Director of Organizing & Practice

POSITION: Director of Organizing & Practice

EMPLOYMENT TYPE: Full-Time, Exempt

ABOUT CADRE:

Founded in 2001, Community Asset Development Redefining Education (CADRE) is an independent, community-based, community organizing and social justice-driven, parent membership organization in South Los Angeles. In partnership with staff and key stakeholders, CADRE is led by Black and Latino parents and caregivers whose children attend local schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

CADRE’s history started in the wake of the 1992 uprising, when a determined South Central LA mother and parent leader joined forces with a dedicated community activist to embark on building a movement of powerful Black and Latino parents organized to advance racial and educational justice in local LAUSD schools. Twenty years later, CADRE has emerged as an independent, parent-driven, community-based educational and social justice organization leading the charge to dismantle systemic criminalization and anti-Blackness in South Los Angeles schools and beyond.

CADRE’s core call to action is simple yet revolutionary: place Black and Brown parents at the center of systemic change to decriminalize public education. CADRE envisions schools that respect and cultivate the humanity, self-determination, leadership, and power of Black and Latino families to ensure that all children are rightfully educated regardless of where they live. CADRE builds critical solidarity between Black and Brown parent leaders who are uniquely positioned to:

• Eradicate false narratives and harmful paradigms about “good” and “bad” parenting
• Collectively advocate for and exercise authentic parent inclusion in school-site decision making
• Challenge the criminalization of all children regardless of race, not just their own
• Create accountability for policy changes that systematically dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline

CADRE engages in deeply principled and transformative practices of community organizing in order to foster authentic parent empowerment, leadership development, organizing, direct-action, power-building, and coalition building. By elevating the preparation and power of Black and Brown parents to drive systemic change in public education, CADRE plays a critical and unique role in sustaining a local, statewide, and national ecosystem of partnerships and alliances that redefine how public schools address and remove structural barriers experienced by Black and Latino families who pursue the right for all children to learn in healthy, humane, and decriminalized school environments.

Our vision is that schools will respect and cultivate the humanity, collective spirit and resilience of Black and Latino families, and contribute to a shared vision of South LA as a unified community that has power and self-determination.

PURPOSE OF POSITION:

The Director of Organizing & Practice facilitates the development and refinement of CADRE’s core parent organizing and transformational leadership development strategies to fulfill our mission.  

The position emphasizes documenting, evaluating, and refining existing practices and curricula related to:  

• parent relationship building (outreach, engagement, membership recruitment, member development); 
• parents’ self and collective community development (through a year-round process); 
• leadership development and training (quarterly meetings, campaign meetings, core parent leader recruitment and development); 
• coaching for transformation (staff supervision, performance evaluation, and accountability, core parent leader development, parent to parent, parent to school staff); 
• transition of core parent leaders into organizational leaders; community resilience (healing, wellness, restorative justice, social and emotional learning); 
• political consciousness and solidarity (in particular Black-Brown and intergenerational); 
• and political and systemic change capacity (policy advocacy/monitoring and changing institutional practices, and narrative shifting).  

Fundamental to the position is an ability to employ and model values, appreciative inquiry, design thinking, facilitation, emotional intelligence, self-reflection, self-accountability, and popular education as a way to cultivate CADRE’s organizational culture and articulate CADRE’s pedagogy.

The Position is based at CADRE’s offices at 8410 South Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90003. The Director of Organizing & Practice reports to the Co-Executive Directors of CADRE.  The Director of Organizing & Practice will generally directly supervise: The Organizing Team – primarily comprised of a Lead Organizer, Community Organizer(s), Program Coordinators/Assistants, and any interns and fellows.

KEY FUNCTIONS & RESPONSIBILITIES: 

Base Building

Oversee, codify, and systematize the implementation of the Organizing Team’s base building efforts as they initiate, facilitate, supervise and operationalize the following:

• One-on-one parent outreach and recruitment strategies in an effort to ensure that CADRE’s membership reflects those parents who are and whose children are most affected by the policies that CADRE is working to change. 
• Door-to-door, community canvassing, and phone outreach to reach new parents and maintain relationships with existing parents participating in CADRE’s work.  
• Recruitment of parents from the base to CADRE training meetings and campaign activities.
• Relationship building with parents, potential members, and core leaders.
• Design and implement annual parent member outreach, attraction, recruitment, retention, and development plan

Leadership Development Practice Building

Oversee and amplify the Organizing Team’s development of parent leaders, through:

• Documenting and articulating CADRE’s transformative leadership development pedagogy. 
• Aligning current practices with pedagogy and developing staff and core leader training curricula.

