingness to travel (within state) and work evening/weekend hours as needed.
Previous canvass experience is preferred, but not required.
Starting 1st year salary of $37,595 annually with bonus opportunities. Excellent benefits package including employer-paid health insurance and employer-matching IRA contributions or student loan repayment of up to 3% of salary. Four weeks of vacation and 10 personal days annually accrued and 11 paid holidays.
How to Apply
All applications are due by December 6, 2020. Please apply online using the form below.
As part of your application, you will be asked to submit 3 writing samples, two of which should be based on the following prompts:
Part 1
Please draft a response to one of the following articles that features a VPIRG issue. You should write from the perspective of a Fellow working on the issue about which the article relates and should bring both a VPIRG voice and a personal perspective.
Start by reviewing this brief training document for activists on how to write and submit LTEs. Then, select and respond to one of the following articles. Keep it short – 250 words maximum.
- Will Vermont make this year’s expansion of vote-by-mail permanent?
- Post-It Votes: Mail-In Voting in Vermont May Be Here to Stay
- Mail-in voting amplified Red and Blue Vermont
- What went wrong for ranked choice voting in Massachusetts?
Part 2
Create related posts for VPIRG’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram platforms in response to the same article.