Bay Area Community Director

Gather, Inc.’s Bay Area Community Director will be instrumental in launching and building a relational platform for young adult Jewish life in the Bay Area with a specific focus on the East Bay community. This director will be bringing a proven model to support the East Bay Jewish community, building a relational organization from the ground up and serve as the bridge between 20s and 30s and communal organizations seeking to build a stronger Jewish ecosystem.

We are looking for a strategic, enthusiastic people-person with 6-10 years of professional experience in the nonprofit, community-building, and/or Jewish community space and an intimate knowledge of the East Bay and larger Bay Area. We offer a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package.

TITLE: Bay Area Community Director
APPLICATION DEADLINE: Sunday May 8th, 2022 at 11:59pm PDT
SALARY: $90k–$110k
LOCATION: Oakland/Berkeley, California

Frequently cited statistics show that historical biases in hiring lead to less applications from women and underrepresented groups unless they have 100% of the qualifications. GatherDC is committed to removing bias in hiring; as such, we encourage you to break that statistic and apply. No one ever meets 100% of the qualifications! We look forward to your application.

WHO WE ARE:
Growing from the success of hyperlocal GatherDC’s relational engagement methodology, GatherBay is a new relational platform serving the 20s and 30s of East Bay’s Jewish community. Supported by the 8+ years of successful community engagement and ongoing on-the-ground learnings of GatherDC and the 20+ years of relational expertise in the team behind Gather, Inc., GatherBay is an exciting new project addressing the specific needs of the 20s and 30s East Bay Jewish community, helping them connect to Jewish life and access and cultivate meaningful Jewish identities.

WHO YOU ARE:
This Community Director is the first member of the Bay Area team, and will be absolutely integral in building a sustainable relational model to support 20s and 30s Jewish life and building a stronger and more interconnected East Bay Jewish community. Reporting to Gather, Inc.’s Chief of Staff but with full creative license and ownership of local strategy and interventions, the Community Director is a dynamic, creative, and emergent people person who is deeply familiar with the East Bay area and will help synthesize Gather, Inc.’s relational engagement model and apply it to the East Bay area’s hyperlocal needs based on their on-the-ground experiences and learnings. In building GatherBay, you will be key to helping hundreds of young adults connect to Jewish life, to each other, and to a more meaningful Jewish identity and shifting East Bay to a more relational Jewish ecosystem.

WHAT YOU’LL DO:
Organizational Leadership

• Set strategic direction and organizational priorities of a budding relational platform in the East Bay with support from Gather, Inc.
• Hire and manage Community Coordinator, Community Rabbi, and other team members needed for success as GatherBay grows.
• Cultivate and maintain a people-focused approach and culture in all organizational efforts.
• Oversee launch of the GatherBay brand via social media, newsletter, web platform (to be maintained by coordinator with assistance from Gather, Inc. as needed).
• Maintain full creative license of local engagement while supporting Gather, Inc. as an incubator, when appropriate.

Engagement Portfolio

• Form relationships with Jewish 20s/30s through one-on-one coffee dates and active participation in the wider Jewish DC community.
• Pilot relational experiences in the Bay area that directly address the barriers to Jewish life in the Bay Area.
• Host Gather’s leadership development fellowships and initiatives that train Jewish 20s/30s to become facilitators, conveners, and supporters of Jewish life for their peers.
• Launch and facilitate a monthly Jewish Professionals Collaborative, a cohort of Jewish professionals in the East Bay region.

Organizational Partnerships

• Conduct asset mapping of the current landscape of the East Bay Jewish community and its offerings and opportunities.
• Identify and cultivate relationships to be in active partnership with local individuals, organizations, and stakeholders in order to weave and deepen communal connectivity within the Bay Area Jewish ecosystem
• Manage and expand partnerships to support the continued growth of Gather’s East Bay platform and the larger Jewish community.
• Distinguish Gather in its local field through its unique value add and thought leadership.
• Represent Gather at community functions around the area.

Data & Administration

• Champion use of Salesforce CRM to build GatherBay as a data-driven relational organization that fully integrates data into the overall functioning of GatherBay.
• Complete regular data entry and analysis to track, evaluate, and evolve engagement efforts.
• Provide local reporting, metrics, and narratives for local funding work.
• Execute office tasks as needed, including logistical preparation for your events, sending life cycle gifts to community members, etc.

Liaise with Gather, Inc.

