Full-Time Rio Grande Campaigner
Job Description
Are you a Guardian for Living Rivers?
WildEarth Guardians seeks a full-time Rio Grande Campaigner in our Wild Rivers Program to play a leading role in our efforts in Colorado and New Mexico to protect and restore a living Rio Grande. The Campaigner is a policy advocate and organizer who will build a movement that pushes federal and state agencies to rethink management of the Rio Grande and ensure climate resilience for both people and the environment. The Campaigner will work primarily in the Rio Grande basin in Colorado and New Mexico.
ABOUT WILDEARTH GUARDIANS
WildEarth Guardians (Guardians) is a west-wide nonprofit environmental advocacy organization headquartered in Santa Fe, NM with offices in Denver, CO, Missoula, MT, Boise, ID, Portland, OR, Seattle, WA, and Tucson, AZ. With a 30-year history of bold environmental action, we wage innovative legal, political, and grassroots campaigns to protect and restore wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and community health in the American West.
The Wild Rivers Program advocates for living rivers across the American West. With a focus on the Rio Grande, Colorado and Willamette River basins as key geographies, we work to safeguard clean water, revive dynamic flows, reform western water policy, protect imperiled fish, wildlife and plants, and restore healthy and sustainable aquatic and riparian ecosystems to support all life.
POSITION SUMMARY:
The Rio Grande Campaigner works closely with the Wild Rivers Program Director to rethink the water management and policy of the past and move toward a new future of Living Rivers. The Campaigner’s work is centered on the Living Rio Campaign with the goal of protecting and restoring dynamic flows in the iconic Rio Grande from source to sea and ensuring the river has a right to its own water. The Campaigner will implement legal and policy tactics to restore flows to the river, including strategies set forth in Guardians’ report Rio Grande: Rethinking Rivers in the 21st Century. A key responsibility of the Campaigner is to develop allies, build grassroots support, engage with Pueblos and other communities and mobilize voices for a Living Rio. The position is supervised by the Wild Rivers Program Director.
Principal Responsibilities:
- Collaborate with the Wild Rivers Program Director to prioritize, develop, and refine strategies to achieve the goals and vision of the Living Rio Campaign.
- In an effort to reform existing water law, management, and policy in the Rio Grande basin, coordinate and organize support for living rivers policies. Activities include providing testimony, creating education and outreach materials, and supporting interaction with Tribal leadership, members of the New Mexico legislature and administration, and members of Congress.
- Form strategic relationships with new allies and expand recruitment and engagement of existing supporters regionally and nationally on Rio Grande and western water policy issues to increase our mutual power.
- Build and maintain relationships with Rio Grande basin stakeholders working together to achieve our goals. This includes playing a leadership role in coalitions through regular (in-person), phone, and electronic communication.
- Communicate our work to the public and the media—using visual, written and oral presentation skills—ensuring that messages around living rivers become the dominant frame for water management discussions.
Knowledge and Skills:
- Passion for protecting and restoring rivers of the American West.
- Strong relational skills (including ability to connect with and build coalitions with diverse stakeholders) and knowledge and understanding of communities and cultures in the Rio Grande basin.
- Creative, self-starter with proven ability to work independently and collaboratively.
- Commitment to community organizing and ability to work constructively with grassroots partners, including commitment to social change through building the capacity and power of Black, Indigenous, people of color and low-income people to change their communities and to participate directly in changing public policies.
- Strong moral compass and ability to stand against the tide.
- Strong organizational skills and an ability to succeed in a fast-paced environment with a full workload where it is necessary to balance multiple tasks and deadlines.
- Integrity, kindness, sense of humor, and a healthy sense of outrage.
Additional preferred skills include, but are not limited to:
- Three or more years of campaigning or grassroots organizing experience with demonstrated results.
- Education and/or experience working with and empowering communities in the Rio Grande Basin or other similar communities in the Southwest.
- Knowledge of and experience with regional, state and basin-wide environmental policy and politics (water and river policy a bonus).
- Strong written and verbal communication, with mastery of social media platforms.
- Bilingual (Spanish and/or Native Languages).
Compensation and Benefits:
WildEarth Guardians offers a friendly and flexible, team-based environment with an excellent benefits package. You have flexibility to select benefits based on your personal preferences, your family situation, and/or your financial objectives. Benefits include full health, vision, dental, life, and disability coverage, a 403(b) retirement plan with a 3% match, paid and un-paid health and family leave, a sabbatical policy, sick leave, three weeks paid vacation to start, and ten holidays including your birthday. Salary is negotiable based on experience.
How to Apply
Please apply for the Rio Grande Campaigner position by providing a cover letter, resume, and three references through the web portal at https://wildearthguardians.org/about-us/careers/rio-grande-campaigner/. Cover letters should communicate the applicant’s heartfelt commitment to protect and restore the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the American West. Applicants are encouraged to tell us who they are as human beings, why they care about this work, and why they are interested in this position. Please submit applications by October 31, 2020. No telephone calls, please. Only candidates selected for interviews will be contacted. WildEarth Guardians is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, class, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, family/marital status, religion or other protected classes. We encourage applications from persons of color, women and LGBTQ+ candidates.Apply for this Job
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