Advocacy Manager

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

The people TEA organizes do not need anyone to speak for them at city hall or the legislature. They need somebody to get them in the room, prepared, and on the agenda. The Advocacy Manager leads the team that does that. You will run TEA’s issue campaigns, from the local budget fight to the General Assembly, and manage the advocacy staff who carry them.

You will also run the endorsement process for The Equity Alliance Fund and the network’s PACs. A TEA endorsement is a promise to our community about who will fight for them. The process behind it has to be rigorous, rooted in what the BlackPrint tells us Black Tennesseans want, and able to stand up to any question a candidate or reporter asks about it.

What You Will Do

Manage the advocacy team

• Supervise and coach advocacy staff through weekly one-on-ones, written work plans, and honest feedback.

•  Set quarterly priorities with the Director of Power Building and turn them into work plans by region.

•  Coordinate with the Regional Organizing Managers so advocacy campaigns and the field program draw on the same base.

Run the issue campaigns

• Lead Powering Economic Justice across its four issues: child care, homeownership, food access, and energy costs.

•  Support TEA’s local budget campaigns, including SHIFT Nashville and the Moral Budget Committee in Memphis.

•  Track state legislation and local budget cycles, and produce the policy memos, briefs, and talking points staff and residents need.

•  Organize Day on the Hill and Days of Action. Recruit residents to testify and prepare them to do it well.

•  Build working relationships with legislators, council members, commissioners, and agency staff, and with coalition and research partners.

•  Register and report as a lobbyist where required, and keep lobbying activity logged.

Manage endorsements

• Own the endorsement process from start to finish each cycle: calendar, candidate questionnaire, interviews, scoring, and recommendations.

•  Ground the criteria in BlackPrint findings and TEA’s issue priorities, and bring members and community leaders into the process.

•  Staff the endorsement committee and present recommendations for decision.

•  Keep the record: questionnaires, scores, votes, and conflict of interest disclosures.

•  Work with Communications on announcements and with the Director of Power Building on what each endorsement means in the field.

•  Stay in relationship with endorsed candidates after election day, and track what they do in office against what they told us.

•  Make sure endorsement work happens only in the 501(c)(4) and the PACs, never in the 501(c)(3), with time tracked to match.

What You Bring

• Five or more years in policy advocacy, legislative work, or issue campaign organizing, including at least two years supervising staff.

•  Experience running or serving on a candidate endorsement process, questionnaire, or scorecard.

•  Working knowledge of Tennessee state and local government: the General Assembly, Metro Council, county commissions, and how budgets actually get made. • Strong writing. You can turn a 40-page report into a one-page memo and a two-minute testimony.

•  Understanding of 501(c)(3) lobbying limits and of 501(c)(4) and PAC rules.

•  Comfort managing relationships with elected officials and candidates, including telling one no.

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

What Success Looks Like in Year One

• Every member of the advocacy team has a written work plan and knows what they are accountable for.

•  The endorsement process is documented and runs on a published calendar, with decisions announced early enough to matter in the field.

•  Residents TEA prepared have testified at the legislature and in at least one local budget process in each region.

•  Each Powering Economic Justice issue has a named policy target and measurable progress toward it.

•  Lobbying and time records are current and audit ready.

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.