Political Advocacy Partner

What You’ll Do  

As Partner, serving as an integral early member of the Public School Allies team (PSA), you will play an essential role in developing city and state investment strategy, coaching and partnering with local leaders in identified urban public school regions to build the political conditions to advance high quality education options for all students. A crucial component to the work in this role will be an unwavering commitment to building relationships with internal and external stakeholders aligned with our vision, and committed to our mission. A combination of ambition, experience, navigation, and organization coupled with a proven track record of problem-solving, strategic planning, effective execution, and political acumen in the face of high-stakes initiatives in political and educational environments will be essential.

As a Partner, you will focus on the following bodies of work:

1. Building In-Depth Knowledge for Focus Regions

1. • Developing a comprehensive understanding of the local political arenas in the cities and states you support
   • Creating connections with local leaders in an effort to establish potential partnerships
   • Spending time in the work with grantees and partners to align with practitioner perspectives

1. Developing Investment Strategy
   • Evaluating city and state political ecosystems with the goal of investing for long-term local success
   • Developing an investment strategy and package for review by the partner team and board
   • Coordinating investment approach with local partners in a manner sensitive to their local dynamics

1. Supporting Aligned Local Organizations

1. • Supporting goal-setting and progress-to-goal processes in partnership with local grantee partners

1. • Being on the ground and in the work with grantees in local policy and advocacy contexts
   • Serving as an active member on boards of local partner non-profit organizations when appropriate

1. Cultivating Vision

1. • Inspiring possibilities for city and state advocacy leaders regarding opportunities for students
   • Establishing frameworks to assist local leaders to engage stakeholders in community engagement
   • Communicating mission and vision of PSA and The City Fund to local organizations and opinion leaders

1. Coaching and Advising

1. • Providing city and state advocacy leaders with ongoing support to effect thoughtful policy and political change
   • Guiding grantees and partners through political challenges through intentional advocacy
   • Creating sustainable systems and structures to provide abundant support to grantees in the field

1. Organizing Connections

1. • Utilizing political capital to drive collaborative advocacy in support of grantees and partners
   • Implementing a defined outreach and inclusion structure to engage impacted stakeholders
   • Building on political and electoral experience to create systems to advance a local policy platform

Change Leadership

• You have the ability to analyze conditions for change by considering geographical markets and education trends; existing and potential state and local advocates; and, strengths and challenges in each urban area PSA serves. You are confident in developing and communicating goals in support of PSA’s vision and mission. You apply your professional experience and knowledge to support the strategic implementation of our work.
• Your propensity to lead innovative practice and organizational design efforts is evident in everything you do. You thrive on leading organizational effectiveness; initiating, sponsoring, and implementing organizational change; and supporting those around you to support and advocate for PSA’s vision and mission.

Political Skills and Experience

• As a team member, you constantly demonstrate the ability and desire to work cooperatively with others on a team; as a team leader, you have the experience, finesse, awareness, and ability to bring the right people together both within the PSA organization and externally to inspire and empower partners to collaborate in service to our students, families, communities, and stakeholders.
• You have an uncanny knack for noticing, interpreting, and anticipating others’ concerns and needs, and a thoughtful way of communicating this awareness empathetically to others. You see the best in people and compel them to excel in unique and impactful ways.   You recognize the intensity and reality of political situations and know how to respond to them thoughtfully and purposefully with respect to those involved.
• You recognize and embrace that this is a political position, and have the expertise and experience to lead adaptively and manage technically in complex political contexts in service to our goals of creating sustainable capacity in others to navigate political circumstances and arrive at identified outcomes.
• You possess skill and experience in various aspects of political advocacy work, including candidate or issue campaigning, government affairs, grassroots and grasstops coalition building, and general ability to deploy a variety of tactics to advance an agenda.

Civic Coalition Building

• You bring the capacity to develop, maintain, and strengthen partnerships with others inside or outside the organization who can provide information, assistance, and support. Additionally, you are able to gather collaborative support from stakeholders for ideas, proposals, projects, and solutions in support of PSA’s mission and vision.
• In the process of building relationships, you are able to identify the information needed to clarify situations, seek information from appropriate sources, and use skillful inquiry to determine the best next steps. Your leadership strength manifests itself in bringing people together to coalesce around a common vision for students.

Extraordinary Communication

• Connecting purposefully, intentionally, and masterfully with others in various ways is clearly a strength in your repertoire as a political advocate and education leader. You express yourself with clarity, grace, style, and awareness in conversations and interactions with others. You are an expert in planning and delivering communication that makes an impact. You inspire others to think, and empower them to act.
• Your stakeholder-focused communication represents PSA as an organization that exists to create opportunities and define possibilities for students in urban settings. You are impressively prepared for engagements with stakeholders, and you are continually following up with others to ensure that your agreements and commitments have been fulfilled with respect to communication. You have an insatiable drive to create life-changing opportunities for children, and are not afraid to say so. Your clarity of vision is compelling and inspiring to those you support, and those you lead.

Fearless Resilience

• You are not shy when it comes to standing up for students in the face of political tension, conflict, or controversy. Your experience has imbued in you the capacity and willingness to speak your philosophical truth and share your organizational beliefs without hesitation. Your commitment to PSA’s vision and mission could not be clearer in your interactions in the field.
• When things get tense politically, you are at your best. You are so clear in your convictions regarding the guarantee to each and every student in the urban communities you support of access to world class education that you can stand up to and with the best to represent the shared vision of PSA in any context.

What You’ll Need

• 10+ years of experience in education and political advocacy at various levels focused on multiple disciplines
• Understanding of political climate and corresponding response strategies in urban public school contexts
• Commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion values and belief that this is the sine qua non of PSA’s  work
• Discipline and drive to work individually, and to succeed collaboratively with PSA team and partners
• Ability to navigate uncertainty and ambiguity, and to prioritize work efforts to achieve overall strategy
• Willingness to travel to supported cities each month to be on-the-ground support for grantees and partners
• Determination to be the face of critical work in the creation of a powerful organization from the ground up

The Application Process

Qualified candidates for the role of Political Advocacy Partner must submit a letter of interest tailored to this opportunity and a resume that clearly demonstrates the aforementioned qualifications to Kathleen@AlmaAdvisoryGroup.com . Candidates invited to move forward in the interview process can look forward to an engaging, inspiring, and inclusive experience that illuminates the potential match between the candidate and the expertise, commitment, and skills that the Partner role will require.