Manager of Community Engagement

Reporting to the Engagement & Construction Director (ECD), the Community Engagement Manager is responsible for all new food forest pipeline development. The Manager will help build community relationships across Boston to support neighbors in organizing, designing, and building food forest public parks, thus increasing equitable access to healthy open space across the city. The Manager will also support the ECD to manage successful building of new food forests, from creating new food forest stewardship teams, to measurement and knowledge building, to strategy and systems development.

BFFC is in an entrepreneurial stage of learning and growth in a cutting-edge field, with clear priorities centering diversity, equity, and inclusion. This requires all staff to think creatively, collaboratively, and with an action mindset.

Responsibilities

Community Organizing + Engagement–  Create and implement the strategy for BFFC’s community engagement, which includes:

• Create meaningful relationships with neighborhood stewards, funding partners, grassroots organizations, and  electeds for shoulder-to-shoulder food forest building.
• Actively manage a pipeline of potential new food forest projects supporting them from first contact through grand opening, with a heavy focus on relationship building.
• Attend community events every week such as neighborhood association meetings to build the pipeline for potential new food forests.
• Create a model for targeted, differentiated approaches to bolster community engagement and coalition building that prioritizes increasing parkland equity across Boston.
• Create & update materials for sharing the BFFC mission, process for Food Forest (FF) design & construction and land trust/land ownership to share with stakeholders.
• Build new stewardship teams with neighbors which requires persistence and relationship building skills 
  • Actively engage stewards and neighbors in the build process (e.g., tree planting day) in collaboration with the contractor.
  • Shepherd new stewardship team until the site is complete and handed off to BFFC’s Education Manager.
• Plan food forest tours and presentations for neighbors to increase their engagement.
• Coordinating with BFFC’s Communications and Fundraising team on ground breakings & grand openings.
• Train the internal team on community engagement plan and approach.

Food Forest Strategy + Institutional Knowledge- Support research of food forest development to position BFFC on the forefront of climate adaptability, and document and share this knowledge effectively.

• Monitor and report regularly on the progress of community engagement and new food forest construction through dashboards and other tools (e.g., pipeline contacts, demographics, key mapping information around environmental justice and climate resilience).
• Proactively elicit and incorporate feedback from various stakeholders for learning, inclusion, and improvement.
• Create analyses & other presentation materials to present to the board and senior members of the BFFC team for learning, improvement, and future forecasting. 
• Materials Library
• Create a library of sustainable construction materials.
• Create a sustainable plant palette for BFFC and advocacy for FFs.
• Create tools for effective community engagement & stewardship team building.

Education integration – partner with the Education & Food Forest Care Manager to design and deliver educational workshops and work days that support stewardship team and neighborhood engagement in the food forest building process.

• Create approaches and modules to community engagement with related materials.

Qualifications

• At least 5 years of professional experience with demonstrated success in community organizing.
• Tangible experience successfully guiding community design projects and/or multi-stakeholder construction projects from start to end.
• Tangible experience with public speaking and presenting to various audiences.

• Exceptional organizational skills and capacity to prioritize and manage time well, with strong attention to detail.
• Experience proactively communicating goals and updates, and eliciting input from various stakeholders.
• Knowledge in the field of permaculture, ecological agriculture, or food forests is ideal.
• Willingness to travel across Boston to community meetings, etc is required.
• Familiar with using web browsers and Google suite tools (Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets), or similar with willingness to learn Google suite.
• Knowledge of Boston’s neighborhoods and urban agriculture sector is a plus!
• Familiarity using Monday.com is a plus!

Skills

• Demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Ability to manage an annual food forest community engagement strategy using an inclusive, multi-stakeholder process.
• Ability to assess and package food forest community engagement data and trends for organizational budgeting and decision-making.

• Action-oriented with a flexible and adaptable style.
• Ability to work as a self-starter without oversight, and as a team player who productively engages with others within and outside the organization.
• Ability and desire to learn and grow in new situations and from mistakes; actively integrates feedback to improve.

Benefits*

• Salary: $70,800
• Health Insurance
• 40 days Personal Time Off annually (includes: holidays, sick days, and vacation)
• Retirement match
• Professional development stipend
• Cell phone and laptop stipend 
• Travel stipend

Location

• This is a Boston, Massachusetts-based position that will require frequent travel between Boston neighborhoods.
• The position will include a mix of in-person and virtual/remote work, with significant time spent meeting with community members and managing on-site food forest construction, which will include weekly nights and weekends (e.g., guiding a neighborhood food forest construction day on a Saturday, attending a City budget approval meeting on a Thursday night, meeting with a neighborhood association on a Tuesday evening). 
• BFFC is committed to sustainability and supports staff in taking time off to balance evening and weekend hours.
• We ask all staff to abide by COVID-19 guidance set by the City of Boston.

Apply

• Please submit an application through this link.
• We will begin to review applications on May 13 and will accept applications on a rolling basis until the position is filled.
• We will review all submissions, identify viable candidates, and contact only those individuals selected to continue in the search process.

Boston Food Forest Coalition is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We actively seek a diverse pool of candidates for this position.