Salary: Associate Organiser step 1 (£26,623 per annum FTE)

Based: Brighton and Hove

Contract: Permanent  

Hours: 4 days a week, with flexible working and some planned evening and weekend working required.

Deadline: 8 July 2022, 23:59pm

Interviews: 14 July 2022

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 £1.5 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), and Sponsor Refugees, 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 nearly 9,000 accredited Living Wage Employers across the UK.  

Brighton & Hove Citizens is a newly-established local civil society alliance, made up of a range of educational, faith, and community institutions. Whilst the alliance is fairly new - it was established in 2018 - it has grown to become the largest alliance of civil society institutions across the city.

Purpose 

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

This role is for an ambitious, hard-working, person who wants to win tangible change across Brighton and Hove (and Sussex) and develop new leaders in the process.

This role has a specific focus on youth leadership and will primarily be developed in partnership with three large colleges: BHASVIC, Newman College, and Varndean College. Those three colleges will work closely together to fully participate in existing campaigns of the alliance, as well as establish additional campaigns which directly affect their students, families, and staff. As such, we are looking for someone who’ll be able to engage with and motivate young people in order to deliver enriching opportunities for them to become part of our local alliance.

Main Responsibilities 

Working as an Associate Organiser in Brighton and Hove (0.6) and within the Citizens UK Schools Organising Team (0.2) for Citizens UK your main responsibilities will include:

Build relational power to further CUK goals:

• Support Leaders to develop a comprehensive power analysis appropriate to each action area or winnable goal

• Establish working relationships with alliance leaders and move them into action; taking the initiative to establish new relationships as required

• Conduct 1-2-1s to develop relationships with leaders and understand their concerns.

• Tell a wide range of Community Organising stories effectively in order to influence others and achieve CUK’s goals

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

• Identify and discern actual and potential leaders with the passion and ability to drive change 

• Proactively create opportunities for leaders to develop, in particular new leaders; nominate for training 

• Successfully deliver training workshops in local institutions and on the core taster curriculum at a local level

Strengthen institutions and develop the Brighton & Hove Citizens alliance:

• Ensure good understanding of the basic interests and traditions of typical member institutions

• Organise campaigns involving multiple organisations to work together for the achievement of common goals

• Support pre-existing core teams and create/develop new core teams to provide leadership in each organisation and in multi-organisational campaign teams

• Support Brighton & Hove Citizens to be effective through its leadership group, its meetings, systems and actions.

Support leaders through the Cycle of Action in order to create change:

• Support member institutions in running listening campaigns

• Support Leaders to organise neighbourhood actions and to secure member turnout

• Take the lead in supporting groups of leaders through the cycle of action on local issues, aiming to achieve wins

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

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

• Recruit new dues paying institutions; work together with a more senior Organiser to negotiate annual membership fees and letters of understanding

• Contribute substantively to fundraising by securing £30k pa overall, at least half of which should be ‘hard money’ from retention and recruitment of member institutions.

• Liaise with the Finance & Operations team to update the membership database and ensure timely invoicing and fee collection

Contribute to effective teamwork:

• Be proactive concerning personal professional development and wellbeing; i.e. by reading widely, 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 a team

• 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 Community Organisers:

• Schedule an average of at least three 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.

• Demonstrate increasing independence in working without the need for close supervision

Support with the strategy of the Citizens UK Schools Organising team:

• Work with the Schools Organising Team to develop case studies of good practice.

• Aim to develop an approach with Colleges (rooted in what is happening in Brighton and Hove) which could be used across Citizens UK’s national network.

Person Specification 

REQUIREMENTS (ESSENTIAL = E,  DESIRABLE = D) 

QUALIFICATIONS 

Bachelor’s degree in any subject (D)

Subject of relevance to community work or community organising is desirable (D)

EXPERIENCE 

Previous campaign experience  (D)

Evidence of having acted in a leadership role with peers or in local community activities (e.g. organising clubs or societies) (E)

Experience of administration, project and time management; completing work on time and to high standard (E)

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

Developing leaders – being able to encourage/agitate people to act on what they care about, and support them to be effective at winning change on that issue

 KEY SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE 

Excellent interpersonal awareness – ability to listen well and appreciate a viewpoint or opinion that is different from one’s own (E)

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

Skilled at building, and participating in, teams (D)

PERSONAL QUALITIES & VALUES 

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

Desire to make an impact and achieve results (E)

A passion for justice (E)

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

An interest in and experience of politics and public life (E)

Curious about people and able to build strong interpersonal, accountable relationships with a diverse range of people (E)

Self-motivated and adaptable (E)

 The successful applicant will be required to undertake a satisfactory Enhanced DBS check.