We’re Hiring a Director of Campaigns & Advocacy!

About The Center for Election Science

The Center for Election Science (CES) is a completely virtual 501(c)3 nonprofit that studies and advances better voting methods. We work to fundamentally change the way people vote. Smarter voting methods means better representatives who make better policy and spending decisions. Our focus has largely been on approval voting. We are a high-impact organization seeking talented employees to advance progress on a challenging mission. We’ve been featured in Vox; Reason; MSNBC; 80,000 Hours; and Popular Mechanics. We are a 2x grant recipient of The Open Philanthropy Project, most recently for $1.8M.

Job Description

The Director of Campaigns and Advocacy (DCA) works with our partners to support ballot initiatives for better voting methods at the local and state level. The DCA will handle CES educational campaigns and strategize with partner organizations who will be running ballot initiatives and legislative efforts. This position oversees all aspects of the campaign including day-to-day operations and some fundraising. This position will also identify and help organizations to use better voting methods (examples: for internal elections, awards decisions). This position reports to the Executive Director.

Examples of key responsibilities are as follows:

Administrative

• Attain and monitor qualified contractors for outsourced campaign work
• Attend all organizational meetings
• ​Create and execute campaign plans and budgets

Development

• Work with Director of Philanthropy to assure coordination in fundraising
• Work with Director of Philanthropy to identify and cultivate relationships with high-capacity local stakeholders (individuals, foundations, and corporations)
• Collaborate with Director of Philanthropy to incorporate campaign fundraising into broader campaign plan and budget
• Provide logistics support as needed

Campaign Tasks

• Facilitate operations of organizational programs which include supporting grassroots efforts and educational campaigns
• Identify and utilize contractors as necessary
• Develop and implement outreach planning
• Recruit and manage a team of volunteers for each campaign, collaborating and sharing volunteers with partner organizations when possible.
• Identify and leverage press opportunities
• Develop campaign and mobilization strategies and cultivate partnerships in a portfolio of localities to help advance better voting methods
• ​Identify opportunities and cultivate relationships with organizations in areas where we would like to expand our work
• ​Organize coalitions as needed with locally-based organizations to achieve campaign objectives
• Collaborate with and assist key partners
• Other duties as assigned

Communications

• Create campaign messaging.
• Facilitate campaign material creation.
• Organize campaign briefings and reports for internal and external parties.
• ​Manage campaign consultants, organizers, volunteers, and vendors as necessary.
• ​Frame issues using polling and other research to guide advocacy communications.
• Represent the campaign at events.
• Identify and manage earned media and social media opportunities
• Collaborate with the Director of Operations to integrate social media and press relations strategy into broader outreach strategy.

Qualifications

• Technical knowledge related to voting methods is strongly preferred. If no previous knowledge, ability and willingness to learn about voting methods is a must.
• Must feel comfortable working with Google Docs, Skype, Google Hangouts, and other online platforms.
• Must have direct experience and demonstrated ability working on a ballot initiative campaign.
• Must be committed to the organization’s goal of advancing smarter voting methods, particularly cardinal methods such as approval voting.
• Ability to solve problems, prioritize, and minimize multi-tasking.
• Having fundamental mathematical, statistics/probability, and science competency is a plus.
• Must be highly familiar with best practice tools and operations for education campaigns and ballot initiatives.
• Ability to identify and work with key stakeholders.
• No specific educational background is required. Just be able to demonstrate that you can do the job.
• Strong email, verbal, and writing skills.
• Strong social skills. You’ll be talking with lots of people, and they should like interacting with you.
• Must be able to talk about voting methods to a lay audience.
• Must be comfortable actively participating in the fundraising process. You do not need to have a background in fundraising, but you must be willing to take direction from and implement strategies as designed by the Director of Philanthropy

Additional Information

• Travel will be required during campaigns. We estimate upwards of about 10 weeks of travel/year with variation depending on the number and scope of campaigns. This includes other travel such as conferences and organizational meetings.
• Occasional weekend availability will be necessary for conferences and campaign activities.
• Opportunity to interact with leaders in the field of political science and game theory.

Salary & Benefits

• Starting salary is non-negotiable at $61,500; up to $5,150 reimbursement for health, vision, and dental insurance; generous retirement contributions starting at one year with immediate vesting.
• Unlimited PTO w/ mandatory min 21 days off/year (minimum is prorated for partial year hiring); annual continuing education allotment following 3-month introductory period; partial reimbursement of phone and high-speed internet; home office reimbursement; flexible hours, work remotely (except for travel)

About Working At CES

We’re a virtual nonprofit, which helps with work-life balance when you don’t have to add a commute to your day. There is some travel, particularly for this role during key parts of campaigns.

