Organization: Sierra Club

About this position:

Job Title: Ohio Inspiring Connections Outdoors Intern

Department: Ohio Chapter

Location: Ohio (Cincinnati preferred)

Reports to: Chapter Director

Duration: 20 hours per week for 6 months

Context:

At the Sierra Club, we believe in the power of togetherness. Together, we remain committed to the fight for a healthy climate built on a foundation of environmental, racial, economic, and gender justice – a future where all people benefit from a healthy, thriving planet and a direct connection to nature. As the climate crisis and deeply entrenched systemic racism all fuel inequity, we will continue to fight for a bold, transformational agenda that recognizes the interconnectedness between our planet, our humanity, and our democracy. By recognizing that our destinies are tied, we continue to name that all things are fundamentally connected, and the overlap between ecology, race, gender, and representative government will move to either advance our collective humanity or to oppress it.

Sierra Club is comprised of staff across the country and a network of volunteer leaders and local chapters that support our grassroots engagement. We are also proud to be a unionized employer, with two labor unions representing more than half of our employees.

Scope:

Inspiring Connections Outdoors (ICO) is at the center of the Sierra Club's efforts to expand outdoor access for children, youth, and families through direct, local programming at the grassrootslevel. The goal of Sierra Club's Inspiring Connections Outdoors is to empower youth from communities with limited access to connect and reconnect to the outdoors, for the benefit of both. ICO is guided by Sierra Club's Outdoors for All Theory of Change: by naming and reducing barriers to entry and ensuring all people have opportunities to explore and enjoy nature, we will improve lives while inspiring and empowering a new generation of leaders to protect the environment.

The ICO Intern will design and lead a recruitment strategy to build a Chapter-level volunteer leadership team. This team will develop a statewide strategy for the Inspiring Connections Outdoors program to engage youth partners and other community entities that are aligned with our mission to provide increased opportunities for youth, children, and families to develop and enhance personal connections to nature through community-inspired and led programming. The Ohio ICO Intern reports to the Chapter Director, for daily assignments and questions and works closely with chapter staff on assigned tasks. The Ohio ICO Intern will help Ohio Chapter volunteers and staff, in collaboration with our partner organizations, to (re)build a sustainable Inspiring Connections Outdoors program for the Chapter and will gain great skill in grassroots organizing, coalition building, project management and operations skills.

Job activities include but are not limited to:

• Uses mapping and other tools to identify what potential partners and participants would like to achieve
• Synthesize and communicate communities' needs and interests with regard to connecting to the outdoors and eliminating the nature equity gap
• Identifies and recruits a broader base of volunteers and leaders grounded in equity and justice practices that includes people from and representative of the demographics of communities where ICO operates.
• Trains and supports volunteers to meet agreed upon goals to best support transformational partnerships.
• Facilitates volunteer and community meetings and online events as needed to engage supporters
• Assists with promoting ICO events and opportunities through posting updates and highlights on social media and other promotional platforms
• Logistics: Meetings will sometimes take place at partner organization meeting sites, and the Intern must be willing to travel within Ohio to assist with programming and to support partner programming as needed. Work hours include evenings and weekends.

The successful candidate must have the following skills and experience:

• Equity Analysis and Practice. Demonstrated commitment to advancing equity, inclusion, justice and anti-oppression values. You are aware of your group identities and how they have shaped your life and experiences at work. You have an analysis of how racism and other forms of oppression in society impact relationships, systems and culture. You bring experience and skills for working effectively with colleagues across group identities and position/role.
• Interpersonal skills. Exhibits emotional intelligence, ability to engage in courageous conversations, especially around equity and inclusion, ability to build and maintain transformational relationships.
• Communication skills. Excellent written and oral communications skills. Experience developing PowerPoint presentations, one-pagers, fact-sheets, etc. Comfort with (or ability to quickly learn) using software and online tools, such as the Google Suite, Facebook and Twitter. Enthusiasm to learn new digital tools related to program tracking and planning - SmartVan, Salesforce, etc.
• Work Ethics and Dependability. Ability to set and honor deadlines, follow through on commitments, and be responsive to a variety of communications styles. Flexibility to meet the needs of an ever-changing landscape.

The strongest candidates will also demonstrate the following experience, skills and competencies:

• A visionary with an appreciation of the Outdoors and experience in helping others connect to the Outdoors.
• The ability to work cooperatively with people of different backgrounds. An understanding of community engagement and/or experience in this.
• Ability to troubleshoot and manage group activities
• Computer literate and knowledge/understanding of Microsoft Office and Google Suite software
• Have experiences and ideas in creating spaces with others for achieving goals. The ability to form team structures with an emphasis on establishing balance and a welcoming community for all participants.
• Self-starter: willing to do the work under their own initiative with support

Compensation:

The hourly rate for this position is $15 per hour.

This is a category 99, non-exempt, non-represented, temporary position.

Sierra Club is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization. Sierra Club employees are not eligible to participate in the Federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program.

Sierra Club values the expertise and talents of foreign nationals. Sierra Club sponsors both nonimmigrant and immigrant visas when certain criteria are met, based on immigration laws and organizational needs. Such sponsorship is at the discretion of the Department Head and Sierra Club Human Resources in consultation with the employee's manager. The Sierra Club cannot guarantee the approval of a visa petition. The Sierra Club is an equal opportunity employer committed to workforce diversity.

To Apply:

This position does not have an undergraduate education requirement. If you choose to include your education history, please remove your schools from your resume. You may leave your degree (e.g., “B.A. Philosophy”), but please remove any undergraduate and graduate school names.

This anonymous process is aimed at opening this opportunity to more candidates, reviewing applicants on performance assessments and mitigating bias in the decision-making process.

Lastly, we are intentionally not asking for a cover letter, so please do not send one in with your application.

More information can be found here.