About GROWW:

GROWW (GrassRoots Organizing Western Wisconsin) is an independent power organization: a vehicle for people to come together around shared values and self-interest to change systems of power over time to win the things they need.

We build power so that the people of western Wisconsin – not distant corporations, wealthy donors, or political insiders – decide the future of our communities: affordable homes, healthy land and water, healthcare we can count on, and a democracy that answers to us. 

Unlike service or advocacy organizations, our purpose is not to provide charity or “raise awareness,” but to organize members to act collectively in the public arena. GROWW is owned and governed by its dues-paying members, who take responsibility for the direction of the organization rather than acting as spectators or “volunteers.” We intentionally cultivate a culture of leadership where people take risks, hold one another accountable, and grow through action, tension, agitation, learning, and development.

About the Role:

Organizers are at the heart of GROWW. An organizer builds the relationships, develops the leaders, and runs the campaigns through which ordinary people come to see themselves as powerful and act like it. While others mobilize people to show up or provide services to individuals, organizers build a base of people who are growing in their capacity to lead and to wield collective power in the public arena.

The Campus Organizer builds GROWW’s student base on university and college campuses in western Wisconsin including UW-Stout, UW-River Falls, and UW-Eau Claire. You will build student chapters that can win on campus and connect to statewide fights over the cost of college, housing, healthcare, and the future of public higher education in Wisconsin.

Students are not a pipeline for someone else’s campaign. They are a constituency with their own stakes, their own institutions to contend with, and real power when organized. Campus decisions about tuition, fees, housing, mental health services, food access, and labor conditions are made by identifiable people: chancellors, deans, student government, University of Wisconsin leadership, the Board of Regents, and the state legislature. The organizer’s job is to help students see that structure, organize around it, and act on it.

At GROWW, an organizer is not an entry-level position. We are looking for someone who has community organizing experience, has been tested, who has built real relationships, developed real leaders, and learned to wield power through practice, failure, and growth.

Responsibilities

Build and Wield a Base

• Conduct a high volume of one-to-one meetings every week with students to identify self-interest, recruit new leaders, and deepen relationships with existing members.
• Reach students at scale through canvassing residence halls and campus spaces, tabling, class raps, and surveys, and turn those contacts into one-to-ones.
• Use surveys and listening sessions to surface the issues students feel most sharply, and use what you learn to find the leaders who feel them most.
• Break into new campuses and campus institutions (student organizations, student government, campus workers, faculty) and recruit leaders with followings who can expand GROWW’s base.
• Demonstrate the power of your base through turnout: plan for it, work for it, and deliver it.

Build Student Chapters and Develop Leaders

• Carry and develop a core team of student leaders who own and run a GROWW chapter on their campus, and who are building their own followings and moving others into action.
• Build chapter structure that lasts beyond any single leader or semester: clear roles, regular meetings, leadership transitions, and recruitment of first- and second-year students.
• See the leadership potential in students before they see it in themselves. Make bold propositions that stretch people toward a bigger vision of who they can become.
• Coach, agitate, and support leaders as they take on increasing responsibility, moving them from followers to builders of their own teams.
• Facilitate chapter meetings, trainings, and leadership team meetings that build culture, develop skills, and connect people to shared purpose.
• Never do for your leaders what they can do for themselves. Distribute responsibility and help people grow into it.

Run Campaigns and Win

• Help student leaders design and run semester-long campaigns on campus issues rooted in student self-interest, moving from relationship-building to public action to winning concrete demands from specific targets.
• Lead a power map of the campus: who makes decisions (administration, student government, faculty governance, Universities of Wisconsin leadership, Board of Regents), who influences them, what motivates them, and where students have leverage.
• Choose campaigns that can win locally and scale: connect campus fights to statewide demands and to students organizing on other campuses.
• Lead public actions, research meetings, and accountability sessions with administrators and elected officials.
• Work to the rhythm of the academic calendar: start strong in the first weeks of the semester, escalate before key decision points, and plan around exams and breaks.
• Develop campaign narratives that connect campus fights to GROWW’s shared organizational agenda, aligning messaging across efforts to build power at scale.

Sustain the Organization

• Organize money: invite students into dues and financial ownership of GROWW as an integrated part of your organizing.
• Maintain disciplined use of GROWW’s data systems: track 1-1s, survey and tabling contacts, meetings, and leadership development in EveryAction and written reports.
• Connect student leaders to GROWW’s broader membership and campaigns across western Wisconsin.
• Participate on the GROWW Leadership Team (GLT), a cross-campaign body of top leaders making strategic decisions about how campaigns coordinate, respond to threats, and align power toward a shared agenda.

Learning & Development

• Participate in ongoing training and political development, including Weeklong Training, advanced-level Organizer Bootcamps, Lead Organizer Cohort, and other movement-wide learning opportunities.
• Contribute to the organizing team’s monthly learning cycle: submit a written reflection on your organizing practice and participate in the monthly daylong team meeting for agitation, coaching, and strategic collaboration.

Qualifications

Required

• Strong relational capacity: the ability to build rapport with students, listen deeply, and form authentic public relationships.
• Grit and agency: initiative and follow-through, the ability to stay focused, push through obstacles, and keep moving even when the path is unclear.
• Curiosity and ego-resilience: about yourself, others, and the wider world; hunger to learn the craft of organizing. Ability to apprentice oneself, receive coaching, and grow through tension and reflection.
• Demonstrated community organizing experience that has been tested in practice, through a staff role at another organization, successful completion of an organizing fellowship, or equivalent.
• Proven ability to build relationships and develop leaders: you have moved people up a leadership ladder, not just mobilized them to show up and do things.
• Experience running or contributing to a campaign with escalating tactics, targets, and public actions.
• Clarity about your own self-interest and why you are in this work.
• Strong organizational discipline: you plan your work, track your relationships, debrief your actions, and hold yourself accountable.
• Has attended Weeklong Leadership Training or equivalent.
• Ability to work evenings and weekends, keep a campus schedule, and travel across western Wisconsin. Reliable vehicle required (mileage reimbursed).
• Alignment with GROWW’s mission and a clear understanding of the difference between building power and providing service.

Preferred

• Experience as a leader in a student organization, student government, union, or other organizing context (campus, community, labor, or membership-based).
• Current or recent connection to a western Wisconsin campus, or strong ties to communities in the region.
• Familiarity with how universities are governed and funded, including the Universities of Wisconsin system.
• Experience organizing hard money: dues collection, institutional relationships, or membership development.
• Clarity about their own stakes in racial and economic justice.

Compensation & Benefits:

Organizer salary range is $60,000-70,000 commensurate with experience. 

Benefits include employer contribution to health insurance for employees and their dependents; full vision and dental coverage; generous paid time off (13 holidays, 4 weeks PTO, and the week between Christmas and New Year’s, prorated for fellows); life insurance; and mileage reimbursement. We offer ongoing training opportunities in a fast-paced, dynamic, supportive, and collaborative setting.

GROWW provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. Selection for roles will be based on individual merit and qualifications alone.

How to Apply: