Deputy Director

BLIS is stepping into a transformative new chapter. We are a rapidly growing organization with a multi-million–dollar annual budget, a cross-functional team across research, cultural production, membership, capacity building, and coalition organizing, and a 45-member multi-movement network poised to grow in the years ahead.

As Deputy Director, you will partner closely with our current Executive Director to guide BLIS through a period of expansion. You will help steer strategic vision, strengthen operational and organizational muscle, and build the conditions for long-term resilience across our ecosystem of members, partners, and funders.

You will help define what it means to build and steward a Solidarity & Action Hub, where research, coalition-building, storytelling, capacity building, and membership organizing converge. This role is equal parts architect, conductor, and storyteller—guiding internal systems, cultivating movement and funder relationships, managing a dynamic team, and playing a leadership role in reparative and solidarity movements.

The ideal candidate pairs strong political analysis with operational discipline, can hold complexity and nuance, and leads with humility, accountability, and care. They bring deep expertise in the Land Back movement, fluency in narrative and cultural strategy, and a commitment to building something designed to last far beyond any single campaign or moment.

Skills & Qualifications

Required

At least 10 years of experience in movement work, organizational leadership, advocacy, or strategy roles, with a demonstrated ability to operate at the intersection of narrative, culture, policy, and power-building.

Ability to navigate complexity, co-create decisions, and hold power with clarity and accountability.

Deep political grounding in reparative justice, Indigenous sovereignty, decolonization, and liberation frameworks, with a nuanced understanding of how histories, systems, and structures shape contemporary struggles for land, wealth, culture, and self-determination.

Organizational management experience, including finance, operations, and systems design, ideally within a multi-program environment.

A proven track record of fundraising and resource stewardship, including cultivating and managing relationships with institutional funders, philanthropic intermediaries, and major donors.

Exceptional communication, facilitation, and synthesis skills, with the ability to translate complex ideas, insights, and strategies into compelling messages, frames, strategic plans, and decision pathways.

Experience leading diverse, cross-functional teams grounded in care, accountability, and a solidarity-based approach to team building.

Demonstrated capacity and interest in engaging with research, theory, and data, applying insights from social movement theory, social psychology, political science, network theory, decolonial studies, Black studies, Indigenous studies, movement history, and cultural strategy to organizational and movement strategy.

High degree of relational intelligence, with the ability to hold nuance, navigate tension, build trust, and work across differences, within movements and cultural sectors.

Experience working with networks, coalitions, and membership-based organizations, with a deep understanding of network theory and the dynamics of alignment, diffusion, and collective action.

Familiarity with different organizational models and comfort operating within shared-power leadership structures.

Comfort with both strategy and implementation, able to shift between big-picture visioning and hands-on execution in a fast-moving, emergent, and creative environment.

Preferred

Experience in cultural production, with a history of collaborating with artists and storytellers to shape compelling narratives and cultural interventions.

A demonstrated storytelling practice, whether through writing, public speaking, creative work, cultural organizing, curriculum design, or any medium that conveys ideas with clarity, imagination, and emotional resonance.

Experience leading organizations or teams during periods of growth or organizational change.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Movement Leadership & Narrative Strategy

Partner with the Executive Director to provide visionary leadership across the movements BLIS is rooted in, including Land Back, reparations, guaranteed income, and baby bonds, connecting struggles, aligning strategy, and shaping narrative power across movements.

Bring a deep understanding of Indigenous sovereignty, governance, and political contexts, and help steward relationships with Tribal Nations, Indigenous-led organizations, cultural workers, and movement leaders working in and around land justice efforts.

Ground BLIS’s work in an analysis of movement history, power-building strategy, and the evolving landscape of narrative, culture, and policy work focused on liberation and decolonization.

Serve as a credible, trusted leader in coalition and network spaces, able to facilitate alignment, navigate tension, and help movements strategize across differences.

Alongside the Director of Membership and Executive Director, help steward BLIS’s multi-movement membership network by strengthening relationships, facilitating cross-member collaboration, and ensuring the network embodies BLIS’s values of solidarity, creativity, accountability, and shared liberation.

Showcase solidarity-centered leadership, building bridges across Black, Indigenous, and working-class movements and issues.

Act as a thought leader, writer, and public voice, translating BLIS’s insights into op-eds, essays, talks, panels, and public commentary that shape national conversation around narrative, culture, repair, redistribution, and solidarity.

Hold both high-level strategy and hands-on implementation as BLIS grows its programs, membership, and narrative and solidarity infrastructure.

Executive Leadership & Organizational Stewardship

Partner with the Executive Director to lead the strategic direction of BLIS, guide multi-year visioning, organizational evolution, and long-term sustainability during a period of organizational expansion.

Develop clear annual goals, operational plans, performance systems, and decision-making processes that support a multi-dimensional organization.

Partner with the Executive Director to lead organization-wide strategy integration, ensuring alignment across BLIS’s research, cultural production, membership, coalition-building, and capacity-building programs.

Strengthen BLIS’s management and operational infrastructure, supporting systems for budgeting, planning, evaluation, team development, and cross-department coordination.

Model collaborative leadership and steward an organizational culture rooted in BLIS’s values.

Help BLIS prepare for and navigate an increasingly volatile narrative and political landscape.

Supervise senior team members, providing coaching, mentorship, and professional development.

Cultivate a culture of solidarity across the organization, grounding internal practices through a lens of creativity, relationality, political education, and shared power as core conditions for impact.

Resource Development & Institutional Growth

Partner with the Executive Director and the Director of Strategic Partnerships & Philanthropic Solidarity to grow and diversify revenue streams that match BLIS’s long-term vision and execute its multi-year fundraising strategy.

Strengthen and oversee pipeline management, funder cultivation strategies, proposal development, and reporting to ensure BLIS has the needed internal infrastructure to sustain organizational growth.

Steward and grow relationships with funders, major donors, philanthropic intermediaries, and aligned institutions, serving as an organizational ambassador capable of translating BLIS’s strategy into compelling cases for investment.

Represent BLIS in national and international convenings, conferences, funder briefings, and public spaces, strengthening BLIS’s presence in the narrative, cultural, solidarity, and movement infrastructure fields.

Support the scaling of the Radical Collaboration Fund, and position the Fund as a cornerstone of BLIS’s work to build narrative and solidarity infrastructure.

Finance, Operations & Governance

Support the Executive Director in executive oversight of BLIS’s financial health, including budget development, forecasting, financial strategy, and resource allocation, in partnership with Possibility Labs.

Support with compliance and reporting, maintaining trust with funders, our fiscal sponsor, and advisory board.

Support the Executive Director in stewardship of the advisory board, ensuring clear communication, alignment on strategic priorities, and effective board participation in organizational stewardship.

Support the Executive Director in annual strategic planning sessions for the organization, using data, staff insights, and learning practices to support long-term sustainability, team growth, and strategic clarity.

$140,000–$160,000, commensurate with experience.