Wisconsin Conservation Voters is excited to add a passionate, energetic, and effective Organizing Program Director to our team. This person will lead our statewide team of community organizers who engage WCV members and Wisconsin voters to elect conservation and democracy champions to elected office and hold them accountable to protecting Wisconsin’s air, land, water, and democracy, and fighting for climate justice. This is a full-time position and can be based anywhere in Wisconsin.
Our work has never been more urgent, with climate change impacting communities across the state, our democracy in peril, and thousands of Wisconsinites living without safe drinking water in their homes. To take on this challenge, we are looking for somebody who is motivated to lead a team to engage with voters, members, and partners to help build a movement to meet this moment.
In order to support our team to do their best work, we offer a strong benefits package that includes a 36 hour work week, generous paid time off, parental leave, paid sabbatical, quality health and dental, 401(k) match, and more - details below. We also utilize a transparent pay structure in order to ensure we are equitable and competitive in our salaries.
Who We Are
Wisconsin Conservation Voters is a network of Wisconsinites building political power for a clean environment, healthy communities, and a thriving democracy. We envision a world powered by clean energy, where our water is safe to drink, our air safe to breathe, our climate safe to live in, and all people thrive in a healthy, resilient community. Wisconsin Conservation Voters continues to grow a just, equitable, and people-powered movement, electing leaders who represent us and passing laws that protect people and the planet for a sustainable future. Learn more about us at conservationvoters.org.
What You’ll Do
This position will lead our team of community-based organizers who work to build deep relationships and run campaigns to win protections for our water and air, fight climate change, and protect our democracy. This role includes working both on public policy campaigns and in elections. This position will lead the organizing program, which includes: managing organizing staff; developing and implementing winning campaigns in consultation with the Campaigns Director and other staff; and community organizing.
Areas of Responsibility:
At its core, this role has these areas of responsibility:
- Management and coaching of up to five organizers, including hiring, onboarding, training, and evaluation. Organizers live and work around the state, so this position requires remote management and regular site visits with regional organizers.
- Management also includes assisting organizers in carrying out WCV’s paid internship program.
- Develop and implement winning field plans for legislative and election campaigns to mobilize volunteers and voters. This includes:
- Working with the Campaigns Director and the organizing team to create and implement collaborative programs.
- Ensuring WCV programmatic pillars are carried out (ex. listening sessions, Conservation Lobby Day, etc.).
- Regularly communicating with the Campaigns Director and government affairs team to ensure a timely transfer of information back and forth between organizers and the Capitol in order to monitor the effectiveness of campaign tactics and to ensure that tactics change when appropriate.
- Ensuring organizing staff have materials and media for campaigns by collaborating with the communications team.
- Developing campaign metrics and ensuring organizers track and report metrics and campaign progress on a regular basis. Assess metrics for effectiveness to make strategic and tactical program shifts.
- Using member and voter databases, as well as project management platforms, to help your team carry out their goals.
- Split time between the 501c3 and 501c4 organizations and have a distinct understanding of legal differences between c3 and c4 programming.
- Work with the Campaigns Director and organizers to recruit community members to run for local office.
- Help develop and foster a supportive, inclusive, and effective organizational culture through seeking feedback and input, leading by example, working across departments, and building strong relationships with teammates.
- Partner with staff and board to make our organizing program anti-racist and build relationships with under-represented individuals and groups.
- Represent WCV in various local, regional, and statewide coalitions.
- Develop and maintain relationships with key individuals and organizations in parts of the state where we do not have existing organizing capacity.
- Assist the development team with fundraising by identifying prospective donors and members in the course of the organizing work, build relationships with those individuals, and, at times, make fundraising asks.
Who You Are:
To be successful in this job, you will be an organizer at heart who seeks to empower, challenge, and support other people to act on their values to protect Wisconsin’s environment and the people who are connected to it.
More specifically, you are or have:
- A confident manager who is comfortable giving feedback and holding your team accountable to reaching goals as well as coaching and teaching.
- Good communication skills in person and in writing. Comfortable speaking to new people in different settings, including to groups, at public events, at people’s doors, over the phone, and in one-on-one meetings. Comfortable developing organizer materials including scripts and presentations.
- Someone who holds high expectations of yourself and others, who leads by example and is willing to hold yourself and others accountable.
- Able to prioritize multiple projects at once and help others to do the same.
- Driven, visionary, and eager to develop and implement new ways of organizing that build long term leaders in local communities.
- Have a personal commitment to anti-racism and achieving racial and social equity within WCV, your community, region, and Wisconsin.
- Detail oriented and thorough in carrying out your work.
- A resilient problem solver who is able to react quickly and thoughtfully to unexpected outcomes, emerging issues, and changing dynamics.
- Collaborative and a team player who steps up to lead and is also willing to step back and support others to lead.
- Able to understand the value of lived experience and are adept at working with people and groups from backgrounds different from your own, such as racial identity, gender identity, age, political ideology, and socio-economic background.
- Enthusiastic about WCV’s mission, committed to racial equity, and share the organization’s values of leadership, action and results, and building power and community with our partners and those most impacted by environmental injustice and voter suppression.
- Five or more years of issue, electoral, or other community organizing with at least two years of staff management and one cycle of electoral organizing preferred. If you have fewer years of experience but a high level of comfort with staff management or community organizing and meet the skills needed, we encourage you to apply.
- Demonstrated awareness of how one’s life experiences influence one’s biases and assumptions. Demonstrated commitment to continual learning. Commitment to equity and inclusion as organizational practice and culture. Understands how environmental and voting rights issues intersect with racism, economic, and social inequality in the U.S. and has a passion for working to dismantle these systems. Read more about our commitment in our Guiding Principles here.
We know there are great candidates who may not have all of the listed experience or check all of the boxes, and we also know you might bring important skills that we haven't considered. If that applies to you, don't hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself.
What You Should Know.
Conditions: Position can be based anywhere in Wisconsin. We have offices in Madison and Milwaukee, and candidates nearby may work from those offices. Candidates must be willing and able to work remotely and in community as well as travel within the state, regularly traveling to work with organizers in their respective communities. A valid driver's license and reliable transportation across the state is required. Able to maintain a flexible schedule (some evenings and weekend hours). Able to do routine office duties such as typing and using a phone.
Status: Full-time, salaried, and classified as exempt.
Salary and benefits: We utilize a transparent and equitable pay structure to determine salaries across the organization. The salary range for this position is $78,986-$93,986 depending on experience. We value employee health and work/life balance and offer the following benefits:
- 36 hour work week
- Generous paid time off including vacation, holidays, and two weeks of communal rest (one summer week and one winter week) totaling 44 days of PTO per year plus 12 sick/personal days per year
- 12 weeks paid parental leave
- Paid medical/emergency leave policy that is straightforward and trust-based
- Paid sabbatical after five years of employment
- Health and dental insurance with a generous employer contribution
- 401(k) retirement plan with WCV matching contribution after one year
- Flexible Spending Account (medical, dependent care, and transit)
- Life insurance and short-term disability insurance
- Phone stipend
- Flexibility in working hours
- Hybrid office/work from home schedule if desired and near a WCV office
- Professional development support
Reports to: Campaigns Director
Please note that as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, Wisconsin Conservation Voters employees are not eligible to participate in the Federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.
To Apply
Please submit your resume, cover letter, and three references by Sunday, January 10th, 2027. This position has a flexible start date in Spring 2027.
