Environment America – Clean Water Advocate

Environment America seeks a skilled and savvy advocate to persuade key decision-makers to protect our rivers and our drinking water from pollution. Responsibilities include developing strategy and messaging, advocacy, coalition-building, generating media and visibility, fundraising, coordinating grassroots efforts, and helping us build our team.

Clean water is vital for our health, our ecology, and our quality of life. Yet from the lead in Flint to factory farms, we are seeing our water at risk. It’s time to hold polluters accountable and ensure that all our water is clean.

With a new administration and Congress, it will take strong public support and visibility — conveyed through persuasive advocacy — to make a compelling case for prioritizing bold action on clean water.

Environment America is a policy and action group with more than two million members and supporters spread across all 50 states. We promote national, state and local policies that put the environment first. For example, we’ve won policies that have resulted in more solar and wind power in 22 states, cleaner cars and power plants nationwide, and better protections for our rivers, streams, lakes and drinking water.

Responsibilities

• • Advocacy: Build relationships with key players on clean water at the federal level – in Congress and the next administration, and with key regional and state players. Present a compelling case for strong action on clean water to decision–makers through lobbying, testifying at hearings, providing briefings, and producing written materials.

• • Coalition building: Engage support from diverse and powerful allies and cultivate relationships with them over time.

• • Media and visibility: Earn media attention and online visibility using social media posts, as well as reports, press releases, talking points, op-eds, and letters to the editor. Build relationships with reporters and pitch stories to them. Enhance our visibility by networking at conferences, and speaking on panels.

• • Program development: Participate in policy development, engage in research, and help create winning strategies and powerful messaging for our clean water program.

• • Grassroots mobilization: Support our efforts to mobilize citizens on our campaigns by providing compelling and timely information and opportunities for action (including digital content), briefing our citizen outreach staff, and volunteers. Help determine where and how our field resources will be most effective.

• • Fundraising: Write grant proposals, build relationships with foundation staff, and meet with major donors, to bring more resources to our campaigns. Work with our citizen outreach and digital staff to build and develop a strong membership base to sustain our work.

• Recruiting and developing interns and staff: Recruit new staff, new interns and new volunteers to increase our impact and build more power.

Qualifications

Candidates must have at least 4 years of relevant professional experience. Qualified candidates will have a demonstrated commitment to environmental issues and to citizen-based social change as well as a track record of leadership. We’re looking for goal-driven and results-oriented individuals who have excellent verbal, writing and analytical skills, the ability to speak persuasively in a charged atmosphere, and enthusiasm for the work.