• Drive and nourish the ongoing iteration and deepening of the innovative core of Gather’s relational focus and methodology.
• Be in community with other Gather City Directors to build and explore collective learning about the implementation of Relationship-Based Engagement
• Learn and share out the larger trends emerging in the relational engagement field.
• Tell the story of Gather to Gather, Inc. through quantitative and qualitative metrics for the purpose of maintaining on-the-ground knowledge and mutual learning.
• Support Senior Development Director of Gather, Inc. in Bay Area stakeholder management.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• You have 6 to 10 years of full-time professional experience.
• You’re self-motivated, working equally well independently as well as part of a team.
• You’re comfortable working with senior management.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
You get the Gather methodology. Gather prioritizes people over programs and understands that cultivating genuine one-on-one relationships is the key to building connection, community, and meaning-making. You don’t need to come in knowing it all, but you’re able to shift your paradigm to our people-first philosophy and let that guide every aspect of your work.

You’ve got a strategic mindset. You’re able to zoom out of the daily grind and understand how the different components of the work fit together in the larger picture. You’re able to hold the macro and the micro simultaneously and are energized by the puzzle of how they all fit together, both in the present moment and in looking toward the future.

You’re a savvy connector. You are able to build and maintain strong relationships with peers and colleagues. You are able to bring genuine energy and enthusiasm to every interaction and relationship and are able to propel dynamic conversations to connect with anyone you meet.

You’re an independent self-starter. You are able to ideate and take action with minimal direction, and are highly motivated by successfully achieving your objectives. You’re comfortable with sitting in discomfort while you work through problems, and you’re able to move past roadblocks or difficulties to find alternative solutions to reach your goals.
You’re a nimble learner. You may not know everything, but you're able to learn what you need when you need it. You're able to learn and understand things quickly and easily, using both successes and failures as learning experiences. When faced with a challenge that calls for doing a task a different way, you dive in and try different ways until you land on the perfect solution.

You’re a strong communicator. You are comfortable using a broad range of communication styles and you choose appropriate, effective ways to communicate and connect to different audiences in diverse situations. You are able to adapt your tone and conversational style to suit the audience at hand.

PLEASE APPLY IF:

• You are excited to get in on the ground floor and fundamentally shape an exciting new project as it grows.
• You’re passionate about building and weaving communities.
• You enjoy change and creativity.
• You are an awesome human being.

BENEFITS & SALARY:

• We offer a competitive salary ranging from $90,000–$110,000, commensurate with experience and location.
• We provide amazing benefits, including robust employer-sponsored healthcare options, generous discretionary and sick leave, retirement matching, an annual professional development stipend, and more.
• We are fully set up for remote work and are ready to set you up with a comfy home base for when you’re not out and about in the community!

WHAT TO EXPECT:
We know the job application process is never a walk in the park, but we try to make our hiring process as transparent and painless as possible. While we cannot have a conversation with every applicant, we commit to reaching out to every single person who crosses our screen to let them know where they stand in the process within a timely manner (this usually looks like one business week). We recognize the time and effort it takes to prepare and submit this application, and we appreciate your consideration of this role.

For everyone looking for a peek behind the curtain, here’s what our general process will look like:

April: Role is live and accepting applications through May 8th.
May: Candidates with applicable experience will have a 15-minute phone call with Gather, Inc.’s internal screener.
May/Early June: Candidates who advance to the interview stage will have a 60-minute Zoom conversation with the Chief of Staff.
Early/Mid-June: Candidates who advance to the second stage will have a final interview with Gather, Inc. CEO and Chief of Staff (potentially full-day in-person interviews; we’ll fly out to you!). Hiring Manager will check references.
Late June: Offer will be extended!
August 1: First Day!

Feel like a long process? We know. It does to us too. Gather is observing the shmita year with a two-week break in July, and we are closing up shop at 5pm on July 1 to give our staff some well-deserved rest. We promise we’re working as hard as we can to move through this process as quickly as we can while giving both your applications & our staff’s energies the time and attention they deserve—and that when you join us, we’re totally ready to get you up to speed and ready to rock.

So, you’ve made it to the bottom. Ready to apply!?!

Please submit your resume and cover letter at https://www.tfaforms.com/4979391; we are unable to accept applications via email at this time. Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis through May 8.

We deeply value the diversity of insight, perspective, and experience brought by people from backgrounds typically underrepresented in Jewish organizations. This includes Black, Latinx, and Asian people, Black Jews, Jews of Color, Sephardi and Mizrachi Jews, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, gender non-conforming people, and people with disabilities. We also welcome applications from people of diverse religious, spiritual, and cultural backgrounds.