The Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership
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Position description
The mission of the Chisholm Legacy Project is rooted in the Just Transition Framework. The project serves as a vehicle to connect Black communities on the frontlines of climate justice with resources to traverse the path from vision to strategy to action plan to implementation to transformation. In support of frontline leadership, the project seeks to link movements and mainstream entities with the tools necessary to advance systems change centered in equity and justice. With Black women on the frontlines of advancing systems change, this project ensures that these leaders have the support they need as they transform society from extractivism to a living economy that cares for sacred relationships between people and with Mother Earth, through regenerative, cooperative, democratic systems.
SUMMARY OF THE POSITION:
The organization seeks a Senior Managing Director of Organizing with a commitment to supporting Black Liberation and a willingness to be on a learning journey, joining an institution that is grounded in Black Liberation, Climate Justice, and Just Transition. This position serves as a key member of the Executive Leadership Team (ELT), providing strategic oversight and leadership to ensure alignment between programs, organizing, and strategy within The Chisholm Legacy Project (TCLP). The role is responsible for supervising senior programmatic leaders, fostering a culture centered on Black Liberation and Just Transition, and ensuring that TCLP’s work is mission-driven and community-centered.
Additionally, the Senior Managing Director of Organizing acts as a connector and facilitator, ensuring effective collaboration across departments, guiding organizing, and maintaining accountability for outcomes and impact. The SMDO also plays a critical role in assessing partnerships, representing TCLP in national spaces, and advancing key strategic initiatives to support just transition, including climate justice, gender justice, and Black liberation.
This position will be responsible for ensuring strategic alignment and consistent communication with the programs team in partnership with the Senior Managing Director of Programs.
ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
Senior Leadership & Organizational Strategy
- Serve on the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) contributing to mission, vision, strategy, and work plan development.
- Collaborate with ELT to nurture an organizational culture centering Black Liberation and Just Transition.
- Ensure organizational practices reflect connection, fulfillment, care, support, and purpose-driven accountability.
- Provide co-leadership in fostering a culture that aligns with TCLP’s values.
Organizing Strategy, Infrastructure, and Movement Alignment
- Provide executive leadership for the organization’s organizing function, ensuring that organizing strategy and structure advance TCLP’s broader mission, strategy, and movement-building goals.
- Set the strategic direction for organizing approaches across regions, ensuring alignment with a community-centered theory of change and consistency in how outreach, engagement, and strategies are designed and deployed.
- Ensure the development of a cohesive, organization-wide organizing framework that integrates tools and methodologies such as power mapping, narrative strategy, digital engagement, and community visioning.
- Drive the evolution of innovative organizing strategies, and engagement models that strengthen grassroots leadership, deepen community relationships, and contribute to sustained environmental justice outcomes.
- Cultivate and steward a robust ecosystem of partnerships across local, regional, and national stakeholders; including cross-movement, faith-based, and environmental justice organizations to expand collective impact and resource alignment for frontline communities.
- Ensure alignment and integration between organizing and other core functions, including programs, communications, policy, research, and resource development, to support cohesive, constituency-driven strategies.
- Provide strategic oversight of the structures, systems, and resource flows that enable effective organizing, ensuring alignment between priorities, investments, and long-term sustainability.
Team Leadership & Supervision
- Provide supportive supervision to the Managing Director of Just Transition Municipalities Institute, Senior Director of Organizing and Senior Director of Narrative Strategy.
- Ensure all direct reports and their teams have clear work plans and adhere to TCLP’s performance management system.
- Maintain full accountability for departmental impact, balancing trust in team members with active verification.
Just Transition Municipal Strategy and Movement Integration
- Provide executive oversight and strategic direction for TCLP’s Just Transition municipal strategy, ensuring alignment with TCLP’s broader organizing vision, and long-term goals.
- Ensure the design and evolution of a scalable, multi-tiered engagement model that supports municipalities at varying levels of readiness, expanding access to Just Transition frameworks, tools, and pathways for implementation across diverse communities.
- Steward the advancement of a national municipal ecosystem that enables local governments; particularly those serving historically disenfranchised communities; to adopt and implement community-driven Just Transition approaches.
- Ensure the integration of leadership development and wellbeing-centered frameworks within municipal strategies, with a particular emphasis on advancing and sustaining Black femme leadership in local governance.
- Drive the alignment of municipal organizing efforts with broader state, national, and global advocacy strategies, positioning Just Transition municipalities as a catalyst for systems-level policy change and widespread model adoption.
- Ensure that municipal-based strategies are fully integrated into TCLP’s broader organizing infrastructure, including narrative strategy, policy development, research, and cross-movement coalition efforts, to maximize impact and coherence.
