Careers

Description:

The Quivira Coalition (www.quiviracoaltion.org) is a Santa Fe-based nonprofit that builds resilience on arid working lands. We foster ecological, economic, and social health through education, innovation, and collaboration. We aim to shift current agricultural and land stewardship practices in ways that produce good food, support meaningful livelihoods in rural places, sustain biodiversity, and remedy the impacts of climate change. We conduct this work through agricultural apprenticeship, land and water restoration, and farmer- and rancher-led knowledge exchange. Knowing that it is critical to the success of our work, Quivira is committed to racial equity and inclusion, and we aspire to build and support a diverse staff team and community, including groups that are traditionally underrepresented among conservation and agricultural support services.

Our programs include:

• Carbon Ranch Initiative, dedicated to outreach and research in support of regenerative agriculture, with a focus on building soil organic material on working lands.
• Education and Outreach, focused on developing practical conservation and agricultural knowledge exchange led by those implementing the work on the ground. This includes workshops, podcasts, and the annual REGENERATE Conference. 
• Land and Water, offers restoration planning and implementation of riparian and rangeland ecosystems in the arid Southwest. 
• New Agrarian, offers professional training to beginning agrarians in regenerative agriculture with seasoned ranchers trained in hands-on mentorship.
• New Mexico Coalition to Enhance Working Lands (NMCEWL), a network whose purpose is to support and enhance ongoing efforts to improve the health and productivity of New Mexico working lands that support agriculture and the environment.

Who we’re looking for

The Communications and Development (C&D) Director is a passionate communications professional versed in conservation and regenerative agriculture, as well as nonprofit communications, development, and data management across several program areas. The C&D Director enjoys working for and with a diverse staff to tell the stories of Quivira’s work in ways that support the organization’s growth. The ideal candidate is a systems thinker who understands the connection between communication, relationship management, and data organization—a tech savvy people person who likes to get their hands dirty. 

This person can be as excited about writing an inspiring story as they are about designing a social media strategy, managing donor and member databases, and using technological tools that make all of this possible. The C&D Director has experience and appreciates working directly with farmers and ranchers, communicating about conservation and agriculture, and solving current food, agriculture, and land management system challenges. Finally, this person deeply understands that as climate change collides with our industrial agriculture and land management systems, solutions are found with the people who are developing practical, innovative, and equitable solutions—for communities, for land and water, for the lives and livelihoods of producers, and for the planet—and sees it as their mission in life to amplify this work.

This full-time position may be based out of Quivira’s Santa Fe office or remotely; it is full-time and will require some travel.

Position Description

This is neither a typical communications nor development position, but includes aspects of both. Quivira takes a shared approach to communications, fundraising, and program development, has a commitment to financial transparency, and endeavors to communicate in ways that invite diverse perspectives to participate in conversation and problem solving. More specifically, this means everyone on staff participates in these activities, and this position will play a role helping to guide them, and in many cases will implement them. 

This position is responsible for the following work:

• Developing and implementing an integrated communications and development plan and strategy in alignment with current programmatic work (see program descriptions above)
• Developing and overseeing a communications and development budget
• Developing and producing communications materials (written and graphic) for promotion, fundraising, and community engagement including newsletters, podcasts, grant proposals, reports, technical guides, and promotional materials
• Communications support, guidance, and editorial assistance to programs for cohesive branding/messaging across the entire organization 
• Management, planning, and oversight of Quivira’s website
• Oversight and maintenance of member and community databases
• Donor and grant management, including scheduling, overseeing delivery and filing grant reports, and thanking donors
• Event support in the form of communications and fundraising, specifically support of the annual REGENERATE Conference and of programmatic workshops and other educational materials
• Designing and conducting three annual fundraising campaigns—planned giving, membership, and year-end; conducting occasional match campaigns 
• Working closely with the executive director and program directors to support individual programs and the overall mission of the organization
• Supervising communications coordinator or other staff or contractors engaged in communications activities

The Communications and Development Director is a new position at Quivira. The person hired to fill it will play a leading role in shaping the job description going forward. (You won’t be filling the shoes of someone else, you’ll be co-designing the shoes you’ll wear.)

Terms of Employment

• Quivira Coalition is committed to fostering, cultivating, and preserving a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our organization. We embrace and encourage applicants of all ethnicities, national origins, socio-economic statuses, ages, gender identities or expressions, sexual orientations, family or marital statuses, physical and mental abilities, political affiliations, religions, or veteran status.
• Reports directly to the Executive Director
• Compensation $52,000 to $58,000 depending on experience, paid bi-weekly
• 40 hours a week, salaried
• Due to the pandemic, all employees are currently working from home with access to the office on an as-needed basis.
• No relocation compensation
• After three months, benefits include health care, dental, vision, simple IRA, paid time off, short- and long-term life insurance, and disability insurance.

Required Qualifications

• Experience with nonprofit fundraising including grant writing, proposal writing, campaign planning and implementation, and donor cultivation and management
• Strong professional writing and editing skills, ideally used in a nonprofit setting
• Strong organizational skills and ability to coordinate a diverse and busy group of stakeholders
• Graphic design skills and high proficiency in Adobe creative suite
• Proficiency in WordPress and general website management
• Ability to develop promotional materials to support publication, fundraising campaigns, and outreach events
• Strong data management skills and familiarity with CRM software
• Familiarity with conservation, food systems, regenerative agriculture, natural resource management, and Western land management
• Ability to see the big picture and take actionable steps towards achieving strategic goals in order to realize a long-term vision 

Desired Qualifications

• Existing relationships or involvement with regional ranching and land management communities
• Flexible schedule to accommodate weekend, evening, and remote work
• Experience with antiracism work in a nonprofit context and familiarity with development of diversity, equity, and inclusion plans
• Experience with G Suite (google email, drive, calendar etc.)
• Experience with podcast production
• Experience with video production
• Multi-lingual in Spanish or Native languages

Please use our online form to apply online at https://quiviracoalition.org/comms-dev-director/ . Please upload a current resume to the form as part of your application. No cover letter is required. Please also attach both a writing sample and a design sample as part of your application, in the form of uploaded PDFs or the URL to a website or shared file. Please have available the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of three professional references

Send questions to Sarah Wentzel-Fisher sarah@quiviracoalition with the subject line “Communications and Development Director Application.”

Deadline for applications is February 1, 2020 with the intention of a start date in the last week of February or first week of March 2021.

Since its establishment in 1997, the Quivira Coalition has prided itself on its history of working across difference at the radical center. In the last year, we have become increasingly aware of the work that we must do to ensure that individuals and communities of all backgrounds are truly included and welcomed into our work. Quivira Coalition is taking its first steps toward becoming an antiracist organization, and reevaluating what diversity, equity and inclusion means for the organization. This is difficult, often messy, ongoing work, and we are committed to working through the challenges to join the movement for racially just regenerative agriculture. We hope new hires and the perspectives they bring will continue to help us navigate this path. We invite candidates to ask questions about where we’re at in this journey, and to join us in moving the organization and the regenerative agriculture movement towards becoming more just, equitable, and inclusive.