The ED has a weekly one-on-one with each employee. We use Skype a lot. The weekly meetings are predominantly guided by the employee according to their assigned and associated work. These meetings help to increase information flow, problem solve, and plan. Note that we try to avoid overdoing meetings. This way, actual work can get done. You’ll be given a performance profile with listed deliverables that are expected of you by specific dates. This will help guide your work.

Those who have been successful within our staff have been highly motivated, intelligent, organized, and able to properly prioritize tasks. Successful employees have also prioritized outsourcing and automation whenever possible. Our employees work exceptionally well with each other. This includes collaboration, sharing information, and providing a supportive environment. We do whatever we can to make you successful in your role.

To get to know everyone, we do an in-person retreat once a year for staff and board members. It’s really fun. Last time we destroyed an escape room. It helps that our board is filled with math geeks and various types of engineers.

Benefits

• Up to $5,150 reimbursement for health, vision, and dental insurance under QSEHRA
• Generous retirement contributions starting at one year with immediate vesting
• Unlimited paid time off with mandatory min 21 days off per year (minimum is prorated for partial year hiring)
• Annual continuing education allotment following 3-month introductory period
• Partial reimbursement of phone and high-speed internet; home office reimbursement
• Flexible hours
• Work is entirely remote/virtual (except for travel)

Application Process

Send your application materials, following the instructions below, to caitlyn@electionscience.org.

How You Can Be A Competitive Applicant

• Be familiar with our work. Read up on our blog, look through our articles, and see what we’re up to through social media.
• Love what we do. What we do requires a lot of effort. Passion will make that effort easier to sustain.
• Be able to provide evidence that you’re an overachiever. This position is high stakes and we need to know that you’ll be able to come through on key outcomes. This demands intelligence, interpersonal skills, organization, and the desire to overdeliver. You can show this by evidencing prior work and through high performance in the work product section of the application process.
• Be open, honest, and follow directions.

What You Can Expect In the Application Process

• We attempt to blind ourselves to your name as long as possible so to avoid bias. Please use only your three-letter initials in attachments.
• We will actually tell you whether you advance in the process. If you don’t, we’ll notify you either way as a courtesy. As you can imagine, we do not have the capacity to provide each applicant with a rationale for our decision.
• Our process has multiple phases:

(1) resume & cover letter (anonymous),

(2) evidence-based questions and work product (anonymous),

(3) interview (not anonymous), and

(4) accuracy confirmation (not anonymous).

• Performing a work sample is the best way we have to evaluate your ability to perform within this role. This work will be of a general nature within the scope of the job role. It’s designed to test your ability and subject-area competence rather than as functional work for the organization. It’s not our intent to get free work from you. If you do not feel comfortable with performing the labor of a related work sample, then please do not apply.
• Please do not mislead us anywhere on your application. If you do, then we will remove your application from current and future consideration.

We care about our employees. You can tell from our benefits that this translates across the board. The work we do is hard. It requires both high motivation and talent. Our premise with our benefits is that if you are a happy employee, then you will be better able to focus on your work and inclined to stay. It’s also the decent thing to do. We believe that CES is a place that you can be truly proud and happy to work for. Working with us also offers an especially high impact on the world around you.

We welcome and value diversity in our workforce and strive to create an inclusive culture and equitable workplace. Those from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply. ​Also, applicants are not expected to provide any past or current compensation information during any phase of the interview process.

How To Apply

Send your cover letter and tailored CV/resume (in that order) in a single PDF fileto caitlyn@electionscience.org. Your cover letter must at minimum address:

1. (1) why you want to work for us,
2. (2) what you have done that evidences you’re qualified, and
3. (3) how your qualifications will make you successful in this position.

Please limit your cover letter to no more than two pages and your CV/resume to be as compact as possible.

For your single attachment, do not include any personally identifying information other than your three-letter initials (two if no middle name). Your PDF attachment should be named: “DCA_P1_XYZ” where “XYZ” are your initials. E-mail subject: “DCA Application P1”. If you make a mistake here, your application may not be reviewed.

Make sure that your e-mail does not include your name. You’ll be asked to resubmit if your e-mail or attachment includes your name. You can create a throwaway e-mail using gmail or whatever service is convenient. Any e-mail address that doesn’t have your name or picture associated with it is fine.

Position open until filled.