AORTA is looking to hire up to three worker-owner candidates for full time positions. (We define full time as 35 hours/week, and are committed to hiring people willing to work no less than 30 hours/week minimum.) We are only looking to hire people interested in becoming worker-owners. We are looking for potential worker-owners who are excited about committing to the cooperative for at least 5 years. We are strongly invested in our organizational points of unity (which can be found here), and would expect a new worker-owner to share those values.
While we prefer the person or persons we hire to be located in the San Francisco Bay Area, southern California, New York, Philadelphia, or Washington D.C., we are willing to consider applicants from outside of these regions. Due to the nature of our work, all members must have the ability and flexibility to work occasional odd hours, long hours, and weekend days.
We envision hiring people who would devote approximately 60% of their time to client-facing work and 40% of their time to internal business administration. Client work includes facilitation, mediation, training, and consulting. We work with other cooperatives, student groups, community organizations, and social and economic justice nonprofits as facilitators of workshops, meetings, retreats, and conflict resolution processes and consultants on organizational capacity, transformation, and development.
Being involved in internal business administration might look like joining our human resources team, growing our project management systems, or taking on finance, communications, or business development responsibilities, in addition to attending meetings and retreats and participating in democratic decision-making processes.
Information about AORTA.
AORTA is a worker-owned cooperative devoted to strengthening movements for social justice and a solidarity economy. We work as consultants and facilitators to expand the capacity of cooperative, collective, and community-based projects through education, training, and planning.
Our work ranges from one-off trainings and workshops to long-term consulting processes focused on supporting our clients with everything from policy development to strategic planning to anti-oppressive organizational transformation.
AORTA is currently made up of 8 worker-owners (4 of whom are also founders) distributed across the U.S. This is the second time we are hiring; in 2015, we brought on 3 new worker-owner candidates (now worker-owners), and our work and client base has continued to grow rapidly. We are now looking to expand again.
As members of a cooperative, we are not just workers or coworkers, but are committed to supporting each other and other cooperatives. AORTA is more than a job; it is a project that we are passionate about, a support system, and a space to enact and build our politics and our vision for the world and the movements we want to see.
This is who we are looking for.
We are looking for people who have an unwavering commitment to social justice. We want people who are excited about the prospect of working with organizations to help them transform and grow, who feel passionately about building leader-full movements, and who feel energized and confident facilitating large groups of people in meetings, workshops, and retreats. We want people who have a solid foundational understanding of cooperatives and solidarity economics, and energy to build up this area of expertise.
We all currently are engaged in political work outside of our business that helps to inform, grow, and challenge AORTA as an organization. We want to bring on people who are similarly engaged in their communities and movements.
Please see our general candidate criteria document for more information about what we are looking for.
Priority Skills and Experience
A high level of competency facilitating workshops, trainings, meetings, retreats, and other collective processes. Must be able to discuss race, class, gender, and other issues of power and identity with ease and comfort. Must be able to confidently and competently “hold space” for a diverse group of people, and navigate occasional challenging dynamics, agenda changes, etc.;
Democratic decision-making experience;
Experience working with clients in complex, long-term consulting projects;
Experience doing participatory education/radical pedagogy;
Experience developing and designing innovative and engaging agendas;
Organization skills, in particular time management and project management;
Experience and competency working with communities of color, queer communities, poor and working class communities, immigrant communities, and other marginalized groups.
Desired Skills and Experience
Experience working in or with worker (or other) cooperatives;
Experience working remotely and/or with a distributed team;
Fluency in one or more languages other than English (especially Spanish);
Community organizing experience;
Strong communication skills, including:written communication skills (ability to communicate complex points concisely and clearly; ability to create thorough and engaging reports and resources; ability to respond fully, clearly, and reliably to email), and
verbal communication skills (ability to speak confidently and clearly with clients about our work, ability to communicate respectfully and directly with co-workers and clients, ability to navigate tense or challenging interpersonal dynamics in a way that aims for resolution and de-escalation);
Skill and experience in human-centered, emotionally intelligent HR practices;
Creative problem-solving skills;
Capacity for travel;
Business management skills (finance, marketing, etc);
Digital communications and social media skills;
Networking and relationship building skills;
Attention to detail, complemented by the ability to see the big picture.
All about the benefits, logistics, and compensation.
There is a one year candidacy period, during which you will be an “employee.” After passing the one year candidacy period, you become a worker-owner. Owners are required to contribute a $2000 buy-in, which can be paid in installments or deducted from your paycheck over a chosen period of time. We are looking for potential worker-owners who are excited about committing to the cooperative for at least 5 years.
Worker benefits include:
Worker-owners become eligible for profit sharing after they have passed their one-year candidacy period. For a full-time worker-owner, average annual patronage earned is currently $7,500, paid out over 2-4 years. (This is dependent on the co-op’s overall earnings and is not guaranteed.)
We offer about four weeks of paid time off a year, plus 13 paid holidays a year.
We have policies in place for short paid sabbaticals every other year as well as a longer paid sabbatical every 6 years.
We offer dental insurance for those working more than 23 hours a week.
We offer a Health Reimbursement Arrangement for those working at least 17.5 hours/week that covers qualifying expenses up to $3,600/year.
We offer parental leave of up to 6 weeks paid and 4.5 additional months unpaid.
Our workplace provides flexible hours.
We offer a Simple IRA retirement plan and one-on-one financial advising.
We offer the option for employees to contribute to a pre-tax flexible spending account for dependent care expenses.
As we grow, we are working to provide more and better benefits.
We consider full time to be 35 hours/week. Our starting FTE salary is between $35,500-46,000/year depending on the cost of living in your city, number of dependents, and prior experience. Workers receive a $2,500 raise upon becoming a worker-owner, and a $500 raise each following year.
Our timeline
We expect to conduct interviews mid-March through mid-April and make offers at the end of April. The start date will be informed by the needs and schedules of new hires, but we’re ideally aiming for May.
How to apply
Please send a resume and cover letter to hiring@aorta.coop by 12 midnight PST on Sunday, February 11, 2018.
People of color, trans and gender nonconforming people, people from poor and working class backgrounds, queer people, and women are encouraged to apply.