Website East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative
ABOUT OUR COOPERATIVE
The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative is a multi-stakeholder coop that facilitates BIPOC and allied communities to cooperatively organize, finance, purchase, occupy, and steward properties, taking them permanently off the speculative market. We create community controlled assets and empower our communities to cooperatively lead a just transition from an extractive capitalist system into one where communities are ecologically, emotionally, spiritually, culturally, and economically restorative and regenerative.
We are a team of eight full-time and part-time staffers. As a candidate, you will be on a path of collective ownership of our coop, eligible for Staff Ownership after a candidacy period of 12 months and 500 hours. (Review our bylaws to learn what it means to become a Staff Owner.) You will be expected to develop your capacity to operate effectively in a collaborative and non-hierarchical collective focused on progressive social change work. At times this may look like taking direction from other staff or community members, holding yourself accountable for responsibilities, stepping into leadership roles, or sharing leadership with other cooperative members.
PURPOSE OF THE POSITION
The Project Manager position is in partnership with the City of Oakland as part of the California Strategic Growth Council’s Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) Grant. The Project Manager will lead a team with two Community Organizers for an anti-displacement outreach, education, and organizing project focused in East Oakland.
EB PREC is seeking someone committed to East Oakland who can take on the management, administration, and delivery of a complex, four-year project with specific key deliverables, and who is excited to run with the opportunity to organize the community for anti-displacement, far beyond the grant requirements; connect community members at risk of displacement with available housing, funding, and movement building resources; and address the root issues associated with poverty concentration and neighborhood disinvestment. With the support of two Community Organizers and other co-op staff, the Project Manager will lead on designing and implementing the TCC grant outreach, education, and organizing activities to meet and exceed the grant deliverables, to include:
- network-mapping the neighborhoods,
- connecting with key stakeholders and community influencers,
- building relationships with the TCC partners,
- collaborating with TCC Community Engagement lead partner Black Cultural Zone,
- assessing community needs and developing educational materials,
canvassing and tabling in the community, as well as hosting informational “housing cafes” with our legal incubator and partner Sustainable Economies Law Center, and - engaging in digital communications/virtual outreach.
MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES
- Co-develop community outreach, education, and organizing strategies consistent with TCC grant and organizational objectives
- Initiate, schedule, and facilitate ongoing partner, stakeholder, and internal coordination meetings; prepare meeting agendas and notes; delegate and follow up on tasks
- Initiate and maintain day-to-day partner, stakeholder, and internal communications
- Manage TCC project planning, preparation, and completion of project deliverables and activities
- Determine and coordinate staffing needs for each activity/deliverable and be accountable for seeing activities through to completion and delivering a high-quality work product
- Oversee and perform outreach, education, and organizing activities in collaboration with the Community Organizers
- Foster a collaborative, non-hierarchical team and working relationship with the Community Organizers and EB PREC staff collective
- Maintain a record of TCC staff hours and activities and (with Operations Coordinator support) prepare and submit timely, accurate, and thorough invoices to the City, per grant requirements
- Maintain effective team communication about the grant progress, objectives, scope, budget, or schedule
- Understand the terms of the TCC grant contract and ensure that project delivery meets its expectations for deliverables and budget
- Manage all costs to align with the original budget
- Track and discuss any potential deviation from the scope of work; alert the City and proactively obtain signed authorizations for amendments to the scope of work
- Build project staff capacity by coaching, knowledge-sharing, and motivating
- Cooperate! We all carry the load collectively and support the growth of the cooperative. Not every responsibility can be anticipated, and you may be called upon to support others, as you may call on others to support you, to carry our collective work forward. This is an important part of our staff dynamic, and reflects our commitments to solidarity and personal growth.
This position requires a significant number of meetings, currently remote, and coordination with EB PREC staff, TCC partners, and the City of Oakland.
While the TCC grant is the core of the work, we envision that this base-building work in East Oakland will allow us to deepen EB PREC’s connections and channel them towards our community-led property acquisition processes as well as other resources to help fight displacement in the community. Availability allowing, the Project Manager may also be invited into other community organizing work within EB PREC, particularly during the first few months while we are in the midst of an ongoing capital campaign.
DESIRED QUALITIES/EXPERIENCE:
- Must be East Bay resident, preferably East Oakland, with strong ties to the communities in the TCC project area
- Passion to lead and engage in in-person and remote community outreach, education, and organization activities in BIPOC and/or QTPOC communities
- Experience developing innovative and comprehensive community outreach, education, and organizing strategies
- Demonstrated experience with project management and administrative responsibilities including project planning and delivery, strategy development, quality assurance/quality control, client service, and staff mentorship and management
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills (particularly in a primarily remote work environment)
- Experience with remote work, ability to be fully present for remote meetings, and access to a quiet, distraction-free space with stable Internet
- Driver’s license and/or access to reliable transportation
- Excellent ability to negotiate needs of various stakeholders
- Excellent time management, planning, organization, and prioritization skills
- Experience with or capacity to learn software tools and campaign/project/relationship management systems such as Google Suite, Asana, Mailchimp, CRMs, etc.
- Experience with social media outreach strategies
- Self-motivated, flexible, and committed to responding to the needs of the community
- Familiarity with cooperative and social justice organizations, campaigns, or programs
- Strong commitment to anti-racism and anti-oppressive movement building
- Strong commitment to and willingness to engage in political education and anti-oppression workshops as well as internal work to build an internal culture of resilience and transformative justice
- Strong commitment to collective decision-making and working in a staff collective
- Bilingual/biliterate in Spanish/English preferred
HOURS, PAY, AND BENEFITS
This position is full time (30 hrs/wk) at $25-33/hr, depending on experience. EB PREC offers Paid Time Off (PTO) and paid holidays.
This position will be primarily remote while the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing, but is expected to later become largely on-site, at EB PREC’s office in Oakland or at partner offices (attending project meetings), and in the field in the project area in East Oakland. A driver’s license and/or access to reliable transportation is required.
The position is grant-funded for four years. After that term funding for this position is not guaranteed.
Applications for this position will be accepted up to June 14, 2021.
HOW TO APPLY
Please send your resume and cover letter to jobs@ebprec.org. Feel free to address the following questions in your cover letter:
- What excites you most about the cooperative?
- What role have you held in the past that you sense is most similar to this the role described or what life experiences have you had that you sense have prepared you most for this role?
- What challenges would you anticipate, if any, in taking this role?
- Describe one thing you’ve learned about our organization while researching this opportunity.
EB PREC is an equal opportunity employer and encourages diversity in its applicants. All applicants will be considered for employment regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, ancestry, national origin, military or veteran status, or mental or physical disability. BIPOC, queer and trans people, women, and nonbinary and gender non-conforming applicants are strongly encouraged to apply.