• Supporting the ongoing development of the Organizing Team and Core Leaders through coaching, reflection, and capacity building.
• Training and supporting the Organizing Team and core leaders to participate in organizational decision-making and leadership.
• Ensuring that the Organizing Team is proficient in:
  • Facilitation of relationships between members and core leaders and fostering their shared ownership and responsibility for CADRE’s work.
  • Building parents’ understanding of the educational issues and policies related to CADRE’s campaigns.
  • Assessing and supporting parents' leadership development trajectory.
  • Defining leadership development outcomes and indicators that reflect CADRE’s long-term vision.
  • Identifying, recruiting, and supporting the development of emerging core leaders among membership.
  • Developing and conducting meetings, trainings, and strategy sessions that engage parents as critical thinkers, change agents, and unified members working toward common goals. 
  • Designing and facilitating parent meetings (e.g. Educational Empowerment Academy, political education, community building, townhalls, etc) 

Campaign and Coalition/Movement Building

Support and strengthen CADRE’s Right to Education Campaign and long-term movement building efforts, through:

• Maintaining an understanding, awareness, and analysis of the political landscape and movement building surrounding CADRE’s work, internally and externally.
• Sustaining, developing, and implementing our long-term Right to Education Campaign’s incremental goals.
• Managing CADRE’s parent-centered and parent-led policymaking, monitoring, and policy implementation strategies and tactics, and supporting Organizing Team and Core Leaders’ working relationships with policymakers when needed.
• Tracking the contexts surrounding the various coalitions that impact CADRE’s work and strategically representing CADRE at collaborative, coalition, and community meetings.
• Maintaining, initiating, and cultivating relationships with strategic partners including allied organizations, schools, funders, government bodies, policy makers, and media that can further CADRE’s mission and philosophy and pedagogy of parent organizing. 

Organizational Building

The following areas of responsibility complement and stem from those above and represent the alignment of this position with continued organizational growth and sustainability.

Administration & Operations

• Supervise Organizing Team staff, parent volunteers, leaders, and/or interns/volunteers.
• Coordinate and facilitate interdepartmental efforts and the involvement of other CADRE staff around important community issues.
• Ensure and manage staff capacity so that it is conducive to the needs and nature of the organization’s work.
• Develop and oversee the Organizing Team's annual work plan, budget, and programs in partnership with members and staff.
• Develop and support internal systems that reflect the values of CADRE.
• Implement, maintain, and evaluate any internal operating procedures related to effective and efficient program implementation (e.g., petty cash management, budgeting, expense reporting, etc.)
• Ensure alignment of day-to-day program activities with program goals, objectives, outcomes, and methodology, including achieving contractual obligations outlined in grants and contracts.
• Implement training of staff, core parent leaders, and volunteers; develop train-the-trainer practices.

Evaluation

• Support the organizational growth of CADRE, including strategic planning and evaluation.
• Ensure maintenance of information about and results of outreach efforts in order to effectively manage follow-up and relationship building with parents.
• Maintain and utilize program and staff evaluation results, analyze data and coordinate updates with appropriate staff and prepare data reports when necessary.
• Coordinate Organizing Team’s data input related to base building and leadership development results.
• Plan, implement and evaluate meetings, trainings, campaigns, actions, and other CADRE events in partnership with entire staff and core parent leaders.
• Create, supervise, and evaluate Organizing Team reporting forms and work-plans.
• Provide opportunities for staff, leaders, and volunteers to learn and give/receive feedback for continuous improvement of the organization’s work.
• Assess self, team members, and organization for strengths and areas for ongoing improvement.

