Program and Data Director (2 Positions: WI & PA)

Position Summary

Organization Overview

America Votes (AV) works with over 400 state and national partner organizations to advance progressive policies, win elections, and protect every American’s right to vote.

Since 2003, America Votes has been the common link between many of the largest and most influential issue and membership organizations in the country, serving as the coordination hub of the progressive community. America Votes’ work has brought together a wide range of causes and built a unified coalition that has transformed how the progressive community works. Together, they have engaged communities across the country to act on critical issues – from fighting for working families, to defending reproductive freedom, to protecting the environment, and more – and mobilized millions of voters to turn out on Election Day.

America Votes works year-round nationally and in more than 20 states, acting as permanent campaign infrastructure to continually advance progressive causes and win elections. America Votes provides a range of services to partners, including strategic planning, advocacy and electoral campaign coordination, data tools and targeting services, and on-the-ground leadership in states.

America Votes also works to improve election systems and fight back against efforts to suppress voters, taking the lead throughout their state network to coordinate and execute advocacy campaigns with allies to reform elections and modernize the voting process.

Racial Equity Statement

As a leader of collaborative efforts to mobilize voters, protect voting rights, and win elections, America Votes is committed to advancing racial equity within our organization and across our coalition. We acknowledge the systematic racism that permeates all facets of our society, beginning with the foundational right to vote. America Votes is also engaging with an understanding of the ways gender, sexuality and other forms of oppression intersect with race and how those relationships impact inequities faced by our staff, our partners, and the communities that we engage in our work. America Votes strives to model our commitment to racial equity through our internal and external operations, programs, and partnerships. We acknowledge the inequitable structures that continue to exist and are moving forward with a sustained commitment in time, resources and people to challenge structural racism and work towards creating a reflective organization and democracy.

 

Position Description

America Votes is excited to grow our teams by adding a well-organized self-starter for a full-time position as Program and Data Director. Positions available in each Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to join our core staff teams. The Program and Data Director plays a key role in the supporting campaign strategy and direct voter contact programs for the progressive movement. America Votes offers its diverse set of progressive partners a range of voter file, data, and targeting services, leveraging these tools to develop, align, and coordinate our partners around a shared strategy. We seek a service oriented individual with a combination of technical, programmatic, and political skills for this work. This position is ideal for someone who is ready to grow into a campaign leadership role and is eager to advance their campaign strategy skills and has a passion for helping others do their best work.

Location

The Program and Data Director positions are based in the state where they are assigned and will require travel around the state. The cities below are the preferred but not the required location. Other localities in the state are negotiable.

Philadelphia, PA

Madison, WI

Responsibilities

• • Project Management: Support the state director in implementing America Votes’ organizational goals, including REI goals. Participate in team creation of work plans and team benchmarks for success. Manage special projects to deliver on team goals. Will have own portfolio of projects they are responsible for managing to completion.
  • Campaign Strategy and Technical Assistance: Support coalition partners through the development of campaign plans (electoral, voting rights and issue campaigns). This may include providing technical, data, and organizing assistance for individual partner organizations or groups of partners. Includes supporting the development of the statewide campaign plan and strategy, responding to programmatic requests, and supporting the implementation of winning strategies.
  • Partner Capacity Building: Develop or co-develop capacity-building opportunities for partners and work with the state team to assess program gaps and overlaps to maximize program impact for both issue and electoral efforts. Work with the state data director to support data needs of partner programs. Portfolio may include some grant management.
  • Direct Voter Contact Leadership: Lead coalition campaign work on field tactics implementation (like canvassing), including supporting the integration of best practices as well as managing universe coverage. Facilitate creative solutions to challenges related to electoral and issue campaigns. Support electoral and advocacy program implementation across partner organizations including script development and program timing and support some partners in using VAN (Voter Activation Network) and data tools provided through America Votes. This work includes planning, implementation and post-program assessment and may include developing systems or updating existing systems to manage the information.
  • Program Implementation Management: Work with the state Program Director to lead meetings of coalition partners, which may include work groups on election-related topics such as tactics (canvass, campus organizing, etc), down ballot (legislative, school board, etc) races, or special projects. Support events of America Votes partners and allies including coalition meetings and training on election and direct voter contact topics, basic training on direct voter contact tools. Support program implementation through the voter file and other tools including basic VAN administration and support in using tools like Scale to Win.

