Director of Advocacy and Community Engagement

Position: Director of Advocacy and Community Engagement (63918)
Location: New York

## Director of Advocacy and Community Engagement University Settlement partners with 40,000+ New Yorkers in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn every year to build on our collective strengths as we achieve healthy, stable, and remarkable lives. For 140 years, we’ve fought poverty and systemic inequality by building highly effective social services in collaboration with our neighbors. Established in 1886 as the first Settlement House in the United States, we bring the values of that movement into the 21st century by meeting New Yorkers where they live, listening deeply to all perspectives, and creating space for responsive cooperation.
Joining with our neighbors to make stable foundations where people of all ages can grow and pursue their dreams, we build community strength by infusing a commitment to advocacy, civic engagement, equality, and communal action into each of our programs, which include early childhood education, youth development, healthy aging, mental health and wellness, English classes for adult immigrants, community centers, housing counseling and eviction prevention, and the arts.
University Settlement advocates to support policies and practices that empower New Yorkers so that they can achieve healthy, stable, and remarkable lives. We routinely participates in advocacy efforts across many of our departments and programs. University Settlement aims to build on its tradition of active advocacy by more fully coordinating and expanding this work.  This new Director of Advocacy and Community Engagement will spearhead and operationalize University Settlement’s preexisting advocacy efforts more fully across its programs and sites, and support University Settlement’s agency wide culture of advocacy within each division and program.

The role will involve creating a variety of resources to engage and support staff and participants in developing advocacy campaigns, training staff to implement advocacy and education efforts, and creating campaign-specific resources. The impact of this work will include increased organizational impact in advocacy campaigns; a stronger integration of considerations of systems-change; increased exposure to broaden our reach to community members and prospective funders;

developing a larger influence in policy at the city and state level, and greater presence in the field of advocacy leaders in NYC.  
** Key Responsibilities
*** Develop and implement a comprehensive agency-wide advocacy and civic engagement strategy, providing leadership to embed advocacy, civic engagement, and systems-change approaches across all programs and divisions.
* Represent University Settlement and build, maintain, and strengthen strategic relationships with government agencies, elected officials, nonprofit partners, coalitions, and other key stakeholders to advance the organization’s advocacy, policy, and system change priorities.
* Elevate University Settlement’s profile as a leader in public policy and systems change by building partnerships with government stakeholders and connecting direct service experience to research, advocacy, and policy initiatives.
* Partner with program staff, participants, and community stakeholders to identify advocacy priorities and advance community-driven policy agendas; lead and coordinate city, state, and federal advocacy activities, testimony, and campaigns in support of those priorities.
* Design and facilitate advocacy trainings, workshops, and professional development opportunities to strengthen advocacy capacity among staff and participants, and oversee community engagement efforts, including town halls, listening sessions, public forums, leadership development initiatives, voter engagement activities, and digital advocacy campaigns.
* Establish…