Climate justice and Indigenous sovereignty, Fossil fuel divestment 

Hiring: Strategic Partnerships and Trainings Coordinator
Organization: Change Course
Location: remote, anywhere in Canada

Minor adjustments were made to this posting on Feb 19. Deadline extended to March 6th.

Change Course is a youth-led nonprofit based in so-called Canada. We support grassroots organizing on campuses and in communities, targeting fossil fuel funding banks, and advocating for climate justice and Indigenous Sovereignty. Together we are demanding an end to all financial support for the fossil fuel industry... changecourse.ca

About the Job

We are hiring a Strategic Partnership and Trainings Coordinator to design and implement a strategy that strengthens relationships between Change Course, local campus chapters, and strategic partners like labour unions, and other advocacy groups. The role additionally involves planning, researching, and developing training and public education work for grassroots groups (students and otherwise).

This position reports to the Executive Director, and will work closely with all members of our small team. The successful candidate will have a passion for climate justice and a clear understanding of how student-led and university organizing has the potential to lead to major systemic change. The successful candidate will have a thorough understanding of how constituencies other than students can play a key role in campus organizing, with a particular emphasis on workers and labour. Campus organizing is at the core of the work we do, as we seek to empower students and young people, to take on big targets, knowing they can win and make effective change.

As Strategic Partnership and Trainings Coordinator you’ll have the chance to:

• Work with and build on Change Course’s ongoing and successful campus organizing campaigns
• Establishment a new campaign area, designing and coordinating campaign work between workers and students advocating for just transition and decent work on campuses and beyond
• Connect with student organizers directly to design and facilitate trainings to support them with hard skills like action safety, as well as public political education
• Participate in a fast-paced network of NGO’s committed to moving big financial targets
• Work with a small, dedicated, and dynamic team

This role includes:

Strategic Partnerships

• Lead the development of a campaign intended to strengthen student and on-campus and public sector union collaboration for progressive power buildings
• Build relationships with key partners and facilitate advocacy in collaboration with multiple stakeholders
• Be the point of contact for Change Course with labour locals on campuses, workers, and organizations relating to non-student issues such as the Workers Action Centre
• Oversee the development of a Decent Work On Campus campaign, targeted at non-union workers
• Work to bring climate justice to labour organizing, and to bring labour solidarity and class consciousness to climate justice, by fostering relationships of reciprocity with workers on campuses
• Grow the institutional capacity and power of the ‘Banks Off Campus’ campaign, by organizing workers and labour locals to stand in solidarity and join student organizers pushing for banks to divest and respect Indigenous sovereignty, or get off our campuses

Training coordination

• Research movement history, and past and contemporary organizing structures and histories
• Stay attuned to the needs of student organizers, seizing opportunities to meet their challenges with additional resources and skills, ensuring the sustainability of our movement
• Work with the Campus Organizers to plan trainings, webinars, and public education offerings that support the broader campaign
• Develop trainings responsive to the needs of student groups and partners in the form of written resources, virtual, and in-person trainings and presentations
• Travel as needed to deliver key training or facilitate key events on campuses
• Develop public education events, recruiting and coordinating as needed with external speakers

Other areas

• Respond to rapid response solidarity moments
• Regularly attending weekly meetings
• Attending relevant trainings
• Participate in coalition spaces as needed

What we’re looking for in a candidate

We are looking for a young person with a commitment to climate and class justice, who is ready to dive into campus and labour organizing, and can take on every stage of the campaign development process. Our ideal candidate has experience developing and executing local campaigns to win, starting with strategy development, defining targets, and power mapping. We’re looking for someone who can confidently implement and execute a strategy, build an organizing base among workers and labour unions on campus, and use structure-based organizing to support our student climate justice organizing work.

Past experience or understanding of campus-specific organizing campaigns and contexts is an asset, as is experience with and relationships to labour organizing movements. The ideal candidate will be confident working independently on campaign strategy and development and working collaboratively with a team to execute campaign milestones, within our organizational mission. An ideal candidate will be familiar with Change Course’s campus campaigning work thus far, be personally dedicated to climate justice, Indigenous sovereignty and liberatory politics, and understand the role that financial institutions play in the ongoing climate crisis.

