Job Title: Associate Organiser, Peterborough Citizens

Salary: £14,817 pa (£24,696 FTE)

Hours: 22.5 hrs per week, (flexible, core days are Tu, W & Th)

Contract: 12 months (Jan 22-Dec 22)

Based: Peterborough

Application Deadline: 16 January 2022

Interview Date: 25/26th January 2022 2-4pm   

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. 

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.  In Peterborough, the key role of the associate will be to work with a small number of current organisations and explore how to diversity the alliance to lead powerful change in the city.

Key Tasks (all with support and investment of experienced organiser):

·       Build the Peterborough Citizens alliance by recruiting diverse organisations which represent the wider ranging migrant communities within Peterborough

·       Support Peterborough Citizens Refugee Welcome Group by:

1.    Support the Housing Campaign in finding new landlords who will house refugees

2.   Recruiting new migrant organisations

3.   Reaching out to other organisations which can be involved

·       Support and run the Crime and Safety Campaign

·       Launching a Learning Evening of “Stories from Migrant City” with the focus to do a power analysis of the diverse organisations and to recruit the migrant organisation to Peterborough Citizens

·       Work specifically with strengthening the faith communities and migrant communities to use community organising methods to develop their organisations and to recruit them within Peterborough Citizens

·       Support and strengthen in The School Based Organising within Peterborough – leading training with students within 50% of our school’s membership.

Person Specification (E=Essential, D=Desirable)

Education:

• 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 project management; evidence of having delivered work on time and to 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)

Key Skills & Knowledge:

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

• Excellent concern for impact – ability to adapt own behaviour in order to address the needs or concerns of someone else (E)

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

Personal Qualities & Values:

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

• A passion for justice (E)

• A good sense of humour (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 need to take a satisfactory Enhanced DBS check. DBS checks are renewed on a 3-year cycle.

If you would like to have a 20 minute 121 with the hiring manager to discuss this role, please email dilraj.kaur@citizensuk.org.