Salary: £34,479 pa (includes £3,000 pa London Weighting)

Hours: 37.5 hours per week (some unsociable hours)

Contract: 2 year

Based: West London

Application Deadline: 30 November 2021 at 10am

Interview Date: 8 December 2021 (Provisional)

Citizens UK

Citizens UK organises communities to act together for power, social justice and the common good. We are the home of broad-based community organising in the UK, with 17 diverse civil society alliances across England and Wales. We build powerful alliances that develop the leadership capacity of our members so they can hold politicians and other decision-makers to account on the issues that matter to them. Citizens UK also creates systemic change through projects such as the Living Wage Foundation and Sponsor Refugees. Please visit our website at: www.citizensuk.org 

Living Wage Foundation

The Living Wage was established by Citizens UK in 2011 and is a movement of businesses, organisations and people who believe that a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. The real Living Wage is an independently-calculated hourly rate based on the cost of living and announced each November during Living Wage Week, our annual celebration of a growing network of over 8,000 Living Wage Employers.

The Living Wage Foundation celebrates employers that voluntarily choose to pay the real Living Wage through an accreditation scheme that recognises a long-term commitment to fair pay and has secured pay rises for 275,000 low paid workers.

Purpose: Making London a Living Wage City

Trust for London have committed to invest £4.8m to make London a Living Wage City over the next four years, to lift 50,000 people out of in-work poverty and secure £635m of additional wages for Londoners. This will boost our capacity to organise workers and communities, engage and accredit employers, and further build the profile and support for our biggest campaign. It will add capacity to our community organising, accreditation and comms teams, and will enable us to set up exciting cross-team collaboration seeking to:

• Develop leaders - 800 workers and leaders from communities in poorer areas building their power to make change, and 20,000 people engaged in the Living Wage movement.

• Strengthen institutions - 135 civil society institutions engaged and 1600 employers joining the Living Wage movement.

• Make change - win £635m of increased pay, lifting 48,000 people onto the real Living Wage and 10,000 people benefitting from Living Hours.

Your role will be to work with other members of our community organising team adding capacity for key member organisations (faith organisations, schools, community groups) to identify workers on less than the Living Wage and build teams of workers to connect with the wider Making London a Living Wage City project as well as identifying opportunities for local action in West London targeted at employers not paying the Living Wage.

Community Organiser

A Community Organiser is responsible for the day-to-day development or maintenance of a Citizens alliance, small chapter, or campaign. Supported by a more experienced Organiser, they have considerable independence and responsibility for external political and media relationships. They take responsibility for financial issues and staff training; and may oversee a budget or manage a colleague.

A Community Organiser is a 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

Main Responsibilities

Working as a Living Wage Worker Community Organiser for Citizens UK your main responsibilities will include:

Organise low paid workers as part of the London as a Living Wage City initiative:

• Conduct 3 1-2-1s with low paid workers and other leaders each working day

• Help to build a team of workers across London that can engage with the Living Wage campaign

• Organise workers and other leaders to be a part of the London as a Living Wage City initiative. Including populating Living Wage action teams and London wide sector teams.

• Support local borough alliances in their Living Wage organising by giving additional capacity where there is a particular target

• Be a part of and support the London as a Living Wage City team

• Work with London Citizens leaders and the Living Wage foundation to ensure low paid workers are supported and involved in every aspect of the London as a Living Wage City campaign

• Develop low paid workers as leaders and support them to contribute to the London as a Living Wage City strategy

Build relational power to further the goals of Citizens UK:

• Develop a comprehensive power analysis for sectors and places you’re working in

• Develop and grow a substantial network of key influencers at a local level, including journalists; taking the initiative to establish new relationships as required

• Conduct at least 3 one-to-ones a day in order to develop relationships with leaders; ensuring a deep understanding of their concerns.

• Tell a wide range of Community Organising stories effectively to influence others and achieve Citizens UK’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

• Achieve significant development of primary and secondary leaders; nominate new leaders for training on the core taster curriculum and for National Training

• Successfully lead training on the core taster curriculum at a local level and teach a variety of sessions on the National Training course

Strengthen institutions and develop BBOs:

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

• Support a full local alliance or a large cluster of up to 15 standard member organisations or up to 5 strategic partners to work together on shared issues, including a Leadership Team

• Support pre-existing core teams and create/develop new core teams to provide leadership for multi-institutional campaigns

• Run institutional development campaigns in a range of types of organisation

Support leaders through the Cycle of Action to create change:

• Take the staff lead on major actions and campaigns at a local level; aiming to achieve multiple large local wins

• Develop and facilitate action planning teams at local level

• Develop strategies for significant local impact; with comprehensive plans and tactics

• Organise and support local actions, ensuring publicity, and facilitating negotiations

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

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

• Recruit new dues paying institutions; negotiating annual membership fees and letters of understanding as required

• Over time, contribute to fundraising by securing £40k-£60k pa overall, at least half of which must be ‘hard money’ from the recruitment and retention of member institutions.

• Manage the budget at Chapter/campaign level, incl. setting/ monitoring of budgets, and ensuring dues are collected in a timely manner

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 and improve on self-identified weaknesses

• Demonstrate ability to work effectively with colleagues and participate in a team; contribute to the learning of other Organisers

• Lead other Organisers or Associates in a manner that supports high performance by providing clear expectations and providing proactive support, encouragement, and mentorship

• Produce all required reports and follow Citizens UK’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 COs:

• Schedule an average of at least 3 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 Regional/National Community Leadership Training

• 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

Person Specification (Essential=E, Desirable=D)

Experience:

• Evidence of further and continuing study including a possible professional qualification (D)

• At least one-year employment track record of successful Organising (E)

• Experience of carrying out a power analysis and using the results to initiate new relationships (E)

• Experience of successful fundraising (D)

• Experience of setting up a new or consolidating an existing project (E)

• Clear evidence of campaigns won and volunteers developed (E)

Key Skills & Knowledge:

• Ability to inspire, motivate and lead (particularly people who are different than you) (E)

• Ability to organise yourself and others and to work responsibly in an unstructured environment (E)

• Financial management skills including ability to set and manage a budget (D)

• Ability to use imaginative strategies to help improve poor communities (E)

• Ability to plan and organise under pressure (E)

• Ability to work with and relate to all types of people (E)

• Ability to teach and run workshops (E)

• Ability to develop the potential of others (E)

• Ability to communicate well verbally and in writing (E)

Personal Qualities & Values:

• 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)

• Able to work in a team (E)

• Willingness to work within accountable relationships (E)

• Self-motivated and adaptable (E)

The successful applicant will be required to undertake a satisfactory Enhanced DBS check. DBS checks are renewed on a 3-year cycle.