Consulting Director - Collective Leadership

In the spirit of respect, reciprocity, and truth we honour and acknowledge that our work occurs across Turtle Island (North America) has been home since time immemorial to the ancestors of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Peoples. We recognize that, in this territory, Indigenous rights holders have endured historical oppression and continue to endure inequities that have largely resulted from the widespread failure of non-Indigenous treaty people to hold up their responsibilities.

Tamarack Institute’s Learning Centre is seeking an experienced community leader, in the role of Consulting Director, Collective Leadership. The candidate will bring significant experience in systems change, collaborative governance, and using collective impact to achieve population-level outcomes.

About Tamarack

Tamarack catalyzes collective action with diverse leaders to solve major community challenges including ending poverty, building youth futures, deepening community, and addressing climate change. Our vision is to build a connected force for community change. Through our work in Vibrant Communities, we support networks focused on four outcomes.

• Communities Ending Poverty: more than 90 regional members and representing more than 400 communities, focused on ending poverty.
• Communities Building Belonging: more than 40 neighbourhoods, towns, and cities that are starting from the existing assets in communities to build connection, civic engagement, and belonging.
• Communities Building Youth Futures: 20 communities supporting the learning journeys of youth and working with them toward transitions through high school graduation to post-secondary education, training, and employment.
• Community Climate Transitions: 31 communities advancing just climate transitions by bringing together diverse community members to develop and implement local transition plans that address climate, equity, and other intersecting challenges.

Tamarack also engages a network of learning partners through a Learning Centre. The Learning Centre translates community-developed knowledge into purposeful practice and outcomes. The Learning Centre advances five interconnected skill areas designed to help individuals, collaboratives and communities achieve their outcomes with greater impact.

Since its founding, Tamarack has sought to center those with lived and living experience of poverty in its work. More recently, in the Tamarack 2030 Plan, we committed to interrupting the roles that racism, colonialization, and xenophobia play in communities in Canada.

Tamarack Principles

• Community Connections: We strengthen connections and collaborations between diverse people, organizations and sectors to grow and align our capacity to make a difference.
• Place Matters: We focus our efforts on places where people live.
• Hope and Optimism: We focus on the possible and our collective potential for making positive change.
• Equity and Inclusion: We engage and elevate the voice of those most impacted by issues who have the greatest insight into possible solutions.
• Courage and Learning: We ask difficult questions about the systems and structures which hold people and communities back and engage in peer-to-peer learning to build our capacity.
• Action and Impact: We emphasize action and focus on impact.

Role of a Consulting Director within the Learning Centre

Tamarack’s Learning Centre builds capacity in five core skillsets that community changemakers develop to take on the challenges we face in our communities today. These skillsets are collaboration, community engagement, collective leadership, community innovation, and evaluating impact. Tamarack focuses on each of these skill areas by bringing new knowledge, methods, and capacities to support the Tamarack community network and practitioners to evolve their change strategies.

The role of the Consulting Director is to lead and advance a skill area and to partner with the Tamarack Learning Centre team to ensure that all skill areas are advanced to the benefit of our network and community change practitioners.

While advancing a skill area will be the core focus of the Consulting Director’s activities, the Tamarack Learning Centre is built and maintained on a fee-for-service or revenue generation model. Consulting Directors will be responsible for achieving overall Tamarack Learning Centre financial goals and will be responsible for identifying and building viable revenue streams within their area.

Consulting Director, Collective Leadership

A key skill set of community change practitioners is the ability to unite people to address complex issues through collaborative processes. Success is maximized by working collectively across diverse groups, emphasizing equity, and incorporating the voices of those most affected. Effective collective leaders prioritize trust-building, power navigation, deep engagement, and the development of impactful collaborative governance practices.

Responsibilities

In the process of advancing a Tamarack skill area, the Consulting Director will be responsible for:

• Development of an annual assessment of the field: building the practice related to collective leadership which includes an overview of the field and its component parts; a scan of other practitioners in the field and their focus of work; and an identification of where the Tamarack Learning Centre can add value.
• Writing: developing articles, case studies, tools, resources, and knowledge products to advance the skill area
• Skills Development Sessions: advancing the skills of practitioners in collective leadership including the development and delivery of workshops (virtual and in-person), webinars and on-line learning with key thought leaders.
• Consulting and coaching: the development and delivery of a consulting practice which advances the skill area and supports changemakers to build their capacity
• Partner Engagement: identifying and engaging key partners from across the Tamarack community and externally to build out the skill area and the collective work of the Tamarack Learning Centre
• Tamarack Learning Centre team: engaging in the development and delivery of an annual work plan and committing to sharing resources, practices and opportunities within the team environment
• Support Tamarack’s commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, justice, and reconciliation (EDIJR). Understanding of Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action and ability to embed EDIJR into the work.

