Santa Maria Organizer

Founded in 2001, CAUSE’s mission is to build grassroots power to realize social, economic and environmental justice for the people of the Ventura and Santa Barbara counties region through policy research, leadership development, organizing, and advocacy.

CAUSE is currently seeking a Santa Maria Organizer responsible for developing grassroots community leaders and coordinating their leadership in organizing locally-based social, economic, and environmental justice issue campaigns. The position will be supervised by an Associate Organizing Director and will work directly with a team of nine other organizers. The position will be based in our office in Santa Maria.

• Building a base of CAUSE grassroots leaders among working-class, immigrant families in Santa Maria, by:
  • Conducting house-meeting campaigns including personal visits to recruit Santa Maria residents to become grassroots community leaders involved with CAUSE
  • Developing and growing a committee, with a goal of 30 Santa Maria residents composed primarily of monolingual Spanish-speaking immigrant adults.
  • Facilitating biweekly meetings with each committee to develop and coordinate community organizing and advocacy campaigns around issues in Santa Maria
  • Working with grassroots leaders to develop their political education, leadership skills such as speaking to news reporters and elected officials, facilitating meetings to coordinate strategic campaigns, and doing outreach and organizing to mobilize their communities
• Working in support of other CAUSE campaigns as part of Organizing Team
• Recruiting and training grassroots leaders to volunteer on get-out-the-vote efforts including door-to-door canvassing and phone banking during elections
• Interacting with donors and involving grassroots leaders in fundraising
• Linking neighborhood-based issues with regional, state and national issues

• Spanish fluency required (monolingual or bilingual English/Spanish).
• Bicultural competency preferred
• Bachelors Degree or equivalent preferred
• Prior employment and/or intern experience with transferable skills to that of a Community Organizer preferred
• Prior employment and/or intern experience within Latinx immigrant communities preferred
• Prior employment and/or intern experience with electoral work preferred
• Demonstrated commitment and passion for social, economic and/or environmental justice
• Experience with and desire to work with diverse cultures and the ability to engage people from a variety of backgrounds on a one-on-one basis or group format
• Ability to interact professionally with elected officials, donors, board members, leaders of ally organizations, and news reporters
• Strategic and analytical approach to political issues
• Strong written and verbal skills including large group presentations and public speaking
• Experience with using common office computer programs (Microsoft Word, Publisher and Excel) as well as web-based Google applications (Gmail, Google Docs, Google Hangout)
• Able to work independently and as part of a team
• Able to set own work priorities, manage responsibilities and time
• Flexibility and willingness to work long hours and weekends, and be able to travel throughout region, state and nation

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions. While performing the duties of this position, the employee is regularly required to talk or hear. The employee frequently is required to use hands or fingers,…