Position: Wyss Fellow Conservation Organizer

Date: October 15, 2024

Start Date: December 16, 2024

End Date: December 23, 2026

Reports to: Conservation Director

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Position Summary

New Mexico Wild is seeking an experienced and energetic candidate who is passionate about public lands and community engagement to fill our Statewide Organizer position. The Statewide Organizer will take a leadership role in grassroots community organizing activities to promote the protection of New Mexico’s wilderness, wildlife, and water across New Mexico. The Statewide Organizer will also contribute to New Mexico Wild’s mission through engagement in our diverse coalitions with community groups and organizations with shared interests in land, water, and wildlife protections, as well as through contributions to a wide array of other organizational needs.

The primary goal of this position is to contribute increased capacity, creativity, and new perspectives to New Mexico Wild’s conservation campaign priorities, with an emphasis on efforts to establish national monuments. We also seek to leverage the strengths, previous experience, and developmental goals of the Statewide Organizer to contribute to advancing a broad array of additional organizational operations and opportunities. All work activities will be approached with consideration towards diversity, equity, and inclusion and will be coordinated with our community-based offices statewide to ensure cohesion and collaboration across our conservation initiatives.

Activities and Responsibilities

• Work on and inject creativity into New Mexico Wild’s portfolio of public lands protection and defense campaigns, with emphasis on national monument efforts.
• Work in tandem with experienced staff Organizers to conduct grassroots and grasstops organizing, campaign planning, and relationship building with a wide array of communities and leaders.
• Participate in and facilitate coalition meetings on priority protection campaigns.
• Attend and represent New Mexico Wild at public meetings related to campaigns and other federal lands issues.
• Represent New Mexico Wild at community events and celebrations related to campaigns, including participating in occasional event planning.
• In cooperation with Communications staff, initiate media outreach to create awareness and promote New Mexico Wild campaign priorities through all media outlets, including development of content for submission to publications, social media, websites, news media, and to our membership.
• Lead outings, hikes, and stewardship events with community members and partners associated with land protection campaigns.
• Recruit, train, and lead volunteers to conduct monitoring of grazing, off-road vehicle use, roads, fire, access and other issues on federal public lands targeted for protection.
• Assist with broader organizational needs related to communications, outreach, media engagement, fundraising, donor relations, policy development, research, strategic planning, event planning, and building coalition partnerships.
• Work closely with senior staff to research, monitor, and analyze additional land and water protection opportunities.
• Keep current on land management issues and the associated political dynamics.
• Prepare white papers, fact sheets, comments, letters, and other materials aimed at advancing and defending New Mexico Wild’s public lands advocacy and defense agenda.
• Use Spanish and/or knowledge of New Mexico’s traditional communities to engage with and elevate conservation champions from Tribal, underserved, and traditional communities.
• Ensure that New Mexico Wild’s campaign goals are consistent with its diversity, equity, and inclusion objectives and emphasize equity for the communities that our campaigns are mostly likely to affect.

Qualifications

The ideal candidate will have excellent written and oral communications skills; a demonstrated proficiency in developing relationships around shared values and interests; and potential to build a powerful movement focused on obtaining environmental protections. Ability to speak both English and Spanish is highly desired.

Minimum requirements include a passion for protecting wildlands; familiarity with the geography of New Mexico; an ability to work a flexible schedule, including some evenings and weekends; and a high degree of self-motivation with an ability to work both independently and with groups and partners.

Other Position Information

• This is a full time, exempt position.
• Duty location is Albuquerque, NM.
• Compensation is anticipated to be between $48,000 and $50,000, dependent on experience, plus health insurance (base plan is 90% employer paid) as well as dental, vision, long term disability and life insurance policies (100% employer paid), a 403b retirement plan with an employer match of up to 5%, and competitive time off benefits.

New Mexico Wild is a statewide, non-governmental grassroots advocacy organization dedicated to conserving federal public lands in New Mexico. New Mexico Wild is an equal opportunity employer and actively works to ensure fair and equal treatment of its employees regardless of differences based on culture, socioeconomic status, race, marital or family situation, gender, age, ethnicity, religious beliefs, physical ability, or sexual orientation.