Maryland Organizing Associate

Greater Greater Washington; Maryland; Hybrid; USD 57,000 - 79,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Employer‑matched 401(k) (up to 3%)

Transit commuter stipend

Cell phone subsidy

Paid time off: 20 days vacation, 20 s;

Job summary

Greater Greater Washington seeks a Maryland Organizing Associate to support advocacy in the Maryland General Assembly and local counties. You’ll help organize events, track legislation, and build relationships with community groups to advance housing reforms and GGWash priorities.

You’ll report to the Maryland Policy Director, collaborate with editorial and engagement teams, and contribute to content that informs the public about policy impacts in Maryland and beyond.

Qualifications

• Two+ years of experience organizing people around policies or ideas.
• Familiarity with online publishing and social media used for campaigns.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Organize two major Maryland events including workshops and Lobby Day, coordinating planning and logistics.
• Track zoning, land use, and transportation-related legislation; draft testimony for hearings and testify when needed.
• Build relationships with groups and individuals across the state to support GGWash priorities.
• Support broader advocacy work and assist with administrative tasks as needed.

Skills

Organizing people

Online publishing

Communication

Google tools

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

Google Workspace

Job description

Full-Time, Salaried

Reporting To: Maryland Policy Director

Salary Range: $56,779 - $78,816

Direct Reports: None

Position Overview

Greater Greater Washington (GGWash) is seeking a Maryland Organizing Associate to support our advocacy in the Maryland General Assembly and locally in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. For over 18 years, we’ve worked to give people more choices in where to live and how to get around in the Washington, DC region, including Maryland and Northern Virginia. In this role you’ll support our ongoing campaign for housing reforms and cultivate the community needed to achieve them.

This position is the right fit for someone who’s excited to build relationships and meet people, cares deeply about this region and the people who live here, and is a strong writer. We encourage those who can bring a diverse perspective to our organization and our work, in terms of race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or gender identity, to apply.

The Maryland Organizing Associate will report to the Maryland Policy Director and collaborate within the GGWash advocacy team, which includes staff working in both DC and Maryland. They will help ensure that the department’s identity and purpose are connected to the organizational mission. They’ll also work in partnership with other teams, including editorial and engagement.

Applications sent via LinkedIn will not be reviewed. Please read the full job description for application instructions.

Responsibilities

Organizing (50% of time)

Our state-level advocacy in Maryland revolves around two events for which the Maryland Organizing Associate will lead planning and logistics. In the fall, we bring together legislators, advocates, and researchers for an invite-only, afternoon-long workshop aimed at finding sponsors for, and strategizing around, our legislative priorities in the coming General Assembly session. During the session (which runs from January to April), we organize a Lobby Day where those same legislators (primarily from, but not limited to, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties) can meet with their constituents and see that there’s broad popular support for our legislative priorities.

To ensure a successful Lobby Day and foster a collaborative approach to advocacy, the Maryland Organizing Associate will build and maintain relationships with relevant groups and individuals around the state. This may take the form of one-to-one meetings, attending conference calls, and organizing regular events and meetups throughout the year. They’ll help develop a strategic approach to building the institutional knowledge and capacity of people who are active in their communities at the local level, so they can participate in our state-level advocacy.

Policy Tracking and Analysis (40% of time)

The Maryland Organizing Associate will also be responsible for tracking zoning, land use, and transportation-related legislation leading up to and during the Maryland General Assembly session. They’ll do the same year-round at the local level, primarily in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, adjusting focus based on the legislative and political calendar as well as evolving circumstances. At both the state and local levels, they will draft and ensure the timely submission of testimony about GGWash priorities for public hearings, and occasionally testify in those hearings.

What sets us apart from other advocacy organizations is our website, ggwash.org, which serves as a platform to promote our work and our worldview with the larger community. The Maryland Organizing Associate will occasionally write content about what we’re working on, and have the opportunity to publish their own pieces and participate in our editorial process.

