Job Posting

We are excited to continue the great work Georgia Strait has been doing in the communities of the Salish Sea by hiring a new Biodiversity Campaigner. For more than 30 years, Georgia Strait Alliance (GSA) has played a leading role in bringing communities together to address the many threats to the Salish Sea. Our strategic focus at GSA is to build community power through collaboration, environmental justice, and connecting individuals to this ecologically and culturally important body of water. We are looking for someone who is deeply committed to the vision laid out in GSA’s strategic plan who will play an important role in our environmental justice journey.

Position: Biodiversity Campaigner

Compensation: $52,500 to 54,500 per year

Location: The position can work in our Vancouver office on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) people (known as Vancouver) or work remotely from a home office on the South Coast of BC. Note that organizational and program travel will be required at times.

Other benefits of working with Georgia Strait Alliance:

• Full time work environment built around a 4 day work week (34 hours)
• Work in a hybrid work environment that allows you to choose the work-from-home/in-office combination that best suits you and your work.
• Flexible work schedule beyond core organizational commitments
• Our vacation entitlement starts at 3 weeks, increasing to 4 weeks after 3 years and 5 weeks after 8 years
• Support your physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing, and caregiving responsibilities by taking advantage of our 5 flexible personal days annually.
• We offer an extended health, vision, and dental benefits package, which includes life insurance and long-term disability
• A completely free and confidential employee and family assistance program (EFAP) to assist with counseling, financial advice, nutrition, addiction, childcare arrangements and more.
• Invest in your growth with $500 professional development support for training

Preferred start date: as soon as possible

About the position

The Biodiversity Campaigner plays an integral role at GSA by helping to illustrate how protecting and increasing the biodiversity of the Salish Sea ecosystem is essential to fostering a sustainable, livable, and prosperous future, and advocating for this just future. Reporting directly to the Campaigns Manager, the Biodiversity Campaigner will be responsible for building compelling stories around key aspects of this ecological system (such as the endangered Southern Resident orcas), drawing important connections within and between these narrative arcs, and advancing robust and creative strategies and action plans that will affect real change. This position will play a pivotal role in powerful marine-based conservation advocacy, building strong and diverse alliances with Indigenous and settler-led organizations and movements, influencing and guiding innovative new policy, and making space for and helping to support Indigenous-led conservation efforts.

This work involves independent and collaborative strategic planning, with frequent meetings and gatherings, and creating different ways to mobilize the community. You will work independently, as well as with stakeholders and changemakers around the Salish Sea and be an advocate for species at risk and habitat protection, among other emerging priorities. You’ll need to stay up to date on evolving current events and relevant research as it relates to your campaigns, and be able to communicate their significance through various mediums. The work can be fast paced as advocacy campaigns can be very dynamic.

You will succeed in this role if you are excited to stand up for local communities, build resilient networks of people-powered advocacy, and help us move the needle of environmental justice forward. This role requires excellent collaboration; the ability to understand the nexus between policy, politics, and ecology; and a strong competency in moving back and forth between the micro and the macro, including integrating different knowledge systems into our advocacy work.

Experience and Qualifications

We understand that not all experience looks the same, and encourage applicants to share how their experiences relate to the qualities below:

• Post-secondary education in marine conservation, social sciences, policy, and/or a deep understanding of marine biology, ecology, and marine conservation, preferably as it pertains to the Salish Sea
• Experience with strategic campaign planning, implementation and creative use of tactics, as well as monitoring
• Planning and project management experience, in particular managing more than one project at the same time
• Excellent writing skills and verbal communication, as well as having a keen eye for compelling narrative hooks
• Experience with community engagement as well as working with Indigenous, federal, and/or provincial levels of government towards specific outcomes
• Familiarity with grassroots organizing principles and methodologies
• Strong grounding in environmental and social justice, intersectionality, and Indigenous rights

It would also be helpful if you have any of the following skills, qualifications, or equivalent experiences, though they are by no means required:

• Experience working and collaborating within the non-profit sector, ideally with conservation and/or environmental organizations
• Experience using project management tools/software
• Familiarity with fundraising in the context of ENGOs

Georgia Strait Alliance is strongly committed to equity, diversity, anti-racism, and to being a welcoming and inclusive workplace (see our JEDI commitment). Like many organizations, we are learning the ways we have benefited from and perpetuated white supremacy culture and colonialism in our sector and our organization. We are committed to and are continuing our journey of learning and unlearning, transforming into a more just, equitable, and inclusive organization and bringing that lens to all of our work.

As a primarily settler-led organization, we are committed to change, to recognizing our responsibility to challenge and address harmful patterns in our work, and create a more diverse and equitable organization. We are committed to ensuring that our mission is one that is inclusive of all communities and people, and we look forward to the Biodiversity Campaigner joining us on this ongoing journey and bringing their unique perspective to our team.

We encourage applications from Indigenous persons, members of racialized communities, women, persons with disabilities, people of all sexual orientations and genders, and others with the skills and knowledge to productively engage with diverse communities to advance the mission of GSA. GSA strives to ensure that our online application system and recruitment process is equitable for everyone, and so we invite you to please let us know what would make this process accessible for you. If at any point during the application and/or recruitment process you would like to chat about how we can make things more accessible, please do not hesitate to reach out to russ elliott at russ@georgiastrait.org.

About Georgia Strait Alliance

GSA focuses on the health of the marine environment of the entire region of the Strait of Georgia (the northern arm of the Salish Sea). Grounded in environmental justice, Georgia Strait Alliance mobilizes and supports collective action to protect the Salish Sea region. We do this by:

●      Building and activating community power through relationship development and capacity building;

●      Fostering systems transformation by advocating for community-led initiatives;

●      Connecting people and place through engagement and awareness building; and,

●      Strengthening organizational health and equity by creating a supportive and safe working environment

Our values of collaboration, caring, courage, accountability, and interconnectedness guide us as we work toward our vision, and the spirit of ‘alliances’ that our founders nurtured is still present within GSA and in the way we work to protect this region.

 

Application process

We are accepting applications until June 21, 2024. Please submit a resume and cover letter, as well as answer a few questions upon application, including information about yourself, your lived experience, or anything else that you feel is important for this application using this online platform: https://georgiastraitalliance.applytojobs.ca/program/30567

You will be advised on whether you have been selected to move onto the next stage of this hiring process shortly after the deadline has closed. After this, we will ask you to complete an assignment (with financial compensation). After reviewing the assignment, we will invite you for interviews, should you advance to that stage. The panel interview (3 people) will be conducted by zoom and you will receive the core interview questions in advance. You will be advised in advance of any changes to the interview process.

If you have any questions about the job posting, please contact russ elliott at russ@georgiastrait.org