Associate, Forest and Climate Campaign

Mighty Earth is seeking an Associate for its Forests and Climate Campaign to protect forests in Africa and the Greater Mekong region. Responsibilities include supporting campaign teams, contributing to investigations, creating campaign materials, and building relationships with allies. The role involves managing organizational files and digital content. Mighty Earth aims to combat deforestation and promote human rights and environmental justice.

Associate, Forests and Climate Campaign

Mighty Earth, a global environmental advocacy organization, seeks an Associate to work on our campaigns to protect forests in Africa and the Greater Mekong region.

The production of tropical commodities such as cocoa, palm oil, and natural rubber has been a major driver of deforestation in Southeast Asia and West Africa, resulting in the destruction of critical habitats and damaging effects on our climate, as well as human rights abuses, land-grabbing, and poverty-level pay for farmers.

As Mighty Earth’s Associate for Africa and the Mekong, you will be a key part of our work to defend critical ecosystems and habitats, stop human rights abuses, and ensure these precious forests are protected, a critical ingredient in the fight against climate change.

Who we are:

Founded in 2015, Mighty Earth is a global advocacy organization working to defend a living planet. Our goal is to protect half of Earth for Nature and secure a climate that allows life to flourish. Mighty Earth achieves transformative change by creating a “perfect storm” of campaigns, communications, and practical engagement with decision-makers to rapidly transform entire industries and government policy.

We have played a leading role in driving the transformation of whole industries and government policy to stop destruction of tropical forests, transform agriculture, and drive multi-billion-dollar shifts to clean energy. Through our campaigns, we seek to make significant progress to support impacted people around the world, especially Indigenous communities, communities of color and low-income communities, including by protecting land rights and combatting modern slavery.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Supporting our campaign team, including meeting coordination and preparation, communicating with consultants, partners and Mighty Earth staff, managing the team’s organizational files and workflow systems, including SharePoint, One Drive, Monday.com, Harvest, Zoom and Slack, and tracking media and news stories.
• Contributing to Mighty Earth investigations, including desk-based analyses of corporate social responsibility policies and supply chains for agricultural commodities
• Assisting with the creation of, editing, and posting of internal and external campaign materials, which could include reports, activist briefings, petition texts, staff updates, and coalition communications.
• Contributing to campaign team planning and strategy discussions
• Working with Mighty Earth’s digital team to provide and post up-to-date online content relating to our work, including audio-visual content, as well as scheduling social media content.
• Assisting with the outreach and ongoing relationship-building with allies – such as key civil society partners, academics, and small farmer organizations – including organizing and participating in meetings, information sharing, and developing partnership agreements.
• Supporting outreach to Mighty Earth’s corporate and policymaker engagement targets.
• Organizing internal and external online and in-person meetings, events and webinars.
• Administrative support as needed.

What we’re looking for in you:

• You have at least two years of professional work experience working in a campaign, advocacy, or grassroots organizing environment, focused on social justice, environmental protection, human rights issues, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, or related issues.
• You are comfortable working as part of a small dynamic campaign-oriented team.
• You are highly organized and detail-oriented, with an ability to juggle multiple responsibilities across different projects.
• You have time-management skills and proven ability to meet deadlines.
• You have strong verbal and written communications skills.
• You have a passion for working for a better and more just world.
• You have experience with and a commitment to working with people from a variety of backgrounds, including different ethnic, racial and socio-economic backgrounds and the LGBTQ+ community.
• You can get up to speed quickly on new programs and technology as needed. We use Microsoft Office 365, Expensify, Harvest, Monday.com, and QuickBooks, among others.

Preferred but not required experience and skills:

• You are proactive and self-directed, with good problem-solving abilities.
• Experience working in the Global South, especially West Africa or the Mekong region
• Knowledge of French, Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese, or Mandarin Chinese. English fluency is required.
• Familiarity working with team members in an international setting from a range of ethnicities and backgrounds.

Details: This is a full-time position and candidates can be based either in the London, UK area or Washington, DC, USA- area. Ideally, the Senior Associate will work in the office two or more days a week, if based in the DC area. The safety of our team is a top priority during the pandemic. We will evaluate working in the office, travel, and in-person meetings on an ongoing basis. You will report to our Senior Director for Africa and Rubber.

Compensation and benefits: This is a full-time role. The annual pay range is $50-$65,000 US with exact pay depending on experience, with a generous benefits package. The compensation is equivalent for UK-based candidates.

We offer a supportive and collaborative work setting with full-time working hours (and flexibility as needed for working parents and other personal demands), and a talented, driven, passionate, and fun team working alongside you.

Interview process: Our interview process involves a short phone interview, two interviews, a candidate exercise, and reference calls for candidates advancing in our process. We are holding most interviews over video and will potentially hold the finalist interview in person if possible.

To apply: Please visit https://www.mightyearth.org/jobs/ and visit the link for our Associate, Forest and Climate Campaign opening. Please submit a resume and a thoughtful cover letter which demonstrates your writing abilities by clicking on the “apply” link and let us know how you learned of the job. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis and the job will remain posted on our website until it is filled.

More about Mighty Earth:

Read more about our approach and our campaign in the following resources;

Fomenting a “Perfect Storm” to push companies to change (Mongabay).

How Pressuring Corporations Can Save the Amazon from Destruction (Yale Environment 360)

Mighty Earth is an equal opportunity employer; we strictly prohibit discrimination against any employee or applicant on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity or expression and any other characteristic protected by law. Women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community are strongly encouraged to apply.