Pictured: BikePGH’s Operation Illumination, lighting up lightless riders

Seeking Full-Time Community Organizer

Bike Pittsburgh is seeking a seasoned, effective organizer to work on expanding bicycle and walking infrastructure in Pittsburgh. If you are passionate about biking and walking, urban design, and community organizing, this is your chance to help improve the lives of Pittsburghers. This role will be BikePGH’s first community organizer – we are excited for and anticipate a lot of on-the-job learning.

Title: Community Organizer

Position: Full time, Non-exempt

Target Start: April 2018

Salary: $35,000-$40,000, depending upon relevancy of experience.

Hours: 40 hours per week, Often M-F 9-5 plus some work on weeknights and weekends in order to attend community meetings and events.

Benefits: Full-time benefits include medical, vision, and dental insurance as well as generous PTO and 401k benefits.

Reports to: The position reports directly to BikePGH’s Advocacy Director, Eric Boerer

Mission: BikePGH is a 3,000 member grassroots advocacy organization that is transforming our streets and communities into vibrant, healthy places by making them safe and accessible for everyone to bike and walk. BikePGH’s three areas of focus are advocacy, education, and community.

Principle Duties and Responsibilities:

What does BikePGH’s Community Organizer do?

You will work with BikePGH’s Advocacy Director, and all parts of the organization, including staff and members, to develop and win support for key biking and walking infrastructure improvements. This job will entail working closely with community groups, businesses and elected officials to develop grassroots and grasstops support for new and improved streets.

Coordinating with BikePGH’s Advocacy Director, you will also be responsible for helping create new, as well as liasoning with existing, neighborhood-level bike/ped advisory committees and help them create and support locally-led campaigns. You should be comfortable with street-level organizing as well as grasstops outreach.

Responsibilities may include, but will not be limited to:

• Campaign strategy and outreach for campaigns to build more and better biking, walking and traffic calming infrastructure and policy throughout the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County’s urban core;
• Grassroots outreach that may include on-street organizing, Action Alerts, creation of compelling presentations, talking points, and visual tools, etc;
• Co-developing, training, empowering and supporting neighborhood leaders, members and bike/ped advisory groups in campaigns and elevating their voices to decision-makers;
• Working with City of Pittsburgh agencies and elected officials to advance campaigns;
• Creating new relationships and deepening existing relationships with community partners;
• Regular communications both in person and in writing, which will include engaging and communicating with BikePGH members, and the media when necessary, about our work at all steps in the campaign process;
• Representing the organization at public meetings and with public officials, planners, etc;
• Hiring and managing interns;
• All BikePGH staff are expected to help with general duties related to the smooth running of our team; and
• All BikePGH staff are expected to help with our seasonal events, like OpenStreetsPGH, PedalPGH, etc.

Qualifications:

• A deep commitment to Bike Pittsburgh’s mission;
• Two years of experience as an organizer;
• Strong interpersonal and relational skills, especially listening skills;
• Looks for intersectionality in divergent goals and priorities;
• An ability to take initiative and lead advocacy efforts within the organization;
• A demonstrated track record of successful project planning, project management, base-building, strategy implementation, and ultimately moving people to action
• Persistence;
• An ability to work individually and as part of a team;
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a wide variety of audiences;
• A strong record of online organizing;
• Strong problem solving skills;
• Basics in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Google Drive equivalent;
• The desire and ability to implement systems that will allow your work to scale quickly and significantly to maximize your impact.

What will a typical day look like?

A typical day will consist of working, along with 8-12 other people in the “open office,” business casual environment of our Lawrenceville headquarters. The day will consist of working very independently in the writing, planning, and documenting of your organizing efforts. This will include coordinating with staff on these written materials, talking points, presentations, events, and strategies. There will also be extensive outreach to community partners, which will include numerous phone calls, meetings (many off-site), and email.

How to Apply

Write a compelling cover letter and submit it along with a resume. Be sure to mention where you saw the opening advertised.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis through Friday March 16, 2018 and considered until the position is filled. The ideal candidate would start employment in early to mid April 2018.

By e-mail: Please send email with cover letter and resume to jobs@bikepgh.org with “Community Organizer” in the subject line.

By mail: Please enclose your resume and cover letter in a sealed envelope and mail to:

Eric Boerer, Advocacy Director
Bike Pittsburgh
188 43rd Street, #1
Pittsburgh, PA 15201

You are also welcome to drop off an application in-person during regular weekday office hours (9am – 5pm Monday through Friday)