Senior Associate, External Engagement
$70,000–$80,000 year
HybridWashington, United States
Job Summary
Conduct policy analysis and advocacy by researching child welfare issues, drafting briefing documents, and monitoring state and federal legislative activities. Coordinate lived-experience engagement by managing participant outreach, scheduling, and compensation while ensuring ethical, trauma-responsive practices. Project manage communications, campaigns, and convenings by preparing agendas, facilitating events, and maintaining work plans and contact lists. Build relationships with congressional staffers and support coalition activities through detailed note-taking and strategic engagement. Apply AI tools responsibly to strengthen research synthesis and knowledge management, verifying all generated content.
Required Qualifications
- Demonstrated ability to engage with humility and self-awareness across differences in identity, background, and lived experience
- Experience applying an inclusive lens to policy analysis, systems-change, or community engagement work
- At least 2 years of demonstrated experience in public policy, political science, and/or advocacy
- Ideally including exposure to Capitol Hill or congressional staff relationships
- Knowledge of policy and issues related to children, youth, and families, child welfare, positive youth development, and systems change
- Experience working with or alongside systems that impact youth and families
- Deep commitment to learning about these systems with humility, curiosity, and care
- Motivated by impact and systems change
- Thrives in a fast-growing, evolving organization
- Sees change as an opportunity to innovate, learn, and make things better
- Actively explores and applies AI tools to make work more effective
- Willing to learn how to build simple AI tools to support team workflows
Desired Qualifications
- Lived expertise in foster care
- Excellent research, writing, and policy analysis skills
- Ability to accurately and concisely summarize complex information for a broad range of audiences
- Strong project management
- Demonstrated ability to see a project through
- Ability to hold themselves and others accountable to timelines and deliverables
- Resourcefulness
- Showing initiative to solve problems
- Being solution-oriented
- Following through to ensure tasks are completed
- Ability to facilitate discussions
- Ability to actively listen
- Including with people sharing lived experience
- Demonstrated history of handling multiple projects at a time
- Prioritizing duties
- Working independently
- Functioning as a member of a team
- Excellent writing skills
- Proofreading skills
- Oral communication skills
- Advanced proficiency with Google Suite
- Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Word
- Advanced proficiency with Excel
- Advanced proficiency with PowerPoint
- Experience with Asana
- Ability to effectively communicate and collaborate within a diverse community of partners
- Including policymakers
- Including congressional staff
- Including coalition members
- Including people with lived experience
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