is seeking a (Part-Time) Executive Assistant to the CEO

What is Unify America?

Unify America is a nonpartisan nonprofit on a mission to replace political fighting with problem solving. We are seeking an Executive Assistant who will play a foundational role in establishing our fundraising core competency and help us work toward our vision of saving our democracy.

Saving democracy? Seriously?

Reasonable question. We’ll get to that. As the ideal candidate, you are someone who has experience and success organizing, communicating, problem solving and methodically executing with strong EQ.

Let’s get back to the saving democracy part.

Think Americans are hopelessly divided? We are on the way to proving that the vast majority of Americans (over 90%) share many of the same goals for the country. If that sounds unbelievable, then let us give you an example: we demonize each other over gun control legislation, but gun control isn’t the goal, it’s a tactic. Reducing violence is the goal, and most of us want that. We don’t realize that for most political issues we’re just arguing about tactics or even less productively, political personalities.

Our journey begins with an experience we call “The Unify Challenge.” Americans who are outside each other’s bubbles get together online and take a survey to help uncover how we not only share the same goals, but are grossly misinformed about the intentions of people “on the other side.” However the Unify Challenge is just the beginning. We aim to recruit, train and engage a huge community of citizens to shift our country away from political fighting toward problem solving. It will be an ambitious and expensive effort.

That’s where you come in.

Sounds great. Tell me more about the role.

We’re looking for someone who believes in our mission, is extremely organized, methodical, loves people, and is a fantastic writer.

Day in and day out, you will work closely with our Founder, Harry. Harry’s role is split three ways: he is providing high level guidance to our team working to get new initiatives off the ground; he is responsible for fundraising (primarily focused on individual donors); and he has a lot of writing to do as part of our thought leadership efforts. In the cracks, he has other administrative responsibilities that pop-up.

You will play a key role in helping him prioritize his time and tasks to be most effective. You’ll work in our CRM to make sure we’re following up with prospective donors and connectors in a timely way, schedule meetings, organize, and execute follow-up tasks after meetings.  We’re looking for someone who is great with people and a terrific writer because so much of development work is correspondence and communication, and once you’ve gotten aligned with our brand and Harry’s voice,  the more of that correspondence you can take off of Harry’s plate, the better.

Thus, you’ll draft, edit and proofread fundraising materials, including emails and letters and manage donor communication and record keeping.

You’ll participate in meetings with our fundraising advisory vendor as we stay aligned on development efforts.  You’ll build relationships with key advisors, connectors, donors…again, to take as much off Harry’s plate as possible.  

You’ll be responsible for researching prospects. You’ll make sure the donations we receive are logged, letters of gratitude sent out, and the finance department kept in sync with the incoming revenue.

Occasionally there will be events to be planned and coordinated, both virtual and in-person. You’ll manage logistics, vendor relationships, attendee communications and support promotion and oversee follow-up.

Other responsibilities include booking and providing support during travel, organizing speaking engagements and other events. With support from our President, Michelle, you may also play a role cultivating relationships with certain foundations, and helping with grant writing or follow-through.

Depending on your skill set and interests:  for Harry’s work on thought leadership, there’s a need for research, editing, and fact checking.

Unify America is a place where the more one demonstrates their capacity to take initiative, learn, grow, and take on new challenges, the more responsibility and opportunity will be put into their hands.

Are there specific qualifications?

Yes! We’re looking for someone who:

• is experienced. You have demonstrable experience organizing and juggling to get things done.  If you happen to have a background in sales or development, even better.  

• is an excellent writer. You don’t need to be Toni Morrison or Mark Twain, but you do need to be able to write a charming and succinct email, with clarity, excellent grammar, and proper punctuation.

• is entrepreneurial. You’re a self starter. You don’t need a ton of direction and are solid working independently. You take initiative to identify problems, come up with solutions and (working cooperatively with other Unify staff), fix them.   

• is a relationship builder. You love people and find ways to connect with them past the surface-level conversations. You’re curious, a  listener,  enjoy hearing peoples’ stories, and are comfortable being yourself with anyone.

• is organized, punctual, hyper detailed oriented and loves a CRM.  

• is extremely positive.  Fundraising is mostly people not returning your calls or emails. So, you need to be someone who is both patient and persistent; someone who is realistic but sees the glass as half full, even when it’s only an eighth full.

• is passionate about our mission. You recognize that decisions are made by those who show up and that there is more that unites us than divides us. You believe in bringing people together, building community, and solving problems. You care deeply about the plight of democracy and want to dedicate yourself to being a leader in the movement to secure its blessings for generations to come.

• knows how to laugh. Fixing how our democracy works isn’t going to happen by next Tuesday. We’re running an ultra-ultra-marathon here. We’re going to have a good time along the way, and it’s not just internally. Having fun is key to our strategy for building a movement. We considered doing it with fear-mongering, lying, and demonizing the politicians, but everybody else is already doing that. 

• welcomes and can give feedback. Our mantra is “Be Honest & Be Kind Simultaneously.” You need to have the confidence and grace to be able to give feedback effectively and be able to take direct (but kindly worded) feedback constructively…and grow from it.

• is capable of and willing to commit to embracing radical non-partisanship. Ours is a big tent. In this job, at certain points you will find yourself talking to people with whom you disagree politically, maybe vehemently. You need to feel in your bones that people are much more complex than their current political perspective. You need to see in everyone (well, almost everyone) the possibility of their transcending partisanship and embracing public problem solving, working cooperatively with fellow Americans with different perspectives.

• helpful, but not required:  can travel. Our founder will need to travel regularly to meet prospective donors, do speaking engagements, and attend events…when this happens he meets a lot of people at once, and how convenient would it be if you were with him meeting them, too.

Where is work?

Evanston, IL.

How many hours are available?

We imagine this role to start at 10-12 hours a week. 

Actual hours TBD, but generally there will be correspondence to be done daily.  The person we’re looking for will make themselves invaluable, and capable of taking on more and more development responsibilities (and an interest in doing so).  Our hope is that it makes sense for the hours to go up from there.

What is the compensation?

$50/hour

There is also a monthly $40 reimbursement for use of your phone and internet connection at home.  And depending on tenure, there’s a sliding scale to reimburse your purchase of a new computer.

I’m interested. How do I apply?

Great! Follow the link to upload your resume and a cover letter. Give us three reasons why you’d be great for the job and if you like, share your political beliefs (liberal? conservative? something else entirely?). Most importantly, be yourself. (Yes, really! We are looking for people who are culture “adds,” not culture “fits.”) 

​​Anything else I should know?

Yes! You can expect an appreciative work culture. Unify America has a daily emphasis on building a positive work environment and recognizing the great work of our team. Our founder’s previous start-ups have won awards for their healthy culture. 

Unify America is committed to creating a community (staff, board, advisors, partners, and participants) characterized by an extremely broad spectrum of life experiences and diversity in all its forms, including political diversity; providing resources and assistance to support individual staff and community members in doing their best work; and making sure all voices have a chance to be heard and understood.