Canvass Director

Fund for the Public Interest; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 45,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

Fund for the Public Interest in Boston is seeking Canvass Directors to energize communities around protecting wildlife, reducing plastic waste, and ensuring clean air and water. You will educate, engage and mobilize the public through face‑to‑face conversations and partnerships with local groups.

You’ll recruit and train a team, manage a campaign office and drive fundraising goals, often working long hours, including nights and weekends, to achieve impact.

Qualifications

• Experience communicating with diverse audiences in person.
• Ability to recruit and manage volunteers and staff.
• Track record of fundraising and campaign organizing.

Responsibilities

• Lead canvass campaigns and build local support for environmental causes.
• Recruit, hire and direct a campaign team and office.
• Work long hours, including nights and weekends, to meet goals.

Skills

Public speaking

Fundraising

Team leadership

Volunteer recruitment

Job description

We’re hiring and training Canvass Directors to make an impact on some of the most important problems of our time — like protecting wildlife and wild places, eliminating the plastic waste polluting our oceans, ensuring we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, and more. Having smart policy solutions isn’t enough. To win positive change, we need to educate, engage and mobilize people to get involved.

Here are 10 reasons why working with the Fund is for you:

1. You'll take on big problems

At the Fund, you build support for solutions to plastic pollution, threats to wildlife and wild places, toxic contamination, electronic waste and other big problems.

2. You'll build the deep support necessary to win and sustain positive change

Winning positive change often means sweeping past the resistance of powerful corporations and industries. Sustaining change requires ongoing, active public support that lasts longer than a news cycle and goes deeper than a petition signature. At the Fund, you build public support for our partners through face‑to‑face conversations, connecting people to causes they will support for years, if not decades.

3. You'll bring people together

The groups we work with and the issues we work on are not liberal or conservative. At the Fund, you unite people in action — one household at a time, tens of thousands of times a year, year after year — to improve the quality of our environment, our health and our lives.

Environment Massachusetts and MASSPIRG staff lobby for a better bottle bill to help reduce plastic waste. Photo credit: Staff.

4. You'll work for a nonprofit with a track record of success

For more than 40 years, the Fund has run hundreds of campaign offices, raised over $700 million, and recruited hundreds of thousands of members for Environment America, PIRG and other partner groups.

5. You'll be part of a team with nationwide impact

At the Fund, you might be in charge of a team working to protect old‑growth forests in Oregon, or limit bee‑killing pesticides in Massachusetts, or keep PFAS “forever chemicals” out of California’s water. Each campaign makes a difference in one state and sets the stage for more action and results in other states. Together, our staff are making an impact across the country.

6. You'll be in charge of a team

We train you to run a campaign office and hire and direct a team of people who are passionate about making change, excited to learn new skills and ready to join you in becoming a leader.

7. You'll work hard for the right reasons

Some people work hard to earn more money or social status. And that’s fine. At the Fund, you work hard because the results of your work matter. The more people we recruit to canvass, the more people who join our partner groups and take action, the more money we raise for our partners, the more positive results we win for our health, our environment and the quality of our lives.

OSPIRG canvassers from our Portland, Ore., office, joined by Oregon state Sen. Janeen Sollman (front center), get ready to canvass on Right to Repair. Photo credit: Staff.

8. You'll learn important skills

It just so happens that the skills required to run a successful canvass are valuable for much of what you might want to do in life, whether in your career or as an active citizen. For example, Fund staff learn to be excellent fundraisers, staff managers and organizers.

Our democracy is in trouble. Revitalizing it so we can meet today’s challenges won’t happen overnight. But there’s no better way to remind people of their responsibilities and their power as citizens than to talk to them — one person at a time, face‑to‑face — and give them a real opportunity to make a difference.

10. You'll be getting paid to change our world

For most of human history, speaking out against the way things are could lead to ridicule, jail or worse. And that’s increasingly true in much of the world — some would say, even in our own country. At the Fund, we cherish not only the freedom to stand up for what we believe in, but also the privilege of making a career out of doing so.

And some reasons you might not want to work with the Fund...

As a canvass director, you’ll be in charge of your own office. You’ll work long hours, including nights and weekends. You’ll have to recruit, hire, manage and build your own team. You’ll have ambitious fundraising goals and an office to manage. Doing all of that well is challenging and takes real dedication. This work is not for everyone.

Fund for the Public Interest is part of The Public Interest Network, which supports organizations committed to a shared vision of a better world and takes a strategic approach to social change. We work to address problems our society can’t afford to ignore: defending the quality of the Earth’s air and water, preserving a livable climate, transforming our transportation and energy systems, assuring a safe and abundant food system and protecting consumers in the marketplace.