The Food Forest Collective (FFC) seeks candidates for two half-time positions to expand our community driven program that demonstrates urban ecological and social Permaculture in Seattle. FFC is the non-profit corporation that oversees the Beacon Food Forest (BFF), a six-year-old community volunteer driven project to design, plant and grow an edible urban forest garden that inspires our community to gather together, grow our own food and rehabilitate our local ecosystem (see http://beaconfoodforest.org/). It now occupies 1.75 acres on the west slope of Jefferson Park at 15th Ave and Dakota Street and is about to double in acreage in the next year and a half. We are also currently completing non-profit incorporation and will soon be filing for IRS Section 501(C) 3 tax-exempt status.

This has been an all-volunteer project since its inception with some minor stipends for special projects and educational programs. Thanks to a significant grant from the Bullitt Foundation (our second), we are now prepared to hire two staff positions to help us build the processes and capacities for volunteer coordination, community outreach and fund-raising. These staff members will be primarily responsible for supporting volunteer leadership, which remains very strong, as well as recommending to the Board of Directors policies and procedures that will help us sustain momentum and build capacity through widespread community support.

The Beacon Food Forest is widely known not just in Seattle but nationally and internationally as the largest and most developed urban Permaculture project on public land. Staff will be overseeing volunteer-led student tours and work parties from schools and universities, corporations and not-for-profits as well as visiting programs from other countries and public entities interested in learning from or replicating the model we are building. We regularly attract one hundred volunteers to monthly work parties as well as numerous people in our tours and Permaculture classes. These two roles, which may be held by one or two people, will help us keep up this momentum and build upon the thousands of volunteer hours devoted to this pioneering project.

Development and Operations Coordinator

Principal responsibilities:

  • Create a financial plan to sustain two or more positions in coming years.
  • Meet with representatives of corporate and not-for-profit organizations that would benefit from and sponsor expansion of the Beacon Food Forest
  • Develop a strategy and support planning for BFF fundraising messages and activities including a Barnraiser campaign.
  • Collate and store information to create a record of Food Forest activities for use by various committees and to generate reports of our spending, accounting and databases of the Food Forest’s fundraising efforts
  • Draft for Steering Committee approval operating procedures and structures for long-term organizational sustainability

Additional responsibilities depending on available time:

  • Support and coordinate with the Board of FFC as the policy-making body of BFF
  • Communicate with the City of Seattle around land-use questions and P-Patch responsibilities
  • Support planning by volunteers for BFF events and maintain the online event calendar
  • Coordinate with volunteer teams (e.g., Site Development, Education Collaborative, Nutrition Group) and professionals (e.g., landscape architect, legal and accounting assistance)
  • Investigate and coordinate legal assistance for FFC application for IRS tax-exempt status
  • Coordinate with Department of Neighborhoods expansion grant for contract staff positions
  • Coordinate contracts with Landscape Architecture design team
  • Coordinate FFC accounting and funds management for grants, contracts and donations
  • Other responsibilities as may be requested from time to time by the FFC Committees and Board.

Desired qualifications and experiences we seek:

  • Familiarity through work or volunteer experience with the principles and practices of ecological and social permaculture.
  • Significant experience in non-profit leadership and management, especially of rapidly growing organizations and organizations with a strong volunteer base and leadership.
  • Familiarity with not-for-profit finance, grants management and contract compliance
  • Non-profit fund-raising experience
  • Demonstrated commitment to collaborative decision-making and community involvement
  • Experience coordinating multiple activities carried forward by volunteers
  • Some event planning experience
  • Demonstrated experience of quickly adapting to emerging challenges and collaborating with others to address them
  • Demonstrated capacity to work on multiple projects at once.

Please email your resume to jobs@beaconfoodforest.org