Location: Based in Chicago or local collar counties, requires statewide travel

Timeline: Application deadline is December 10. Start date projected for January 2024.

Who We Are and What We Believe:

Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education is a small, grassroots, citywide parent advocacy organization that organizes parents/caregivers around systemic issues in education across the state. As an education justice organization, we believe that public education is a public good and all students deserve a well resourced education. In order to achieve this, we believe in collective movements that center those who have been most impacted by injustice. Education justice is racial justice.

While RYH organizes primarily in Chicago, RYH is the lead co-convener of PEER Illinois, an emerging statewide school funding coalition. PEER Illinois’ mission is to build, activate and organize a network of communities and organizations across Illinois around fully funding education. PEER Illinois’ goal is to inject urgency into the educational resource equity discourse at the state level and build the organizing infrastructure in communities across Illinois so families most impacted organize and hold Illinois decision-makers accountable to their commitment to adequately and equitably fund K12 public education by 2027. PEER Illinois is part of a network of 10 states across the country that are fighting for resource equity.

Job Overview

Raise Your Hand is looking for an experienced, passionate and strategic Coalition Coordinator to lead the school funding coalition. This person should have a background in organizing and coalition management and be willing to travel across the state to build partnerships. They would be responsible for all components of campaign development and coalition work to include growing the coalition, creating coalition systems, structures, and practices, facilitating coalition meetings, developing campaign strategy and executing  tactics set out by the steering committee. They would also manage/comanage a statewide education organizer (yet to be hired).

Who You Are - Qualifications:

Required

• You have a driver’s license and access to a vehicle.
• You have experience managing organizational relationships and leading diverse coalitions. You possess and utilize tools to identify strategic and tactical coalition partners. You are comfortable recruiting organizations and groups to join an education justice coalition.  
• You bring strong organizational, problem solving and analytical skills to the table. You bring a political and racial analysis to support writing and policy research (community/survey reports, briefs, talking points, content for a campaign) with coalition partners.
• You are an experienced organizer with authentic and impactful management experience; you have led campaigns and developed leaders - we are all organizers at RYH.
• You trust in community wisdom, have love for the people we work with, and center those who have been most directly impacted by the issues. You bring a deep understanding of racial justice and the role of white supremacy and politics in education.
• You are flexible and responsive. This job will require travel across the state and to Springfield.
• You are someone who wants ownership of their work. You are self motivated and a team player; able to move quickly. You must have a willingness to experiment, learn and reflect.

Preferred 

• You are a parent, caregiver and/or graduate in public schools.
• You can see growing long term with Raise Your Hand and the PEER Illinois coalition.
• You have quantitative and qualitative data analysis skills.
• You are fluent in Spanish and are willing to translate/interpret as needed.
• You have experience with EveryAction CRM, Canva, Streamyard, Zoom, Phone2Action and other relational organizing tools.

What You Would Do - Responsibilities:

Coalition Management and Growth  

• Facilitate monthly general coalition and steering committee meetings as well as  support the 3 subcommittee monthly meetings. Collaborate with coalition partners to draft agendas ahead of each meeting, and disseminate and organize notes/minutes/important resources/calls-to-action following each meeting.
• Recruit and expand the coalition every month with partners across the state. Onboard new coalition partners, and support current coalition members. Develop and present material to potential coalition partners and engage potential members in coalition activities.
• Identify and develop leaders within PEER Illinois. Identify and create leadership development resources to support leaders across the coalition.
• Retain coalition partners and engage them around both PEER Illinois statewide issues and ways the coalition can support local issues.  
• Create necessary coalition systems, structures and processes to effectively communicate, coordinate and advance campaign work.
• Support coalition communications via the coalition’s website, social media and general advocacy platforms.

Campaign Organizing and Organizer Supervision

• Support the steering committee and execute school funding campaigns 
• Lead coalition partners through planning meetings to develop campaign plans that will include target identification, campaign goals, campaign strategy and specific tactics
• Identify strategic opportunities to leverage power to advance the campaign
• Coordinate the development of the coalition’s legislative agenda and advocacy program (ex., lead legislative advocacy days, direct actions to engage base)
• Collaborate on research and  the development of advocacy materials (ex., fact sheets, digital content creation, scripts, school funding workshops)
• Provide weekly supervision to the statewide education organizer on base building, leadership development and execution of campaign tactics towards coalition goals
• Identify ongoing supports and provide development of the statewide education organizer

Compensation

Salary: $65,000 - $68,000 annually

Benefits include: 85% employee coverage of health/dental, flexible scheduling, 13 paid holidays, 15 vacation days and 12 sick days per year. RYH also offers a Simple IRA plan, with a 3% employer match. Additional benefits include professional development support and resources and technology equipment reimbursement. Please note that we offer a hybrid work arrangement.

Black and Brown Public School parents and graduates are strongly encouraged to apply.

How to Apply:

Please send your resume and cover letter to Natasha Erskine, RYH Executive Director, at  jobs@ilraiseyourhand.org. Please indicate: PEER Coalition Coordinator in the subject line. Application deadline is November 10. Candidates can expect a response within 2 weeks of submission.

Raise Your Hand is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. All qualified persons are encouraged to apply, regardless of race, color, creed, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, age, height, weight, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, HIV status, marital or domestic partner status, or religious affiliation.