Director of Power Building

About The Equity Alliance

The Equity Alliance is a six-entity Black-led civic and political infrastructure network operating across Tennessee, building independent Black political and economic power from the ground up. Founded in 2016 by six Black women, TEA runs regional organizing hubs across the state and works at every level of power building. We meet needs, build trust, create belonging, and move people into power.

The Role

Every door TEA knocks is knocked by somebody who already lives on that street. That is why our program works, and it is what this role exists to protect and scale.

The Director of Power Building leads TEA’s organizing across both sides of the house. In The Equity Alliance, the 501(c)(3), you will run year-round organizing and community engagement, oversee the events that bring people in, and lead rapid response when a crisis hits. In The Equity Alliance Fund, the 501(c)(4), you will run the electoral program from the first field plan to the last door on election night.

You will also hold the partnerships that make a statewide program possible: coalition tables, Black Alliance partners, and the faith leaders, candidates, and community organizations TEA organizes alongside.

You will lead the Regional Organizing Managers, who lead the organizers and canvassers in each region. Your job is to give that team a clear plan, real numbers, and the coaching to hit them.

What You Will Do

Lead organizing and community engagement

• Set the year-round organizing plan for each region: base-building goals, deep canvass, one-on-ones, and volunteer and leader development.

• Oversee TEA’s community engagement events through the ROMs, including Feed the Block, Harambe Happy Hours, CommuniTEA meetings, and cultural activations.

• Own the statewide community engagement calendar. Every event has an owner, a turnout goal, and a follow-up plan before it goes on the calendar.

• Make sure every event moves people somewhere: a name captured, a conversation logged, a next ask made.

• Hold the standard on deep canvass quality: the script, the training, and the debrief.

• Lead nonpartisan voter registration and voter education, kept separate from the electoral program.

Manage rapid response

• Lead TEA’s response when a crisis hits a community we organize in, whether that is a storm, a power outage, or a political emergency.

• Keep a standing rapid response plan for each region: who gets called, what gets distributed, where it stages, and which partners are in.

• Mobilize staff and volunteers for wellness checks, canvassing, and distribution of food, generators, and other emergency resources.

• Follow every response with organizing, so that families are not only getting through the crisis but organizing to change what caused it.

Run the electoral program

• Build and own The Equity Alliance Fund’s statewide electoral plan for each cycle: priority races and geographies, voter universes, contact goals by region, staffing, and timeline.

• Run paid and volunteer canvassing, phones, texts, and digital outreach as one layered program, so no contact stands alone.

• Lead voter guide distribution, early vote, and Get Out The Vote operations in Memphis, Nashville, Clarksville, and other priority counties.

• Turn the network’s endorsements into field program, in partnership with the Advocacy Manager, who runs the endorsement process.

• Manage the electoral program budget and report against it monthly. Know what a door costs and be able to defend it.

• Deliver clean, timely numbers: doors, conversations, registrations, and results, reported weekly in cycle and in a written debrief after every election.

Lead the regional team

• Supervise and coach the Regional Organizing Managers through weekly one-on-ones, clear goals, and honest feedback.

• Oversee hiring, training, and management of organizers and the canvass corps through the ROMs.

• Look after the team. TEA does not treat burnout as a badge, and the people who knock the doors are the program.

Hold the partnerships

• Represent TEA at state and regional coalition tables and in coordinated campaign planning, and come back with clear commitments in both directions.

• Run the BlackPrint partner engagement system: the master partner list and structured one-on-one cycles with community organizations, faith leaders, and candidates in every region.

• Coordinate outreach with Black Alliance partner organizations in their own communities.

• Draft partner agreements and MOUs and route them for executive approval before anything is signed.

Keep the network clean

• Work with counsel and operations to keep 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), and PAC activity properly separated.

• Make sure every staff member whose hours cross entities, starting with you, tracks time accurately every week.

• Know the coordination rules for work with candidates and campaigns, and train the team on them before each cycle.

What You Bring

• Seven or more years in community organizing and electoral field work, including at least three years managing managers or a multi-region program.

• A track record of running field programs at scale: you built the plan, hit the numbers, and reported the results honestly.

• Working knowledge of 501(c)(4) and PAC rules and of cost sharing with a 501(c)(3), plus the judgment to know when to call counsel.

• Fluency in VAN and EveryAction: building universes, cutting turf, and reading the data well enough to change course mid-cycle.

• Experience building coalitions and holding your own in a room with funders, candidates, and partner organizations.

• Experience running community events that people come back to, and turning attendance into an organized base.

• A steady hand in a crisis. You have led people through an emergency response or a fast-moving campaign moment and kept your head.

• Experience managing a program budget.

• Experience organizing in Black communities in the South, and a commitment to building power in Black communities across Tennessee.

• A valid driver’s license and the ability to travel statewide.

What Success Looks Like in Year One

• Every region has a written organizing plan and an electoral field plan, with goals the ROMs helped set and believe they can hit.

• Community engagement events run on one statewide calendar, and attendance is turning into volunteers and leaders.

• When a crisis hits, TEA is on the ground within 48 hours with a plan that already existed.

• The program meets its contact goals in each election, and a written debrief is delivered within two weeks of election day.

• Time tracking across entities is clean enough to hand to an auditor.

• Partners say TEA shows up, follows through, and shares credit.

• The ROMs are still here, and stronger than when you started.

To Apply

The Equity Alliance is an equal opportunity employer. Black Tennesseans, women, people from working-class backgrounds, and returning citizens are strongly encouraged to apply. If you have done this work without the title, apply anyway and tell us how.