Qualifications

Tamarack is seeking a candidate with significant experience in systems change, collaborative governance, and using collective impact to achieve population-level outcomes.

• Proven experience and education, most often achieved through completing a Master’s degree and a minimum of 15 years of employment in a related position
• Expert-level understanding of the core concepts related to effective community and systems change strategies and deep knowledge and experience in collective leadership
• Strong research and writing skills, advanced communication skills
• Strong ability to design and develop workshop curriculum; knowledge products and consulting services
• Experience working with diverse communities and understanding of the realities of equity-deserving communities.
• Ability to work remotely, both independently and in cooperation with a remote team, in a continually evolving organizational environment
• Highly relational, both in-person and online, to effectively build trust and commitment with the Tamarack network to ensure that they are engaged
• Highly organized, self-motivated and self-directed, with demonstrated skills and the capacity to work on multiple priorities
• Ability to maintain a macro-level perspective as well as ensure that detailed deliverables are met
• Bilingual (French and English) is an asset
• Willingness and ability to travel is required

Tamarack’s Commitment

Tamarack is committed to inclusive, respectful, and equitable workplaces that represent the communities we support. We are a learning organization that is continuously working to improve our systems, policies, and practices to remove barriers to support the success of our staff and learner community. As an organization, we are accountable for creating equitable opportunities and a sense of belonging not only for our team, but also for our network and communities we support. We value applicants with a diverse range of experiences, skills, and backgrounds, and encourage you to apply.

At Tamarack we are committed to engage and elevate the voice of those most impacted by issues who have the greatest insight into possible solutions.

Tamarack strives to provide reasonable access and accommodation throughout the application and selection process. If you would like to request an accommodation at any stage of the process, please contact christiana@tamarackcommunity.ca

Supervision and Reporting

The Consulting Director, Collective Leadership practice area will work closely with Learning Centre team members, and will report directly to the Learning Centre team lead. They will also work collaboratively with other Tamarack teams, contributing to the overall achievement of Tamarack’s strategic goals and deliverables.

Work Environment

This is a full-time 40-hour per week position. As with most positions at Tamarack, you may reside in any location in Canada. Tamarack is a remote work environment, and your designated office space may be in your home. In some cases, Tamarack will rent team members office space near their preferred location in Canada, preferably co-located with another nonprofit organization.

Conflict of Interest Policy

For full-time positions Tamarack asks team members to devote their time and attention to Tamarack’s operations and conduct themselves in accordance with our Conflict of Interest Policy which will be provided during subsequent stages of recruitment. If you are invited for an interview, we would ask that you review the policy in advance and bring any questions you may have for discussion with the interview panel.

Salary and Benefits

Tamarack provides a competitive salary and benefits, RRSP package after two years of service, annual professional development fund, technology fund, an annual gratitude fund for team members to express gratitude to partners and teammates, flex time, and Focus Fridays, one day per week where we are encouraged to take only critical meetings. Our paid time off includes the flexible option to take two statutory holidays on days that hold meaning to you. We close our offices the last week of December. Tamarack operates within a progressive management philosophy. This is a full-time 40-hour per week position and starting salary is rated between $115,000-$135,000 a year. The successful candidate will be offered a salary that is commensurate with experience.

Application Process

Tamarack is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We strongly encourage candidates from historically underrepresented groups to apply. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, or age.

The interview process will consist of a first and second round interview, led by current Tamarack team members familiar with the role. Tamarack designs interview processes with the intention of supporting applicants to learn about the organization and its culture and commitments. Interview questions will be provided in advance. External candidates who complete second round interviews will be compensated for their time. 

Application Deadline: 11:59pm ET, September 30 , 2024.  

Start Date: November 2024.

Please attach one document that includes: 

• a cover letter that explains your interest in the role, how you think your skills and experiences align with Tamarack’s goals, and any other information you’d like to share. 

• a resume that provides the names of places you’ve worked, dates of employment, key duties, and accomplishments. 

While we thank all interested applicants, only successful candidates will be contacted.