TITLE: Community Safety & Youth Organizer
SUPERVISED BY: Organizing Director or Deputy Organizing Director
SUPERVISES: interns, as assigned
SALARY/HOURLY, EXEMPT OR NONEXEMPT: Salary, Exempt
FULL-TIME
ONE Northside is seeking a Community Safety & Youth Organizer to lead a community-powered team dedicated to engaging young people from our communities into the fabric of our organization. They will focus on campaigns that create a more equitable system of justice for all Chicagoans and ensure that our police department acts with accountability and transparency.
This individual will organize young people, people affected by police misconduct, people who regularly interact with the police and others who deeply care about police accountability. This staff member will have the opportunity to work with north side community members and partners across Chicago to run community driven campaigns to stop harmful policing practices using Chicago’s new system for civilian oversight of the police, develop youth organizing and leadership development programming, and help create a Chicago that is safe for everyone.
ORGANIZATION SUMMARY
Organizing Neighborhoods for Equality: Northside (ONE Northside) is a community organization resulting from the merger of Lakeview Action Coalition and Organization of the Northeast. Together, LAC and ONE have a history of nearly 60 years of powerful and effective community organizing. ONE Northside started on July 1, 2013. ONE Northside organizes people from over 30 institutions as well as individual community residents from Rogers Park, Edgewater, Uptown, Ravenswood, North Center, Lake View, and Lincoln Park.
Mission: Organizing Neighborhoods for Equality: Northside is a mixed-income, multi-ethnic,
intergenerational organization that unites our diverse communities. We build collective power to eliminate injustice through bold and innovative community organizing. We accomplish this through developing grassroots leaders and acting together to effect change.
POSITION SUMMARY
This is a new position at ONE Northside and geared for an organizer who is interested in building power with young people along with our existing Police Accountability and Violence Prevention teams. The ONE Northside Community Safety & Youth Organizer will cultivate a group of community members working on strategies to address police abuse in Chicago and find ways to bring youth to the forefront of our issue campaigns. This will involve coalition work and organizing marginalized populations in our North Side neighborhoods.
ONE Northside’s Police Accountability Issue Team believes that everyone deserves to be safe wherever they live. We believe in divesting from the police and investing those resources in our communities. We believe in alternatives to policing as we move to a more equitable system. As we build those alternatives, we must make sure that our police department acts with accountability and transparency. Everyone in Chicago must have a mechanism to hold the police accountable.
To work toward these goals, we will:
● Implement the Empowering Communities for Public Safety ordinance by working with the
Commission and District Councils to bring about public safety for all and police accountability at the local and citywide levels
● Monitor the court-ordered reforms via the Consent Decree to make sure CPD includes
community voices in shaping future public safety policies and follows through with reforms
that protect young people, people of color, people with disabilities, and people living with
mental illness
● Support the ONE Northside Violence Prevention team
● Identify and mobilize around opportunities and campaigns to increase safety, well-being,
and police accountability in our communities.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Organizing
● Build a base of people directly affected by over-policing including young people, low-income people, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. This will include independent canvassing and other outreach efforts. Mobilize base members to participate in police accountability campaigns and other organizational activities such as trainings, direct actions, large public meetings, and canvassing.
● Focus on developing and creating new opportunities for youth to engage and lead on ONE Northside campaigns.
● Cultivate the leadership of community members to tell their own stories, build their own
bases, and develop and execute strategies to win campaigns for police accountability. This will include using tactics such as meeting with elected officials, public education, direct action, strategic communications, and more.
● Work jointly with our Violence Prevention team to conduct outreach to youth at their
community events, outreach programs and institutional partners.
● Collaborate with members of the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability and
Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) coalitions to implement the ECPS
ordinance.
● Work with allies and the ACLU to ensure community input in police reforms as part of the
federal consent decree.
● Create and lead popular education and skill-building training to develop the leadership of
grassroots members and staff and participants in our Violence Prevention Team.
● Meet with grassroots and grasstops community members to understand their interests and move them to action with ONE Northside. Organizers are expected to do at least 5 one-on-one meetings per week.
● Work with grassroots leaders to participate in city, statewide, and national coalitions that
advance our campaigns.
● Plan events and meetings from start to finish including preparing the agenda, securing the logistics, ensuring radical hospitality, and generating the turnout. Support on these elements of events planned by other team members.
● Support the lobbying and election activities of ONE People’s Campaign, our 501c4 sister
organization.
Administration/Fundraising
● Prepare weekly written reports updating progress toward goals and regularly update data in Powerbase (our CRM).
● Generate meeting summaries, a monthly newsletter, press releases, fliers and other related materials to keep community members informed.
● Participate in weekly staff meetings, quarterly staff retreats, quarterly Membership Council meetings
● Participate in quarterly grassroots fundraising tactics and support grant fundraising by
identifying and drafting grant proposals and reports, participating in and preparing leaders for site visits.
● Develop and maintain relationships with leaders in our institutional members, engage them in our quarterly membership meetings, and help recruit new institutional and individual members.
● Assist the management team with other tasks, as assigned.
QUALIFICATIONS
An ideal candidate is someone with a deep hunger to build power and win and who is rooted in a commitment to racial and social justice. A successful candidate for this position is a deeply relational individual who is detail-oriented, able to juggle multiple projects, willing to be in the community and able to forge powerful relationships. They should have a strong interest in working with a diverse group of people and will thrive within an organizational culture that emphasizes creativity, accountability, growth, and community. They should bring some experience working with youth in an organizing, mentorship and engagement capacity.
Required
● 2+ years of community organizing experience and familiarity with a diverse range of organizing tactics and strategies.
● Experience working with young people in organizing or in a programmatic capacity.
Particularly focused on engagement and leadership development.
● Proven ability to work with a diverse constituency, across lines of race, class, nationality,
sexual orientation, gender identity, age, religion and other differences
● Serious appetite and excitement to go door-to-door, make calls, meet new community
members and bring them into the work
● Commitment to racial equity and overcoming white supremacy, recognizing the role of race, income, age, immigration status, and other identities in shaping disparities among
communities and a track record of amplifying community voices to advocate for more
equitable solutions. You recognize how your own identities show up in the work, and welcome, reflect on, and act on feedback with an eye toward continuous learning about race, ability, and other lines of difference.
● Deep self-interest in building relationships with youth, people who interact with the criminal justice system, former gang members and other marginalized constituencies
● Willing to use confrontation as a tactic for winning justice.
● Proficient with google suite and other basic computer skills
● Must be a motivated self-starter who can juggle many moving pieces
● Ability to work independently and as part of a team
● Effective communication skills
● Innovative, creative, mature thinking and reasoning
● Demonstrated commitment to (or interest in) the profession of community organizing
Preferred
● Experience working in coalitions
● Effective and creative problem solver
● Commitment to training and agitation methodology as a tool for growth and accountability
● BA degree or equivalent life experience
● Fluency in a second language is a plus
● Having a car is preferred
This is a community organizing job and will require attendance at night and weekend meetings.
ONE Northside is an equal opportunity employer.
COMPENSATION:
● Salary is in the $48,175 – $56,191 range, commensurate with experience
● Comprehensive benefits package includes employer paid medical and dental
insurance. Employer contribution of 4% of salary into a retirement plan. 13 paid
vacation and personal days the first year, 12 wellness days and 18 paid holidays.
To Apply – Please send a resume and cover letter to Becky Wanberg at
bw******@on**********.org
with the subject line: Community Safety & Youth Organizer.