Focal Constituency Based Organizing Support
- Afro Descendant Climate Justice Collaborative (GADCJC): Guide the development of cross-border and diaspora-based partnerships that connect U.S. communities with global communities, fostering shared learning, solidarity, and coordinated approaches to Just Transition and Black Liberation.
- Black Base Building: Provide strategic leadership and oversight of TCLP’s engagement with Black-led base-building organizations across national, regional, and local movements, strengthening partnerships, collective capacity, and access to resources that advance Black Liberation and Just Transition. Ensure the team’s partnerships, and capacity-building efforts, including convenings, are aligned with organizational strategy and effectively connect movement organizations to TCLP’s programs, resources, and strategic opportunities.
- Alignment Initiatives: Guide the strategic development of the Alignment Initiatives to advance inclusion, agency, and leadership for historically disenfranchised Black communities within the movements for climate justice and Black Liberation.
Narrative Strategy
- Provide strategic leadership and oversight for narrative strategy work with frontline communities.
- Provide strategic direction and management for leadership development and TCLP’s constituency communications efforts, including spokesperson development, media engagement, popular education and organizing partnerships, and amplification of frontline community voices.
- Oversee the development and execution of key narrative initiatives and platforms, including the Black Climate Justice Toastmasters Initiative, Our Stories, Our Narratives Digital Media and Film Initiative, story library development, and narrative analysis to inform TCLP’s Just Transition communications strategy and messaging platform.
Partnerships & External Representation
- Assess prospective partnerships with a focus on advancing Black Liberation and Just Transition.
- Develop collaborative principles and terms of engagement for external partnerships.
- Serve as a liaison for key national partnerships and represent TCLP in national working groups, boards, councils, strategy groups, and coalitions.
Additional Responsibilities
- Take ownership of all programs, organizing, and strategy activities with a deep understanding of their implementation.
- Perform other duties as needed to support TCLP’s vision, mission, and values.
Responsibilities as a People Manager
Leadership, Development, and Team Engagement
- Provide leadership, guidance, and mentorship to support team growth and performance.
- Foster an inclusive, positive workplace culture and implement strategies to improve employee engagement and satisfaction.
- Conduct regular 1:1 meetings to understand team members’ needs, set clear expectations, and provide constructive feedback.
Talent Management and Workforce Planning
- Oversee recruitment, onboarding, and retention strategies to attract and keep top talent.
- Align team goals and resources with organizational priorities, managing workloads and defining clear roles.
Performance, Compliance, and Problem-Solving
- Conduct performance evaluations and address issues constructively.
- Ensure compliance with company policies and legal requirements while resolving conflicts and concerns effectively.
Strategic Oversight and Change Management
- Lead teams through organizational changes, ensuring smooth transitions and clear communication.
- Utilize data-driven insights to inform decisions and report progress to senior leadership.
Qualifications
The ideal candidate for this position will possess many, if not all, of the following qualifications and competencies:
- Deep commitment to Black Liberation, Gender Justice, Climate Justice, and Just Transition;
- 10+ years senior management experience at a social justice nonprofit organization of a similar size and complexity, with supervisory responsibilities including programmatic, finance, administrative, and operations;
- Experience and appetite for guiding rapid and significant organizational growth, change and transformation, and investment in people and systems aligned with mission and values;
- Proven ability to lead the development of collaborative, cross-functional teams and ability to support and inspire the leadership capacity of team members to innovate and achieve high impact,
- Ability to ensure the team has a deep level of discernment in identifying high impact and strategic action, from the portfolio planning level to the day-to-day decision-making level.
- Strong relationship builder, strengths-based leader, and communicator who values equity and justice, caring and compassion, collaboration, partnership, accountability, and learning;
- Exemplary experience to provide supportive supervision, including identifying learning needs and matching with informational or technical resources, as well as conducting coaching where warranted;
- A passion for and commitment to advocating for the creation of progressive policies and programs as well as for the elimination of policies and practices that lead to racial and ethnic disparities;
- A successful track record in managing multiple projects simultaneously, setting priorities, and keen analytic, organizational, problem-solving, and decision-making skills;
- Proven ability to exercise strong judgment and make informed decisions while independently executing strategic initiatives with minimal supervision.
- An ability to hold a long arc view of transformation while simultaneously holding an agenda consisting of short-term gains that affect change in current material conditions while building toward that long term change.
- Excellent communication and relationship-building skills with an ability to prioritize, negotiate, and collaborate with a variety of internal and external stakeholders and manage difficult situations;
- Exceptional writing skills.
POSITION TERMS
- This position is exempt and expected to work a 40-hour work week
- This position will receive a 6 months performance review
- Ability to travel upon request; in addition to traveling to in-person meetings for the organization including but not limited to 2 to 3 staff retreats a year.
Application instructions
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