Desired qualifications:

These are ideal, but not all required – if you don’t have direct experience in any of these areas, feel free to let us know how other experiences have equipped you to succeed in those parts of the role

Skills & experience

• Demonstrated relevant campaign experience: in particular involving labour and climate justice *Priority given to campaign experience involving campuses and/or in labour
• Demonstrated strong research skills to support progressive campaigning
• Experience supporting and overseeing a volunteer base, responding to needs and giving direction as needed
• Experience with frontlines solidarity organizing
• Past experience training and coaching, formal or informal
• Experience creating and delivering trainings
• Facilitation experience
• Commitment to and experience talking to people who don’t agree with you, relationship building & deep canvassing
• Strategic planning and strategic campaigning, adapting to changing landscapes and demandsdemand. Demonstrated ability to design nimble winning campaigns.
• Familiarity with youth/campus organizing and the Canadian college and university campus landscape
• Ability to work remotely, self-motivated and directed, able to work with a team and also independently
• Ability to manage multiple competing priorities and tasks
• A driver’s license and access to a vehicle is not a requirement but is a valuable asset

Characteristics & attributes

• A passion for Change Course’s mission and work in the world
• Political alignment and a demonstrated commitment to the values underlying climate justice work, class solidarity, and Indigenous sovereignty
• A clear understanding of the intersections of these issues and how they connect to grassroots campus and labour organizing
• Understanding of the labour movement and its goals and priorities, and organizing practices
• Familiarity with the fossil fuel divestment movement and an understanding of the role finance plays in a just transition
• Working knowledge of climate, racial and/or economic justice issues and players in Canada and the U.S.
• Possession of strong organizational, interpersonal and communication skills
• Relationships within adjacent movement ecosystems ie climate justice, racial justice, labour or campus organizing
• Experience working with a remote team
• Ability to juggle multiple tasks and work with multiple local groups, while maintaining a coordinated overarching strategy
• Ability to thrive in a fast-moving, agile organization
• Priority given to applicants living in Canadian city centres outside of Ontario
• We are a youth-led organization, youth and recent graduates are encouraged to apply *Updated February 19, 2025

Application Information

Position Type: Full time employee
Application Deadline: March 6 2025
Position Start Date: April 2025, exact date to be determined with the successful candidate
Position End Date: This is a continuing position, subject to available funding
Compensation: CAD $63K annually, plus health benefits
Location: Remote work, some evenings and travel expected

Application Instructions

To apply, please send the following to Evelyn Austin, evelyn@changecourse.ca . Evelyn is also available to answer questions about the position and/or hiring process. 

Together with your resume, please forward a 1-page cover letter (300 words maximum) that includes your responses to the following questions:

1. How do you relate to the Change Course mission and principles (found here our website)?
2. What interests you most about this position?
3. How would your skills and experiences (personal and professional) translate into success in this position?

Please mention you saw this at GoodWork.ca. (optional – will help us evaluate our outreach efforts).

**Please include “Strategic Partnerships and Training Coordinator Application” as the email subject.

**Please include all your application materials in a single document, and save this document with the file name “[firstname]_[lastname]_application”.

Employment Equity: We believe our work is stronger when it benefits from the experience, knowledge and wisdom of people who have faced systemic barriers.People with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, members of racialized groups and members of other historically marginalized communities are encouraged to apply.

If you would like to be considered for employment equity please indicate this on your cover letter by including the statement “I would like to be considered for employment equity.” No further elaboration is necessary, but you are free to add more information if you would like. Where candidates don’t differ significantly in terms of other desired qualifications, priority will be given to those being considered for employment equity.

We are a youth-led organization of folks 30 or under, whose work is committed to peer mentorship of youth organizers. We are additionally committed to providing youth entry-level employment in the climate NGO sector. Therefore, youth candidates and recent graduates are encouraged to apply (must be over 18).

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We thank you for your interest in working with Change Course, and appreciate the effort required to apply for this position. All initial candidates will be contacted by March 10th, whether they are selected for an interview or not, but job posting will remain open until filled.