[Corporations] Job with Progressive Dane in Madison, Wisconsin

Wed Aug 2 19:00:42 CDT 2006

ATTN - Looking for an organizing job in Madison, Wisconsin?  This one might be for you!

 http://www.ProDane.org

 * * * *

The position is about 25 hours/week, $10.25 - $12.00 per hour, with paid
sick leave and a possible health insurance package. The deadline for
applications is Tuesday, August 15 at noon. Interested parties should send
cover letters and resumes to:

Progressive Dane
P.O. Box 1222
Madison, WI 53701

or

E-mail applications materials (as Word Document attachments) to:
office at prodane.org

*Progressive Dane Organizer Job Description
*

  June 2006

The organizer is Progressive Dane’s only paid staff. The position 
focuses on recruiting new members, retaining current members and getting 
them involved in the work of the organization, and office management. 
Attendance at various meetings is required.

To recruit and retain members, the staff person must have a passionate 
belief in progressive third-party politics; share the values that 
underlie Progressive Dane’s work; have the skills to communicate our 
values and work to others; and the ability to persuade them to join the 
party.

The staff person must be able to work on his or her own, be flexible, 
possess and ably use discretion, have good interpersonal skills, be 
creative and have a sense of humor. Basic knowledge of word processing, 
database and email programs is required, and some knowledge of website 
maintenance and graphic design is preferred.

The position is budgeted for 25 hours per week. Additional hours are 
possible in the future if the staff person is successful in recruiting 
more members for the organization. Evening and weekend work is 
occasionally required.

The staff person is supervised by the Co-Chairs of the Party and other 
interested Steering Committee members who join the Personnel Committee. 
The Personnel Committee meets bi-weekly with the staff person.

The staff person does not work on any electoral campaigns. (We do this 
to avoid cumbersome campaign reporting requirements and because we have 
plenty of volunteers for this kind of work.) Any electoral activities in 
which the staff person participates must be done on his or her own time 
and are strictly voluntary.

Except as directed by the Personnel Committee, the staff person also 
does not participate in the work of Progressive Dane committees, with 
the exception of the Organizing Committee. The staff person may be an 
active member of any committee she or he wishes, but this activity is 
strictly voluntary.

The position pays $10.25 to $12 per hour, depending on experience. With 
only one staff person, Progressive Dane cannot offer group health 
insurance. However, the staff person may be able to negotiate some kind 
of benefits package with the Personnel Committee. The staff person works 
out details for vacation and sick days with the Personnel Committee. The 
staff person does not work more than 25 hours per week – this really is 
a part-time job and extra work is not expected.

The duties of the staff person are:

*/New Member Recruitment/Retention (55% of time)/*

The primary task of the staff person is to bring new members into 
Progressive Dane. The staff person should have the ability to:

§ identify new sources of members;

§ design and implement strategies for contacting potential members; and

§ persuade potential members to actually join.

In the past, Progressive Dane has had great success in recruiting new 
members through various techniques, including mass mailings, house 
parties, door-to-door canvassing and speaking to sympathetic groups. 
However, the staff person has great discretion in how to pursue new 
members. The staff person will be required to develop a one-year work 
plan that will provide the context in which the staff person and 
Personnel Committee will evaluate the weekly work of the staff person.

In addition, the staff person is responsible for getting current members 
to renew their annual memberships and for upgrading annual members to 
monthly sustainers. This is currently done on a quarterly basis and 
involves a mailing to members followed by reminder phone calls. This 
requires putting together a mailing and several phone banks. The staff 
person does not do all of this work, but is responsible for recruiting 
and supervising volunteers to do these tasks.

*/ /*

*/Coordinating Volunteers (15% of time)/*

The staff person is also responsible for organizing our monthly 
volunteer night and periodic membership-related phone banks. At the 
monthly volunteer night, volunteers assemble the mailing of our 
newsletter and do other light work. (The staff person is not responsible 
for the newsletter, but is responsible for getting volunteers for this 
event.) The staff person must identify tasks suitable for volunteers of 
varying skill levels and supervise the work of those volunteers.

Progressive Dane also has volunteers who commit to working substantial, 
regular hours of work. Examples are someone that maintains our database 
or interns from the University or from MATC. The staff person is 
responsible for identifying tasks suitable for these volunteers and for 
supervising their work.

*/Office Management (20% of time)/*

The staff person is the first person to read our mail and email and to 
answer the phone. The staff person does not need to respond to all of 
this material, and indeed should not. But the staff person must be able 
to decide who should respond and get the material to the appropriate person.

The staff person is responsible for maintaining our database and is the 
keeper of a Progressive Dane mailing list.

In general, the staff person should not do those tasks that volunteers 
are able to do. The staff person may be under some pressure to undertake 
work on behalf of Progressive Dane committees and may be distracted by 
the minutia of office management. The staff person must have the ability 
to say no to any tasks that are not approved by the Personnel Committee 
and to forward to others those office management tasks that fall outside 
the staff person’s duties. The staff person should have a greater focus 
on recruiting and retaining members, and less focus on office management.

*/Meetings (10% of time)/*

The staff person must attend certain meetings. Attendance at these 
meetings is considered part of the job and is paid. Attendance at all 
other meetings is strictly voluntary (and therefore unpaid) unless 
approved by the supervisory committee. The meetings the staff person 
must attend are:

§ Personnel Committee (bi-weekly on weeks when there are not Steering 
Committee or General Membership Meetings);

§ Steering Committee (second Wednesday of each month in the evening); and

§ General Membership Meetings (fourth Wednesday of each month in the 
evening)

Organizing Committee (first Monday of each month in the evening)

-- 

Ben Manski

Co-Secretary, Four Lakes Green Party of Dane County
http://www.FourLakesGreenParty.org

"We, the generation that faces the next century, can add the solemn injunction 'If we don't do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable'."  ~ Petra Kelly