Campaign Staff Positions with Puget Sound Sage

JOB ANNOUNCEMENT: Campaign Staff Positions with Puget Sound Sage


Puget Sound Sage is a regional alliance of labor, community, and faith organizations, dedicated to building a powerful movement for economic justice. We use research, policy advocacy, community organizing and coalition-building to make the regional economy work for working people. Sage is a member of the national Partnership for Working Families, a network of economic justice organizations working to transform the nation’s urban agenda.

Sage is seeking 1-2 talented people in 2010 to join our dedicated team. We seek people with a strong and demonstrated commitment to economic, racial and environmental justice work, and three to ten years of experience in non-profit advocacy or union work. Roles needed on staff include research/policy analysis and organizing/politica l work, ranging from campaign support to campaign direction.

Sage’s current campaigns include Clean and Safe Ports, Green Jobs, and Transit and TOD Justice. See attached summary of campaigns or Sage’s website, www.pugetsoundsage. org, for more details.

Research/Policy Analysis Focus

· Provide research support for Sage’s campaigns for worker rights and environmental justice.

· Methods include investigative research, policy analysis, spreadsheet analysis, interviews and surveys. Work products include reports, policy briefs, testimony, presentations and memos.

· Provide research for and help craft policy solutions in all issue areas.

· Candidates for research/policy work should have a minimum three years relevant experience; comparable experience considered, such as journalism or legal. Must have strong investigative research, writing and communication skills and basic quantitative skills (experience with MS Excel).

· Masters in public policy, urban planning, health or similar preferred. Bachelor’s degree required.


Organizing/Politica l Focus
· Organize and support coalition members, including labor, community, environmental, immigrant and faith organizations, to participate in Sage’s grassroots campaigns.

· Organize and support Sage’s issue campaign efforts, including planning, strategy, communications, recruitment/ leadership development, community organizing, policy advocacy, staff training and supervision, public events and actions.

· Candidates for Organizing/Advocacy work should have a minimum three years relevant experience. Candidate must have strong demonstrable written and verbal communication skills. Bachelor’s degree required, urban planning, social science or similar degree preferred.


Candidates must be willing to work long and irregular hours as required by campaign needs.

The position(s) is open until filled and starts immediately. Sage offers a competitive salary, depending on experience. Excellent benefits package, including employer paid health, dental and vision insurance, retirement and paid time off. Email cover letter and resume to: David West at dwest[at]pugetsound sage.org, or mail to:

Puget Sound Sage, Attn: Search Committee

1032 S. Jackson St. #203

Seattle , WA 98104 .


Puget Sound Sage – Current Work 2010


Green Jobs - Sage is working to create “pathways out of poverty” in the emerging green economy. Our vision is to create thousands of quality jobs in the region that provide career opportunities for low-income people of color, with an emphasis on careers starting in residential weatherization. Our partners include community groups engaging youth and communities of color in the emerging green economy, labor organizations training the new weatherization workforce and environmental groups fighting to expand energy efficiency investment. Our coalition continues to grow and recently, Sage negotiated a pioneering agreement with the City of Seattle to reserve three-quarters of new jobs created by the City’s weatherization program to graduates of training programs serving low-income residents. We are working to expand the green jobs pipeline model to other weatherization programs in Seattle and in the region the coming year.


Campaign for Clean and Safe Ports

Puget Sound Sage is a key member of the Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports, an alliance of environmental, labor, faith, and community organizations that promotes sustainable economic development at American ports. In Seattle , the CCSP works to fix the broken port trucking system, which currently consists of some 1,500 old, rundown diesel trucks moving thousands of cargo containers from the Port of Seattle ’s docks to regional warehouses and rail yards every day, spewing pollution into neighborhoods, schools and offices. The port trucking industry falls short both in terms of workers’ rights, with poor working conditions and low wages, and public health—diesel pollution at ports is associated with high rates of cancer and asthma. Further, port truck drivers are exposed to toxic diesel emissions as their trucks idle while they wait for their next load.


Related to Sage’s campaign to achieve reform at the Port of Seattle , Sage is part of a national campaign to pass federal legislation granting ports the authority to regulate Port trucking through safety, environmental and employment standards.


Transit and TOD Equity

Sage recently began an effort to address transit equity issues in the Seattle area. Transit equity issues include access to transit, access to transit construction, operation and maintenance jobs, and equity impacts of transit-oriented development (TOD) on affordable housing and permanent job quality. In Seattle, transit equity issues include recent transit service re-alignments in southeast Seattle, possible reductions in bus service in south Seattle as new streetcars go into service around downtown Seattle, regional transit funding distribution formulas, impacts of further projected federal cuts in transit funding, impacts of TOD on affordable housing in Rainier Valley, access to transit construction, operation and maintenance jobs in both current and proposed light rail operations, and permanent job quality in new development near existing and planned light rail/streetcar operations. Pending national transit reauthorization legislation will have impacts on regional transit equity issues.


In all issue areas, Sage is developing Civic Leadership Institutes to train community and labor activists on public policy issues, power analysis, and skills development.




Sage is an affirmative action employer, and strongly supports the social goals of affirmative action. We therefore make special efforts to recruit individuals from groups that are historically under-represented in professional environments, or that suffer from broader societal discrimination.