The National Young Farmers Coalition The National Young Farmers Coalition (Young Farmers) represents, mobilizes, and engages young farmers to ensure their success. Since our founding in 2010, we have grown our grassroots network to over 200,000 individuals and partner organizations. We give young farmers tools to become leaders in their communities, building an effective political voice at the local, state, and national level. Together, we tackle the most critical structural and economic barriers that prevent motivated young people from starting and growing successful farm businesses—including access to affordable farmland, student debt, climate change, healthcare, racial inequities, and more. We have won historic investments in beginning farmer training, outreach to farmers of color, and farmland conservation. Our advocacy for a USDA Farm Service Agency microloan resulted in a loan program in every county that has served more than 30,000 farmers.
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Disclaimer: Part time and full time positions require legal authorization to work in the United States.
You will receive an email confirmation when your application has been submitted and no further action is needed. The team will reach out to you directly if your application is selected to move forward in the process. Email jobs@youngfarmers.org with any questions. This application will close on Monday, March 25, 2024.
Young Farmers seeks a Grassroots Coordinator to support our federal advocacy organizing efforts on the National Organizing Team. You will help steward our grassroots base of farmers, ranchers, and land stewards to engage in nationwide projects around federal policy change and advocacy opportunities by facilitating relationships between farmers and their members of Congress. Additionally, you will collaborate with the fellowship staff to support deep skill building educational opportunities for farmer leaders in our national network through our Fellowship and fellow alumni network opportunities. Finally, you will support the implementation and continuous improvement of our grassroots data management systems to improve tracking of equitable outcomes for our grassroots base to engage in the Coalition’s organizing and advocacy opportunities in collaboration with the Farmer Leadership and Operations teams.
In alignment with our commitment to racial equity, the right candidate for this role will be excited at the challenge of implementing equitable pathways for farmer engagement in Coalition campaigns and investing in the political leadership skill building of a nationwide grassroots base. The Grassroots Coordinator position is a full-time, remote position.
Title: Grassroots Coordinator
Reports to: Grassroots Leadership and Advocacy Associate Director
Status: Full Time; Exempt
Location: Remote, U.S. Based Home Office – Applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S.
Start date: Late April or Early May 2024
Responsibilities
Federal Advocacy and National Organizing (45%)
• Support the implementation and efficient team use of at-large and ad hoc national organizing processes to increase equitable pathways for farmer leadership, including providing regular training and updates to our find a farmer process, organizing cross-team asana advocacy projects, and supporting field, organizing and policy team members in implementing updates to any CRM organizing need adjustments through trainings
• Serve as point person for ad hoc grassroots engagement opportunities for our national network of farmers and ranchers to engage with federal policy advocacy opportunities in areas where we do not have field organizers
• For areas without field organizers, serve as an at-large organizer to connect farmer advocates with and prepare them for federal advocacy opportunities identified by the organizing team. For example: Farm Bill hearings, fly-ins, August and April in district meetings, and press connections.
• Engage former Young Farmer Grant Program recipients and applicants in advocacy, organizing, Coalition membership, and other base-building opportunities.
• In collaboration with the Information Systems Associate Director, ensure data management for grassroots engagement is aligned with CRM usage across organizing teams
Fellowship Support (33%)
Root and Bloom fellowship support (25%)
• Support logistical and administrative needs for the Root and Bloom Fellowship,
including but not limited to fellow communications, language justice
coordination, data management, payments, event logistics as needed, and
scheduling of fellowship activities.
Fellow Alumni Network Engagement Project (10%)
• Host continuing education and connection opportunities for alumni of all Young
Farmers fellowships to build a sustainable grassroots network of former fellows
Land Advocacy Fellowship Closure (5%)
• Support the logistical closure of finance and evaluation tasks for the end of the
Land Advocacy Fellowship
Ad Hoc Support for National Organizing (10%)
• Maintains readiness to jump in on national and field organizing projects that are
bottlenecked to alleviate capacity issues.
Team Operations Liaison - 2% (4-6 hours per month)
• Ensure appropriate use of all staff software on the team
• Stay updated on upcoming software implementation or trainings for your team
• Submit ops request form for any new software or change in software usage by your team
• Report back to the Operations Team about team uptake/utilization of software or new software processes
• Serve as the point of contact with tech contractors when your team needs support on something specific
• Ensure the members of your team attend training sessions with the Operations Team
• Participate in quarterly Operations Liaisons meetings as a representative for the team
• Escalate concerns about inefficient or unfamiliar processes
• Report back to your team about upcoming operations processes
• Submit and manage the status of operations support requests on behalf of your team
General Staff Responsibilities (10%)
• Serve as a contributing team member who willingly supports organizational efforts in alignment with the strategic plan and models the organizational values.
• All staff admin: individually complete time cards and expense reports on time, attend weekly staff calls, supervisory meetings, team meetings, staff retreats, and other staff social spaces, and participate in providing feedback and implementation of annual processes.
Qualifications
This could be the right position for you, if you:
• Are committed to social justice and are eager to apply your racial equity analysis and intersectional approach to supporting impactful engagement opportunities for a nationwide network of young and BIPOC farmers, ranchers, and land stewards to be involved in structural change campaigns
• Are passionate about building political leadership skills for a grassroots base of farmers, ranchers, and land stewards to be leaders in the federal policy that affects their day to day lives
• Have a strong belief in long term structural change through policy advocacy to build a more equitable future for agriculture in the United States
• Have a demonstrated commitment to elevating the personal experiences and stories of a grassroots base to those with power to make change
• Have strong organizational and communication skills that support you to execute projects across teams effectively and collaboratively
• Are highly organized and can balance fast-paced task based work with the slower and critical work of relationship building within a grassroots base
• Are comfortable learning and following detailed protocols such as invoicing procedures and data uploads
• Are comfortable with CRM softwares such as Salesforce and Quorum
• Are comfortable using softwares, such as Asana and slack, to support project management and cross team communication
The ideal candidate may also have:
• Experience working in a fully remote environment.
• Experience working at nonprofit organizations.
• Experience with policy advocacy at the state or federal level.
• Experience with organizing a grassroots base to take action for a campaign
• Experience in adult education and workshop facilitation.
• Experience working on a farm or ranch and/or rooted in the agricultural community.
Schedule and Compensation
• Regular full-time exempt employees work 40 hours per week including a one (1) hour paid lunch break each day.
• The current salary for this role is $57,680, in accordance with our 2024 Salary Guidelines.
• Young Farmers offers a competitive benefits package, health, vision and dental insurance, generous paid time off, paid sick days, personal days, paid family leave, and retirement matching.