Community Engagement Manager

Description

Position: Community Engagement Manager

Department: Strategic Initiative – Sex Trafficking

FLSA Status: Full-time, Exempt

Reports to: Director, Strategic Initiative – Sex Trafficking

Direct Reports: None

Date Issued: June 5, 2020

Date Revised: N/A

Location: Washington, DC

About Program

Named after the North Star, an historical symbol of freedom, Polaris works to reshape the systems that make sex and labor trafficking possible and profitable in North America. For more than a decade, Polaris has assisted thousands of victims and survivors through the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline and built the largest known U.S. data set on the crime. With the guidance of survivors, and working with public and private-sector partners, we use that data to understand and improve the way trafficking is identified, how victims and survivors are assisted, and how we can prevent this abuse at the scale of the problem - 25 million people worldwide robbed of the basic right to choose how they live and work.

About the Opportunity

This position is part of the Strategic Initiative on Sex Trafficking and reports to the Strategic Initiative Director. Trafficking is an outcome of broken systems that fail to protect vulnerable people. Polaris seeks to strengthen a broad set of preventative supports for vulnerable communities and exit ramps for victims to decrease the likelihood and duration of sex trafficking. The Community Engagement Manager is responsible for managing a multi-city engagement strategy to align trafficking prevention efforts with other social change movements. This person will develop and execute an implementation plan to engage community stakeholders in building local strategies to prevent sex trafficking. This will include identifying critical relationships needed in selected communities nationwide to achieve the focused, broadly will be the key point of contact between community leaders in focus cities and the Polaris strategic initiative team.  S/he will collaborate closely with colleagues on the Public Policy and Strategic Advocacy team to coordinate efforts.The ideal candidate is comfortable in an extremely fast-paced and dynamic environment and is a self-starter who has excellent attention to detail and organizational skills as well as a drive to excel. The Engagement Manager is an effective communicator, can build relationships with ease, is passionate about the fight to eradicate human trafficking, and has a demonstrated ability to work independently and as part of a group. This position is contingent on continued funding availability.

Responsibilities

? Developing Polaris issue expertise on local preventative social services for at-risk individuals, victims, and survivors that could address the vulnerabilities making individuals susceptible to exploitation

? Working closely with Polaris’s Survivor Empowerment Initiative, support local efforts to bring survivor voices into discussions around goals for preventative social services

? Working to collect input from locally-based anti-trafficking organizations and survivor leaders on needed preventative support for those at risk of trafficking

? Meeting with community groups, faith leaders, researchers, social service organizations, and organizations serving vulnerable populations to integrate trafficking prevention as a priority in social change movements

? Coordinating with internal National Human Trafficking Hotline staff to connect service provider responders with aligned social movement organizations

? Commitment to the National Human Trafficking Hotline mission and Polaris values; 

? Other duties as assigned by supervisor. 

This job description provides a summary of the major duties and responsibilities performed by individuals in this position.  Incumbents may be asked to perform other tasks not specifically written in this job.

Requirements

• Minimum four years of professional work experience leading community change efforts and managing coalition among social change actors, including government agencies, advocacy organizations, community groups, service providers and other NGOs;
• Previous experience working on state- or federal-level community organizing and movement building efforts;
• Positive and energetic attitude with ability to work independently as well as in a collaborative team environment across multiple programs and departments;
• Excellent interpersonal and verbal communication skills with a strong focus on direct and open communication and regular feedback;
• Ability to work well under pressure, maintain composure during stressful situations and handle shifting/multiple priorities to identify and prioritize the most strategic and pressing projects;
• Experience working in multicultural environments and serving diverse constituents.

Preferred Qualifications

? Candidates having lived experience with human trafficking strongly preferred.

Communication (“External” Changes based upon position)

• Internal: Ability to communicate with supervisors and peers;

• External:  Ability to respond quickly and calmly in urgent situations. Frequent contact with community leaders, service providers, and government agencies

Working Conditions

• Typical office setting

• Up to 15% per month domestic travel to meet with community stakeholders

Physical Requirements (can change with position)

• Prolonged sitting, chiefly at a computer terminal;

Values Statement

The work of Polaris is grounded in a set of values and organizational beliefs that provide a common starting point for all of our activities. At Polaris, we look for talented individuals who are passionate about combating all forms of human trafficking and who will strive to embody and model these values within the Polaris community and in the anti-trafficking field. Please take a moment to make yourself familiar with these values and our mission statement before submitting your application. You can find a full description of our values here. 

Diversity Statement

Polaris designs and implements data-driven strategies to prevent and disrupt human trafficking, and restore freedom to survivors.  Achieving this ambitious goal requires both trafficking-specific systemic interventions and broader cultural and structural shifts that reduce the inequities that lead to human trafficking. While Polaris alone cannot build a more diverse, just, equitable, and inclusive society, both the success of our work and our organizational values require modeling in the workplace the change we want to see in the world.

This means cultivating a workforce, organizational culture, and priorities that respect and celebrate a dynamic, multi-disciplinary team made up of individuals with different identities, lived experiences, and backgrounds. Within both our team and across every part of our work, we strive to integrate and elevate the full range of survivor voices.

This is a living commitment.  Diversity, equity, and inclusion are values to be manifested daily, in the work we do, the decisions we make, and the way that we treat each other and the people we seek to serve.  This means creating space where staff can be included, heard, valued, and set up for success, and where everyone feels empowered to bring their full, best selves to work. We will not check boxes and consider it done. We will push new innovations and different ways of thinking, and treasure the community built and strengthened by each of our contributions.