 

• Voter File Management and Maintenance Support: Work with the Data Director to manage voter file access for AV partner organizations and their consultants. This includes administration and security, training end-users, and providing technical assistance as needed. Work with staff, partners, vendors, consultants, and others for the acquisition, enhancement, manipulation, and management of voter and member data.

• Management of Data Tools: Work with the state team on partner and organizational VAN and campaign data trainings. This includes identifying the various training needs, creating the necessary training materials, and leading the presentations. Provide support, including training and troubleshooting, for the implementation of various campaign tools.

 

• Other responsibilities as assigned may be required from time to time.

Qualifications

Required

• At least two cycles of experience (at least 4 years) with statewide programmatic and/or data responsibilities. This includes experience with planning, program implementation, and analysis, especially related to direct voter contact and canvass programs. .
• Cultural competency, including the ability to communicate respectfully across lines of difference and a demonstrated understanding of how bias impacts the ability of different communities to vote and how racial disparity presents in data

• Strong sense of ownership and resilience with respect to planning ahead, finding alternative paths when needed, and bouncing back from setbacks and rejections.

• Candidates must have an understanding of common direct voter contact programs and experience using data to inform advocacy and electoral plans, including previous experience in packaging progress to goal information and making recommendations on strategy. Strong VAN or other database skills are required with at least one cycle of experience administering voter contact tools. Standout candidates will have experience with large scale canvass operations.
• Must be comfortable and able to present data in understandable ways, including visualizations, historical context, and more. Candidates must have a willingness and aptitude to seek out and learn new technical skills.
• The ideal candidate will have a demonstrated history of persistence and resourcefulness in developing campaign strategies as well as solving technical problems. Candidates should have a spirit of service and curiosity, along with a diplomatic approach to problem-solving.
• Demonstrated ability to manage work in a high stress, fast paced environment. This includes demonstrating calm & clarity, balancing and re-balancing priorities, advancing program with required urgency, working collaboratively on a team, and building and maintaining trust with a diverse set of stakeholders. Ability to manage several tasks/projects concurrently and prioritize work effectively by meeting team goals.
• Excellent communication (oral and written), organizational, and time management skills, with attention to detail. Comfortable working with a diverse set of stakeholders in one-on-one meetings and group settings. Must be comfortable meeting in person. Ideal candidates will have previous work experience in a coalition setting with a demonstrated ability to move people to action and hold them accountable with and without formal authority.
• Stand out candidates will have a desire and willingness to learn SQL including a comfort level with SELECT, WHERE, GROUPBY. Advanced Google Sheets or Excel skills required including familiarity with common functions (VLOOKUP, SUMIF, INDEX(MATCH)), pivot tables, and charts.
• Must be a self-starter willing to work long irregular campaign-style hours and to travel as needed, especially during campaign season. Meeting in person one-on-one, in small groups, and in large coalition meeting settings.

Preferred

• Standout candidates will have knowledge of and experience with the state political landscape and/or independent expenditure campaigns.
• Experience preferred with at least one of the following: Mapping tools (QGIS, Maptitute, etc), visualization tools (Tableau, Periscope, Google Data Studio, etc), or analysis tools (R, Python).
• Experience conducting small group trainings or developing training materials for end users and high-level staff.
• Experience with direct voter contact tools like Scale to Win.
• Experience with digital campaigns, mail programs, and Vote by Mail programs.

Compensation

The minimum starting salary for this position is $73,000 with a potential signing and election year bonus, based on performance and the state’s election landscape.

America Votes offers a competitive benefits package covering 100% of employee medical, dental, & vision insurance premiums, life insurance, long term disability coverage, a monthly cell phone stipend, personal professional development funds, parental leave, and 401 (K) after four months of continuous service with the organization.

America Votes provides a generous paid time off policy including paid vacation; paid sick leave and personal days; at least 10 Federal paid holidays including Juneteenth; and paid organizational time off from at least December 25 to January 1. The position is represented by the America Votes Workers Union.

 

To Apply

Please submit a copy of your resume, a cover letter, and three references to the application form.

 

If you experience any technical difficulties with our application form, please email . Please note that only applications received through the application form will be considered; please do not email us your application materials.

America Votes is an equal opportunity employer committed to a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace. America Votes does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, veteran status or any other protected category under local, state or federal law.