Workers Confluence Fund

Co-Executive Director

Based in Minneapolis, MN

 

Overview 
Workers Confluence Fund, a strategy table and resource hub for Minnesota’s worker justice ecosystem, is seeking an experienced changemaker to serve as our new Co-Executive Director. The ideal candidate will be knowledgeable, driven, and passionate about building a more inclusive, more powerful labor movement.  

Workers Confluence was founded in 2021, growing out of the already-existing culture of collaboration between many of Minnesota’s labor unions and community groups, particularly worker centers. We help serve as the connective tissue that fosters powerful organizing partnerships, moves resources to where they’re urgently needed, and creates spaces for building worker solidarity across differences in sector and industry, race, ethnicity, and immigration status. Now we are in the early stages of expanding our impact to other Midwest states. 

The new Co-Director will work collaboratively with Confluence staff, steering committee, and consultants to develop, fund and implement organizational strategies and goals. As a new and growing organization, we are still solidifying some of our processes even as we expand our scope; the ideal Co-Director candidate will possess the creativity and flexibility to meet the shifting demands of the moment as well as the conscientiousness and clarity of vision to keep long term goals in focus. 

Job Duties

• Supporting and growing a network. Confluence works to establish, sustain, and deepen connections between unions and community groups collaborating on specific initiatives and campaigns. We also work to build alignment in the field between groups across these initiatives and campaigns.
• Organizational management and development. Regular meetings and informal communication with Co-Director, steering committee, executive committee, and various working groups. Bottom-lining the development of organizational policy documents. Identifying gaps and inefficiencies in organizational processes and developing solutions.
• Grant-making. Confluence staff manage an annual participatory grantmaking process which includes interviews with grantees and their labor partners, compiling reports, making recommendations to the steering committee, and coordinating grant disbursal with our fiscal sponsor.
• Technical assistance to grantees and union partners. Hands-on, customized technical assistance is key to the Confluence approach. Examples include delivering trainings on organizing skills, advising on campaign strategy, fundraising support, facilitating meetings to establish partnership agreements, and supporting labor partners to act as external organizing and racial equity champions within their institutions. (TA is delivered by Confluence staff and a team of consultants. Strong Co-Director candidates need not be experts in all of these areas.)
• Event coordination. Confluence stages 6-12 ecosystem-building events each year to create spaces for our stakeholders to learn, connect, and dream big together. These range from small meetings to webinars to convenings of 100+. Co-Directors share responsibility for planning, outreach, logistics, and follow up. At some events Co-Directors also facilitate or otherwise speak publicly. 
• Fundraising. Workers Confluence is funded through a combination of foundation grants and donations from labor unions. Co-Directors work with consultants to set fundraising goals, develop relationships with prospective funders and maintain relationships with existing ones, represent Confluence in philanthropy spaces, and craft written materials that make a powerful case for supporting our work.
• Be an ambassador and public face of the organization. Represent the organization and share about the work with internal and external stakeholders with unions, non-profits, philanthropy, and other key audiences. 
• Advocate for and personally demonstrate a mature racial justice approach to leadership and organizational development. 

Requirements 

• Strong interpersonal skills. Ability to build and maintain trusting relationships with people from a wide variety of backgrounds. Ability to navigate complex group dynamics. Collaborative and able to take and give constructive criticism. Experience with coalitions is a plus.
• Strong communication skills. Ability to convey complex information clearly and persuasively, both verbally and in writing. Experience planning and facilitating meetings. High comfort level with pitching/propositioning/making the ask. Experience producing any of the following is a plus: grant proposals/reports, annual reports, white papers, organizational newsletters, event flyers and programs. 
• Experience with worker and/or community organizing campaigns. Demonstrated effectiveness and leadership experience on campaigns. Understanding of organizing principles, power mapping, campaign building, collective bargaining, direct action, and public policy advocacy. Experience organizing in Minnesota’s immigrant communities/communities of color is strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with the labor movement. General understanding of the history and present of the union movement, both locally and nationally. Awareness of the parallel development of worker centers and other community-driven responses to the gaps left by the mainstream labor movement. Ideal candidate has an in-depth understanding of Minnesota’s labor unions and other key institutions as well as experience with labor-centered racial justice initiatives.
• Experience with improving internal systems, growth, and shifting culture within organizations. Demonstrated experience working within or supporting organizations with the development and implementation of strategic plans or other internal strategies that enhanced effectiveness, improved equity outcomes, or otherwise strengthened and grew the organization.
• Ability to build relationships and drive flexible solutions with a diverse set of stakeholders. Be able to build deep relationships and trust, sometimes fairly quickly with union and community partners. Ability to diagnose big and small problems and provide support, either directly or through making connections to other resources, on short term and long-term timelines

Full Time Salaried Position. $80,000 – $90,000 per year. Full Family Health Insurance. Dental, 401K, Teamsters Union Local 120 represented position. 

Primarily in person with hybrid (remote/work from home) flexibility especially after first 90 days

To Apply:
Please email a résumé, cover letter, and 3 references to: casey@minneapolisunions.org.

Deadline to Apply: November 1st