Job Announcement – Statewide Census Faith Hub Coordinator
Who We Are
The Colorado Council of Churches is a statewide, ecumenical, social justice organization that consists of thirteen Christian denominations and over eight hundred churches in Colorado. Our denominations are: African Methodist Episcopal Church, American Baptist Churches of the Rocky Mountains, Central Rocky Mountain Region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Christian Methodist Episcopal, Church of the Brethren, Episcopal Church in Colorado, Ecumenical Catholic Communion, Rocky Mountain Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), Rocky Mountain Conference of the United Church of Christ, Mountain Sky Conference of the United Methodist Church and Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches.
Together Colorado is a statewide faith based community organization with a 40 year track record. We organize a racially, economically, and geographically diverse set of communities in metro Denver and Colorado through training and developing grassroots volunteer leaders in congregations and schools in addition to a highly diverse clergy organizing effort through clergy caucuses that bring a faith voice in response to social justice issues. We currently have 45 organizing congregations and schools in greater metro Denver, Pueblo and Larimer County. Our grassroots organizing congregations and the leadership in those efforts are approximately 55% low income and 40% Latinx; 30% African American and 30% White. Our Latinx organizing teams are 80% low income and primarily immigrant. We have 700 active volunteer leaders in our organizing and leadership development efforts. Together Colorado’s membership includes Synagogues, Unitarians, Catholics, mainstream and African American Protestant, Muslim and Evangelical congregations and Mosques. In addition to our grassroots organizing in congregations, we organize highly diverse clergy caucuses that currently engage 220 clergy in monthly caucus meetings and action opportunities in metro Denver, Jefferson county, Adams county, Boulder county as well as Larimer County, Grand Junction, Pueblo and Colorado Springs. We connect with an additional 330 clergy through a weekly faith voice email that touches on faith and civic life.
Together our organizations have a history of bringing a significant part of the statewide faith community together on common projects from our highly successful Faithful Tuesday events at the capital in 2019 to moving the faith community to support the bi-partisan measure to eliminate slavery from our constitution in 2018 where we connected with over 700,000 congregants on the issue.
Purpose of Role
The CCC and Together Colorado seek a dynamic leader to help build Colorado Faith Census Hubs – places where faith communities can receive information, education, and training about the 2020 census, underpinned by messaging and approaches rooted in specific faith traditions. The CCC and Together Colorado’s goals are to ensure that hard-to-count residents are counted in the 2020 Census and that hundreds of thousands are reached through our messaging and education approaches.
Congregations and faith communities across Colorado have a vital role to play in ensuring a “complete count.” Our congregations will be effective at reaching the following populations:
- Young children
- People of color
- Rural residents
- Low-income households
- Renters
- Immigrants
- Linguistically-isolated households
- Older adults
We see a need for a centralized “hub” that can support faith communities’ (across faith traditions) that desire to 1) have their members and their families counted, 2) to have their neighbors counted, and 3) build relationships inside and outside of their congregations in ways that make healing and change more possible. This will be an interfaith endeavor that will outreach beyond Christian denominations to additional faiths.
The “Faith Census Hub” would seek to accomplish the following goals:
- Contribute to a Complete Count by a) encouraging people (especially those in Hard-To-Count communities) to participate in the 2020 Census through a values-centered, relational approach, and by 2) facilitating their participation by assisting them in completing their Census forms; and
- Employ tailored strategies that have been tested and proven to motivate people of color, poor and working-class individuals, young people, the homeless, and formerly incarcerated people across urban, rural, and suburban communities throughout Colorado.
The Faith Census Hub would advance the following strategies in service to the goals above:
- Faith Census Toolkits: develop and provide open-source Faith Census Toolkits, which would include educational materials about the importance of the 2020 Census, tailored to their unique faith traditions and racial identities
- Training: equip lay leaders, clergy, staff in congregations and faith institutions to reach out to members and their neighbors through some/all of the following strategies:
- “Census 2020 Sabbaths” and “Souls to the Census” congregational activities
- Sermon materials
- Neighborhood (door-to-door) canvassing
- Digital campaigns through smartphones
- Social media messaging
- Community forums and other community engagement activities
- Phone banking
- Location and staffing for questionnaire assistance centers
- Technology and Communications: provide congregations with infrastructure to allow members and neighbors to fill out the 2020 Census on-site, and to track conversations about the Census.
- Geographic Reach: Though our faith communities exist in every part of the state, most of our focus will be in the following places:
- Metropolitan Denver area: Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, and Jefferson counties.
- Colorado Springs
- Pueblo
- Larimer County
- Grand Junction
- Rural Colorado counties of Morgan, Summit, Delta and the city of Buena Vista, Weld and counties in the San Luis Valley.
Responsibilities
Project Management
- Create strong work plan to meet census outreach goals.
- Manage regional volunteers.
- Coordinate with congregational, judicatory and local complete count efforts
- Manage any relevant contractors (e.g. designers, content creators, etc.).
- Ensure team meets deadlines and produces high-quality materials.
- Ensure necessary data collection and reporting of outreach and impacts to the Colorado Department of Local Affairs.
- Ensure integration of census work with the CCC and Together Colorado’s voter engagement plan
Project Execution
● Build project infrastructure and oversee creation of census materials and messaging, made available in an online, open-source way, aimed at faith communities and hard-to-reach constituencies.
● Distribute materials and information that help shape the narrative about census and voting via storytelling and digital channels.
● Work with the CCC and Together Colorado staffs and local organizations to partner with key denominations & congregations to become faith “hubs” for the census.
● Work with the CCC and Together Colorado’s team to support training of community organizers and denominational partners, including development of training curriculum.
● When necessary, work with the CCC and Together Colorado’s team to support local implementation of program by working alongside organizers and civic engagement leads.
● Represent the CCC and Together Colorado at appropriate census tables/coalitions.
Long-Term Success
● Work with the CCC and Together Colorado staff to integrate existing strategic narrative through census activities, which will support long-term social change agenda
Qualifications
- Three years of civic and voter engagement work, labor or political organizing, and/or community organizing experience
- Strong ability to work with faith leaders across diverse denominations, racial and socio-economic experiences.
- Large-scale project management experience, including some management experience.
- Ability to meet strict deadlines and produce high-quality results.
- Strong written and oral communications; strong public speaking skills.
- Proficiency creating materials and storytelling to explain, animate and promote campaigns; digital storytelling experience a plus.
- Strong ability to work in a team and incorporate constructive and critical feedback.
- Strong commitment to racial and economic justice.
- Ability to work in a fast-paced, multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-class environment and build trust across difference. Ability to work with people of diverse backgrounds, taking into account technology access, economic privileges, and language.
- Willingness to fully contribute to the CCC and Together Colorado’s equity and inclusion practices.
Conditions of Position
- This is a full-time, temporary,, non-exempt independent contractor position.
- Candidate must be available for occasional evening and weekend work, as needed.
- Candidate must be able to drive and travel throughout the state, as needed.
- Candidate must be able to work remotely.
- Bi/Multi-lingual preferred but not required.
- Strong social media proficiency with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is required.
- Strong proficiency with the WordPress web-hosting platform.
- This position will be filled as soon as the appropriate candidate is found. The role is currently designed to sunset in July 2020. Compensation will be $30,000.
The CCC and Together Colorado are committed to diversity in their staffs.
TO APPLY: Please submit resume and a cover letter to Adrian Miller, Executive Director of the Colorado Council of Churches at staff@cochurches.org, and include “Faith Hub Coordinator” in the subject line. No phone calls please. Deadline to apply is December 16, 2019.
