GROWW Organizing Fellowship:
HR1 County Campaign

Application deadline is Friday February 13th. Qualified candidates will be invited to interview the following week. Apply by sending your resume and cover letter to Bill Hogseth at bill@gro-ww.org

About the Fellowship

This 90-day Organizing Fellowship is a project-based role supporting GROWW’s county-by-county organizing campaign focused on challenging the local impacts of HR1 (the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill”).

The fellowship supports a coordinated campaign that organizes across multiple counties to invite local county boards to publicly confront the harms of HR1. By using county governments as the front line, the campaign aims to create a visible political crisis for an authoritarian agenda that relies on compliance for its legitimacy. In doing so, the campaign will set the agenda for defining issues in our local 2026 midterm elections.

The Organizing Fellow will work alongside the lead organizer and volunteer leaders to build county teams, carry out campaign actions, and grow their own organizing skills through practice, coaching, and reflection.

Responsibilities

Core Duties

Under the direction of a Lead Organizer, the Organizing Fellow will:

  1. Conduct 10–12 one-to-one meetings per week with members of your constituency to identify self-interest, shared values, and motivators for public action. 
  2. Create and support county-level organizing teams by assisting with meeting preparation, follow-up, tracking, logistics, coaching, and training.
  3. Help coordinate county actions including:
    • Scouting county board and committee meetings
    • Scheduling and supporting research meetings
    • Preparing for letter deliveries and public actions
    • Supporting town halls, listening sessions, and other basebuilding activities
  4. Support volunteer leaders by helping them prepare agendas, clarify roles, and reflect on actions and outcomes.
  5. Contribute to campaign infrastructure, including tracking participation, maintaining contact lists, and supporting reporting systems (EveryAction and written reports).
  6. Coordinate deep canvass efforts in counties where HR1 actions have created momentum, including training and coaching canvassers, coordinating canvass logistics, and managing data and follow-up so that canvassing strengthens the campaign and grows the base.
  7. Help advance a shared narrative that connects local harm from HR1 to federal decision makers, directing blame upward and reinforcing solidarity across lines of difference.

Qualifications

Required
  • Strong relational capacity: the ability to build rapport, listen deeply, and form authentic public relationships.
  • Grit and agency: a strong sense of initiative and follow-through, the ability to stay focused, push through obstacles, and keep moving even when the path is unclear.
  • Curiosity: About yourself, others, and the wider world; hunger to learn the craft of organizing.
  • Ego-resilience: the ability to apprentice oneself, receive coaching, and grow through tension and reflection.
  • Alignment with GROWW’s mission and the purpose of a power organization.
  • Ability to work evenings/weekends and travel across western Wisconsin.
  • Fellows will use their own technology (phone, laptop) and must have a reliable car for work travel (mileage is reimbursed).
Preferred
  • Experience as a volunteer leader or participant in GROWW or another organizing context.
  • Lives in or has strong ties to local communities of western Wisconsin.
  • Prior experience as a leader in GROWW or in a real organizing context (community, labor, or membership-based organization).
  • Previous experience in local government and county politics.
  • Clarity about their own stakes in racial and economic justice.
  • A desire to build power, not provide service or activism, and an understanding of the difference.
  • Lives in western Wisconsin.

Learning & Development

This fellowship is designed as an apprenticeship in the craft of organizing. 

Fellows will:

  1. Participate in training and coaching focused on organizing fundamentals, leadership development, power analysis, and campaign strategy.
  2. Receive regular supervision and feedback, with an emphasis on reflection, skill development, and political clarity.
  3. Practice developing their own self-interest and public voice as an organizer.

Supervision & Support

The Organizing Fellow will be supervised and supported by the Lead Organizer and will participate in regular coaching, supervision, and project check-ins.

Compensation

Compensation for this fellowship is equivalent to a starting organizer salary of $50,000 on an annualized basis, and will be prorated for the 90-day term (approximately $12,500 for the fellowship period, before taxes). Pay periods are twice a month. 

Benefits include employer contribution to health insurance for employees and their dependents; full vision and dental coverage; generous paid time off (for a full year it is13 holidays, 4 weeks PTO, and the week between Christmas and New Year’s); 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. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training. Selection for roles will be based on individual merit and qualifications alone.

Duration

This is a 90-day fellowship, which will include a midpoint and final review. Following the final review, there may be an opportunity to extend the fellowship an additional 3-6 months, depending on performance and availability of funding. Organizing fellowships are designed to support skill-building and may, in some cases, inform future organizing roles with the organization.

About GROWW

GrassRoots Organizing Western Wisconsin (GROWW) is a power organization: a vehicle for people to come together around shared values and self-interest to change systems of power over time. 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, learning, and development.