Other Responsibilities (10% of time)

The Maryland Organizing Associate will periodically be expected to support GGWash’s broader advocacy work in DC and Virginia. They will also assist with some administrative and cross-organizational tasks, meetings, and processes, and take on other duties as assigned.

Preferred Qualifications

• Two or more years of experience organizing people around certain policies or ideas. An undergraduate and/or graduate degree requiring critical-thinking skills is an asset, but is not a substitute for on-the-ground experience.
• Familiarity with online publishing and social media, and how they can be used to advance campaign work.
• Experience working in a professional environment where shared goals and deadlines require effective communication.
• Proficiency with Google software, administrative tasks as required, and attention to detail.
• Fluency in Maryland’s physical and political geography. The Maryland Organizing Associate will be working at multiple levels of government, in multiple jurisdictions, each with their own quirks. On the job you’ll need to know, for example, where a county is and who the major office-holders are without having to check.
• Conversational or written proficiency in languages other than English commonly spoken in the Maryland region (e.g., Spanish, Amharic, or Mandarin) is a plus.

Preferred Competencies

Please consider applying if you possess 80% or more of the following competencies.

• An understanding of housing, land use, and ideally transportation policy, and how the three issue areas intersect.
• You’re punctual and can competently manage your schedule. You are able to efficiently, independently complete tasks, and deliver high‑quality, detail-oriented work.
• You can communicate clearly and directly in a timely fashion, whether delivering persuasive oral arguments to government officials or conveying complicated policy arguments in writing to laypeople.
• The self‑awareness to know what you don’t know—and the interest to find out.
• The capacity to build and maintain empathetic and supportive relationships with our allies, and to engage constructively with good‑faith yet skeptical actors.
• You can think strategically about the big picture and help identify the most impactful way to tackle problems.
• You understand institutional racism's roles in shaping public policy and have a demonstrated commitment to racial, social, and environmental justice, as well as advancing equity through changes to land use, housing, and transportation policy.

Salary and Benefits

This is a full‑time (40+ hours/wk) exempt salaried position within a salary band that ranges from $56,779 - $78,816 per year depending on experience. We have budgeted to hire in the lower half of this band, with opportunity for growth over time.

Greater Greater Washington offers a comprehensive suite of benefits for this position, including employer‑sponsored health, dental, and vision insurance with employer contribution; employer‑paid long‑term disability insurance, basic life insurance and AD&D; an employer‑matched 401(k) plan (up to 3%); a transit commuter stipend; and cell phone subsidy. Paid time off for this position includes: 20 days per year for vacation on an accrual basis, 20 days per year for sick leave, numerous holidays, winter break, and other forms of leave, including an optional paid sabbatical after five years of employment. All benefits are subject to the terms and conditions in the applicable plan documents and/or Greater Greater Washington’s employee handbook and other policies, as modified from time to time.

Work Environment

At this time, GGWash has a flexible, hybrid work environment, with some in‑person work required at the GGWash office in the Navy Yard neighborhood of Washington, DC, as well as work in the field. This position requires access to a workspace with an Internet connection. A GGWash‑owned laptop will be provided. Given anticipated travel to Maryland communities not accessible via transit, a valid driver’s license and access to a car are preferred but not required.

GGWash’s standard work hours are 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday through Friday, though this role will involve attending some evening and weekend events.

About Greater Greater Washington

Greater Greater Washington is a nonprofit organization that works to advance racial, economic, and environmental justice in land use, transportation, and housing throughout Greater Washington.

Our work builds civic capacity and moves the needle on important issues, in service of a broader vision of a dense, growing Washington region with an abundant supply of quality housing, attainable at all income levels, and a regional transportation network that prioritizes the needs of underserved users and makes it safe and easy to travel without a car. We work in support of public processes, plans, and policymaking that embrace both our responsibility to care for people we don’t know personally and the need for cities to be shared among people who are here now and who will come in the future.

Greater Greater Washington provides equal employment opportunities to all applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, military status, marital status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal or local employment discrimination laws.

Please direct any questions about the position to Mx. D. Reed at dreed[at]ggwash.org.