Organizing Director

TENANT EDUCATION NETWORK

Organizing Director

Tenant Education Network (TEN) is a 501c3 founded in 2020 that organizes tenants to win contracts with their landlords guaranteeing repairs, tenant benefits, and ongoing funding for their tenant union. We use a unique strategy that combines traditional labor organizing approaches with tactics specific to laws and bureaucracy of federally subsidized housing. 

Salary Range: $70,000-80,000 depending on experience and demonstrated skill

Benefits: Healthcare, Dental, Life Insurance; generous PTO and sick time policy including office closures for holidays

How to Apply: Send resume and cover letter to admin@tenanteducationnetwork.org

TEN is seeking a disciplined, hard-working, communicative and detail oriented Organizing Director who shares our vision for a national, democratic tenant union representing thousands of members. They must be open to the uncertainty and unpredictability of a startup organization and able to take initiative to move our mission forward. They must bring a willingness to learn and execute our organizing model. They must be a teamplayer and bring creativity to be able to adjust our model to new circumstances as needed.

The Organizing Director will be responsible for planning and running organizing drives. In a given week, this might include doing the following tasks or training staff on how to do them:

• Identifying tenant leaders
• Canvassing, House visits and 1-1s
• Creating, coaching, and supporting an organizing committee 
• Collecting documentation of unit issues, responding to retaliation, and planning direct actions

To effectively complete these tasks, this director will:

• Train and supervise frontline staff organizers and tenant leaders
• Learn applicable tenants law and how to apply them
• Learn which city, state, and federal agencies are relevant to their campaign, and how to get them to act in support of tenants

Requirements

• Demonstrated history of: 
• building, training, and sustaining winning organizing committees
• self-sufficiently owning, designing, and executing organizing campaigns from start to finish 
• Training, developing, and holding new new organizers accountable 
• Minimum of 3 years of organizing experience doing some form of structure based organizing; union organizing is a good fit but not required
• Experience in writing, using, and training on organizing “raps” or scripts 
• Willingness to travel throughout Illinois on a monthly basis
• Willingness to work non traditional hours including nights and weekends, a total 40 hours/week 
• Willingness to canvass in buildings and talk to tenants on a regular basis
• Must be honest with tenants, co-workers, donors etc.
• Fluency in Spanish is a plus
• Car & Valid Driver’s License 
• Must live in Illinois
• Must have at least 2 years of experience managing direct reports

Requirements specific to our tenant organizing model

• Excellent data management and collection skills. Must be detail oriented. For example, this includes taking photos and videos in buildings and uploading them to an online database, appropriately titling, filing and organizing them
• Experience with excel spreadsheets, google drive, and other spreadsheet and data management tools. This is how we document issues and organize our documentation
• Comfortable using a smartphone to collect photos and videos and transferring them to an online database

Requirements specific to tenant organizing in general

• Excellent and empathetic listening skills
• Non-judgemental approach to tenants’ issues and circumstances
• Pro-tenant disposition in any tenant landlord dispute 
• Responding in a timely fashion to tenants and staff who reach out about questions and issues 
• Following through on commitments made to staff and tenants

Tenant Education Network is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender expression, medical condition, or any other basis prohibited by federal, state, or local law. We are committed to building a diverse and passionate team, and especially encourage women, people of color, LGBTQ folks, people with disabilities, and other interested people from historically marginalized communities to apply.