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About Purpose

Purpose is a revolutionary social business with deep expertise in creating and scaling movements that have significant social impact. Purpose grew out of some of the most impactful new models for social change—the internationally recognized social movement GetUp! and the nearly 40 million-strong action network Avaaz.org. Purpose has launched significant new movement organizations or new platforms to address LGBT human rights globally, gun violence in the United States, the crisis in Syria, and corruption in emerging economies, among others. Its work combines emerging technology with key insights from political organizing, behavioral economics, brand strategy, business strategy, and visual and interaction design. 

Climate Initiative Overview

Purpose is developing a major new public mobilization initiative on climate change. The initiative will support ambitious and high-risk, high-reward campaigning on climate at the global level and in leading emissions countries.

This effort has the potential to be one of the most impactful public mobilization efforts on climate in the next 2-3 years, with significant resources to succeed, a focus on experimentation, and few institutional constraints. The goal is to build and support campaigns in key geographies and to drive global progress in the next 2-3 years either through policy changes in key emissions countries or at the international level or through material shifts in consumer and business behavior.

This initiative is not intended to create a new permanent climate campaigning organization. Rather, it is designed to bring together the world’s best campaigners, creatives, tech/data folk, and political strategists during a critical window for action. This team will launch new campaigns designed to reach new constituencies and test new strategies that could make a real difference and accelerate promising existing work that could be transformative if at scale. Purpose will seek to partner with the best existing groups to make the sector as a whole more effective.

Head of Climate Position

Purpose is looking for an ambitious, bold leader who can develop and deploy a comprehensive strategy to dramatically expand the global climate movement through the power of grassroots organizing, technology, and new forms of storytelling.

At a critical moment in history for this issue and a time when the global climate movement needs urgent revitalization, this is a rare opportunity for a senior-level leader who can think beyond the existing framework of climate advocacy to identify new opportunities for impact. This person will lead a multidisciplinary team of expert strategists, creatives, and technologists that will rapidly prototype new campaigns and interventions.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team to build, prototype and launch new online and offline campaigns on climate and accelerate the most promising existing efforts
• Lead in developing and constantly refining Purpose’s model of acceleration and creation: “How do we assess which projects are the most impactful?  How do we create quantum and not just incremental change?”
•  Build and collaborate with a working group of experts from leading advocacy, business, and policy organizations around the world to support this work
• Manage a transnational team, likely to include team members in the US, EU, India, and Brazil
• Develop a climate policy framework for this initiative that identifies tangible real world opportunities to reduce climate emissions
• Oversee the partner outreach process and identify engagement opportunities for campaign collaboration as well as new initiatives to drive that align with the climate policy framework
• Help develop and oversee a monitoring and evaluation system that tracks KPIs and connects campaign outputs to real world impact
• Maintain relationship with key funders and steering committee and lead additional fundraising efforts

Qualifications:

• At least 10 years of experience that includes some combination of:
  • Digital campaigning/organizing
  • Campaigning across channels, including earned and paid media and direct action
  • Significant management and team-building experience, ideally in the campaigning context
  • Some experience in the climate change space is strongly preferred, but Purpose is open to candidates with a strong and nuanced point of view on how to reinvigorate the climate movement and significant experience on other major global issues
• Knowledge of the global climate landscape, including a well-developed perspective on opportunities for new/accelerated campaigns
• Experience running iterative, agile, and/or lean campaigns that emphasize experimentation and scaling of success, ideally within a technology context
• Experience developing monitoring and evaluation systems for issue advocacy programs
• Experience running global or multi-country campaigns, including managing a team in multiple countries  
• Track record of established relationships with key climate advocacy groups, including experience working in partnership
• Background in political advocacy, organizing, digital activism, public policy, or related field
• Experience managing large-scale digital projects from concept through execution
• Excellent writing and communication skills
• Knowledge and execution of best practices in online organizing, including large-budget creative campaign development
• A keen understanding of growth and list-building tactics and a successful and verifiable track record of building an engaged following
• Able to combine high-level strategy and analytical thinking with tactical creativity and flair
• Experience with large-scale fundraising
• Highly collaborative, principled and a delight to work with