Strategy Development

• Participate in organizational strategic planning and align Organizer Team work plans accordingly.
• Create new and adapt old strategies to respond to important emerging community issues and dynamics.
• Collaborate with Co-Executive Directors to identify and implement the most effective practices for sustaining and expanding CADRE’s work over the next five years.
• Build and support an organizational culture within CADRE that supports the achievement of our mission and goals and exemplifies the values with which CADRE wants to organize the community.

Communications

• Implement tools within CADRE’s parent organizing model for expanding organizational visibility – e.g., storytelling that leads to content for website or social media 
• Serve on task forces, speak to the media, and otherwise serve as one CADRE's representatives when needed.

Fundraising & Resource Development

• Collaborate with Co-Executive Directors and Staff in meeting grant application and reporting deadlines.
• Collect and report on CADRE’s strategies related to grant deliverables in partnership with Organizing Team and fundraising staff.
• Support any fundraising initiatives as needed, whether individual fundraising efforts and/or special organizational events.

SKILLS/QUALIFICATIONS:

Required:

• 3-5 years’ experience in grassroots community organizing (base building and leadership development) experience.
• 2-4 years’ experience in non-profit organizational management and development, including staff supervision.
• Strongly demonstrated commitment to educational and racial justice and Black & Brown solidarity.
• Ability to work independently and within a team structure with shared decision making.
• Strong emotional intelligence, verbal and written communication, and relationship building skills. 
• Demonstrated ability to develop others and facilitating high performance teams
• Expertise in training and facilitating in community-based, grassroots, people-centered environments.
• Ability to synthesize and re-organize information to be useful to different learning styles and life experiences.
• Ability to plan, strategize, and assess work with an understanding of the social, economic, and political factors surrounding public education and marginalized neighborhoods. 
• Ability to foster collaboration within racial, ethnic, language, immigrant status, and economic class diversity.
• Consistently strong work ethic, integrity, and self-reflection and accountability. 
• Highly self-motivated and willing to learn; an energizing and encouraging force for the people with whom you work.
• Reliable transportation, with valid driver’s license and current liability insurance.
• Proficiency in using computers for word processing, Internet research, and email.
• High emotional intelligence and demonstrated commitment to honesty, ethics, confidentiality and trustworthiness 

Preferred:

• Willingness to make a minimum 2-3-year commitment.
• Oral and written fluency in the English language – able to communicate across different literacy levels.
• Oral and written fluency in the Spanish language – ability to interpret and provide translation.
• Familiarity with the history and political landscape of South LA.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Office, Google Drive, and database applications.
• Familiarity with design thinking and universal learning design principles

OTHER:

Work Conditions:  Desk seating in an open floor plan office; frequent travel by car within a 5-mile radius of the office; willingness and availability to work an average of 2 evenings per week, and periodic weekends (rare); baseline schedule is approximately 9:30 am – 6 pm, evenings on which we have parent meetings or outreach work will typically end around 9 pm.

Salary:  Within the range of $70,000-$80,000 annually, the salary will be commensurate with experience.

Additional Employee Benefits:  Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance benefits, a minimum of ten (14) paid holidays per year, vacation accrual, sick/personal leave, and optional pre-tax, payroll deduction flexible spending account for unreimbursed medical and dependent care expenses. 

Application Submission: The application submission period for this opportunity opens on September 5, 2023, and is scheduled to close on November 2, 2023. However, because applications will be reviewed for initial screening on a rolling basis, we recommend that interested candidates submit their applications in advance of the deadline.

Leaders interested in this opportunity must submit the following as part of their application:

• A cover letter that highlights the alignment between your qualifications and experiences and the essential requirements and responsibilities of the role
• A resumé
• Answer the following question as a separate PDF attachment: What aspects of CADRE’s mission and work compel you to apply for this position?

Disclaimer: The statements in this description represent typical elements, criteria, and general work performed. They are not intended as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required for the job.

Please note that as an organization committed to racial equity and transformative human growth and development, CADRE hopes that emerging leaders will reflect and own their potential and capacity to assume this leadership role. Black, Indigenous, Latino, and other people of color who are prepared to dedicate their talents and expertise to the cause of Black and Brown solidarity and empowerment are strongly encouraged to apply.

Salary : $70,000 - $80,000