Director, Alberta Poverty Reduction Strategy

Tamarack Institute's

3d • $95,000 - $110,000 • Remote

About The Position

Tamarack is seeking a 1–2-year contract full-time position of Director, Alberta Poverty Reduction Strategy. The successful candidate can be based anywhere in Alberta, Canada and will work remotely from their home office with the ability to travel throughout the province on a regular basis. Tamarack catalyzes collective action with diverse leaders to solve major community challenges including ending poverty, building youth futures, building belonging, and addressing climate change. Our vision is to build a connected force for community change. Through our Networks for Change, we support changemakers focused on four outcomes. Communities Ending Poverty: A network and movement dedicated to ending poverty in Canada, made up of more than 400 municipalities and represented by 90 regional roundtables. Communities Building Belonging: Strengthening neighbourhoods and ending social isolation and polarization in Canada. We are a network of 8000+ learners and growing, helping communities to build belonging and thrive. Communities Building Youth Futures: A youth-led and youth-centered network of 20 communities across Turtle Island that supports the creation of new pathways from high school to post-secondary, training, employment, and community leadership opportunities. Community Climate Transitions: A movement of 35+ collaboratives across 10 provinces and one US state that are advancing local climate action and equity through multi-sectoral partnerships and approaches that centre residents and the community. Our Skills for Change initiative supports changemakers by transforming community-developed knowledge and success stories into practical tools and skill-building resources. These resources advance the five interconnected practices of community change. Since its founding, Tamarack has sought to center those with lived and living experience of poverty in its work. More recently, in the Tamarack 2030 Plan, we committed to interrupting the roles that racism, colonialization, and xenophobia play in communities in Canada. At Tamarack, our goal is an end to poverty in all of its forms. In 2020, we set a goal to contribute to two million people exiting conditions of poverty, and not just economic poverty but the poverty of our disconnection from each other and from other living things around us. Nearly twenty-five years of work with communities has shown us that rigorous local collaboration can move outcomes not just for some people – but for entire communities. It has shown us that rigorous local collaboration is a key component of any form of systems change. How we work Community Connections: We strengthen connections and collaborations between diverse people, organizations and sectors to grow and align our capacity to make a difference. We convene spaces where people can develop the skills and networks needed for authentic collaboration, community engagement, and participatory approaches. Place Matters: We focus our efforts on places where people live, supporting local place-based collaboration that is focused on addressing the root cause of community-defined components of poverty. Equity and Inclusion: We engage and elevate the voice of those most impacted by issues who have the greatest insight into possible solutions. Courage and Learning: We ask difficult questions about the systems and structures which hold people and communities back and engage in peer-to-peer learning to build our capacity. Systems Change: We organize the thousands of changemakers and the hundreds of place-based collaboratives with which we work to change the policies, narratives and other systems that hold poverty in place. Hope and Optimism: We focus on the possible and our collective potential for making positive change. Action and Impact: We emphasize action and focus on impact. This is an exciting opportunity to support communities and partners across Alberta to make meaningful change to reduce and end poverty in Alberta. Grounded in a deep understanding of movement building, the political landscape in Alberta and poverty reduction efforts, this role will connect individuals and collective efforts dedicated to ending poverty in Alberta. The Director, Alberta Poverty Reduction Strategy is a 1-2-year contract position responsible for stewarding a campaign for a legislated poverty reduction strategy in the Province of Alberta. You will work with communities and partners to develop and implement strategies to make the case for a strong poverty reduction strategy centering the power of local communities to achieve impact. You will work with Tamarack’s member community, partners across the province, and funders to refine, implement and improve a province wide campaign to meaningfully move the needle on poverty.

Requirements

• Deep leadership in partnership development, field building, and project management
• Ability to operate with clarity and confidence in complex multi-partner environments
• Strong commitment to ending poverty, systems perspective, and experience mobilizing people and collaboratives
• Professional experience in strategic partnership development and field/ecosystem building within the nonprofit, philanthropic, community, and public policy sectors.
• Past work experience in Alberta’s community and/or poverty reduction sectors
• Proven ability to apply systems thinking and strategic perspectives to campaign development and movement building
• Experience working with elected officials, senior civil servants, philanthropists, and community leaders
• Strong diagnostic, sensemaking and communication skills; this role involves developing strategic narratives, messages, and knowledge products that engage funders, partners, and broader audiences
• Demonstrated commitment to equity, reconciliation, and community-centred approaches, including experience centering community voice in strategy, partnerships, or knowledge creation
• Comfort working with autonomy in making operational decisions in a remote, distributed organization
• Willingness/ability to travel on a regular basis.
• Ability to speak and write in English is required.
• Comfort working at the intersection of strategy and implementation, with the ability to move between big-picture framing and practical next steps
• Demonstrated commitment to collaboration, transparency, and shared ownership, including experience sharing work-in-progress, learning, data, and credit with partners, communities, and collaborators across sectors.

Nice To Haves

• Bilingualism (English and French) is a definite asset.

Responsibilities

• Refine and implement a campaign for an Alberta poverty reduction strategy
• Review, refine, and lead implementation an existing campaign work plan
• Meet with key system actors in Alberta to review the proposed campaign and refine activities based on feedback and insights
• Regularly review the campaign document with partners and refine activities as needed to achieve success
• Prepare briefs outlining public policy opportunities in Alberta
• Steward relationships with key partners and system actors
• Work with Tamarack staff and partner to refine and implement a governance structure to unite partners across sectors to implement that campaign for an Alberta Poverty Reduction Strategy
• Coordinate and co-facilitate a funder collaborative / stewardship council dedicated to ending poverty in Alberta
• Convene key system actors working to end poverty in Alberta to build movement towards a provincial poverty reduction strategy
• Meet with key decision makers in government, business, philanthropy, and civil society to create and make the case for poverty reduction efforts in Alberta
• Develop and cultivate strategic relationships with municipal and provincial agencies to advance Tamarack’s policy agenda
• Support the development of proposals, reports, and other cultivation and stewardship materials for project funders
• Build a movement of place-based strategies working to end poverty in Alberta
• Build the capacity of communities in Alberta to develop and implement multi-sectoral place-based strategies to end poverty
• Work with the Manager of Communities, Alberta to provide expert coaching and support for Tamarack members
• Work with the Coordinator, Networks for Change, Alberta to prospect and engage communities ready and interested in developing and implementing place-based strategies for ending poverty
• Support the development of internal and external policy resources including letters, briefs, consultation responses and reports
• Contribute to Tamarack's Seeds of Transformation Framework and Action Plan by embedding our commitments to Equity, Anti-Racism, and Reconciliation into everyday work, using framework tools, and collaborating with colleagues and network members to advance this action.
• Apply a strong understanding of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action.
• Ensure that rural and remote communities across the province - including Francophone communities - have meaningful and ongoing roles in the strategy’s development.

Benefits

• Annual professional development fund
• Technology fund
• Flex time
• Focus Fridays - one day per week where we are encouraged to take only critical meetings.
• Paid time off includes the flexible option to take three (3) statutory holidays on days that hold meaning to you.
• Offices close the last week of December.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed