‘7th St. Thrives’ Corridor Manager

PURPOSE OF THE POSITION

The Corridor Manager provides on-the ground support to the purpose, mission, and key tasks of the 7th Street Thrives Initiative. Since 2022, 7th Street Thrives has worked to rejuvenate West Oakland’s historic 7th Street corridor as a Black arts, business & cultural district. Broad project goals are to: activate underutilized space; attract, organize and retain Black & BIPOC businesses; and revive a market environment that aims to dramatically repair and reactivate the vibrant character of the 7th Street Corridor.

The Corridor Manager supports 7th Street Thrives’ lead organizers from EB PREC and Bay Area LISC. They will meet weekly with co-leads around the planning, management, outreach, and facilitation of their core areas of work. This includes: small business organizing; corridor activation & market making; reinforcing organizational infrastructure; and conducting neighborhood outreach. In addition, the Corridor Manager will support the co-leads with improving service delivery on the corridor and align with East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative (EB PREC) staff on corridor oriented initiatives.

7th St. Thrives & EB PREC are seeking someone committed to West Oakland culture, arts, business, and community. The ideal candidate will have the ability to organize and execute complex projects, integrate and adapt feedback from multiple stakeholders, and share decision-making power with other members and stakeholders of 7th Street Thrives.

RESPONSIBILITIES

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES

Direct Organizing & Communications

• Create and implement 7th Street Thrives communication plan to elevate its vision, activation efforts, and businesses. This may include emails, newsletters, websites, event calendar, social media, etc.
• Support engaging neighbors around core 7th St. Thrives efforts by building relationships with local residents, organizations, and businesses to track and document key engagement opportunities, interests and needs. This may include door knocking, events, etc.
• Represent 7th Street Thrives at local community events.

Small Business Organizing & Support

• Build relationships to stand as a small business connector on 7th Street.
• Be the point person for facilitating support for small business needs.
• Coordinate a small business mixer every other month.
• Coordinate the Small Business Resource Collaborative and its relationships.
• Maintain 2-4 office hours per week.

Corridor Activation, Event Organizing & Market Making

• Help organize regular community activations and events on 7th St. that may include planning, event production, sourcing, and coordinating event participants.
• Co-build strategies that activate and attract folks to the area

Organizational & Programmatic Infrastructure

• Develop and maintain project management systems to support 7th Street Thrives project ideas, deliverables, relationships, and tasks.
  • Conduct research on Best Practices to support program design.
    • Master lessor program
    • Merchant Alliance design & launch
    • Best practices in Corridor development field
  • Project manage emerging programs on 7th Street.
• Support 2-3 new organizations formed on 7th Street that will include at minimum a Merchant Alliance and Community Development entity.
  • Support facilitation, engagement, and early stage management of Merchant Alliance.

POTENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Service Delivery Improvements

• Support event production and management for monthly Neighborhood Enhancement Services Team (NEST) Meetings.

Fund Development

• Support various fundraising campaigns for 7th Street Thrives and larger projects on the corridor.
• Support corridor focused campaigns by holding administrative, writing, and project management tasks, as needed.

Small Business Attraction

• Help create and execute a plan to attract Black and POC businesses to the corridor.

QUALIFICATIONS/EXPERIENCE

CORE QUALIFICATIONS

• East Bay resident, with strong ties to Oakland
• Excellent writer and communicator
• Skilled at using active listening to understand, negotiate and respond to various needs of merchants & surrounding community
• Strong background in small business support
• Significant experience with commercial corridor activation initiatives and strategies
• A people person, with a passion and talent for building relationships and connecting with a diverse and expanding network
• Skilled at time management with the ability to juggle both short and long term deadlines and the ability to respond to organizational needs as they arise
• Extensive experience developing and implementing innovative, interactive and engaging programming
• Adept at using digital tools and campaign/project management systems such as Google Suite, Asana, Mailchimp, etc.
• Familiarity with simple website maintenance or design
• Ability to take notes, track tasks and follow-up proactively
• Ability to be timely, present and accountable to meetings and other work commitments
• Prior knowledge and experience with event planning for different types of events, including budgeting for events
• Demonstrated capability with program management and administrative responsibilities including program planning and delivery, strategy development & execution
• Extensive experience utilizing various communication methods for outreach, including social media newsletters, flyers, and email listservs
• Experience with partial remote work, ability to be fully present for remote meetings, and access to a quiet, distraction-free space with stable Internet and computer
• Excellent time management, planning, organization, and prioritization skills
• Self-motivated and flexible
• Strong commitment to anti-racism and anti-oppressive movement building.
• Strong commitment to collective decision-making
• Available some weekends and evenings

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Creative out-of-the-box thinker
• Oakland resident with strong ties to West Oakland
• Experience with deep collaboration across multiple teams including demonstrated skills and ability with group facilitation and conflict engagement
• Experience writing and distributing press releases for mission-driven organization(s)
• Experience with visual storytelling and developing high quality multimedia collateral, including blogs, graphic design, videos, websites and podcasts
• Experience in fundraising and development, ideally with community-based organizations
• Knowledgeable about EB PREC’s unique approach programs, especially our cultural strategy
• Cooperate! We all carry the load collectively and support the growth of the cooperative. Not every responsibility can be anticipated, and you may be called upon to support others, as you may call on others to support you, to carry our collective work forward. This is an important part of our staff dynamic, and reflects our commitments to solidarity and personal growth.

HOURS, PAY, AND BENEFITS

This position is full time (30 hrs/wk) at $74,500 (0.75 FTE $99,333). EB PREC offers health and dental insurance, Paid Time Off (PTO), 11 paid holidays, flexible scheduling for work/life balance, professional development allowance, and home office reimbursement.

This position is funded for one year, with possibility to extend through additional funding. While this position serves the 7th Street Thrives partnership, it will be employed by East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative.

This position is primarily IN-PERSON at a commercial community space in West Oakland, with some remote meetings.

Applications for this position will be accepted on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

Priority application deadline: Sunday, October 27th.

HOW TO APPLY

Please send your resume, cover letter to jobs@ebprec.org. Please address the following questions in your cover letter:

• What excites you most about our cooperative?
• What role have you held in the past that you sense is most similar to this role described or what life experiences have you had that you sense have prepared you most for this role?
• What challenges would you anticipate, if any, in taking this role?
• Describe one thing you’ve learned about our organization while researching this opportunity.
• Tell us how you heard about this position.

EB PREC is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status. BIPOC, queer and trans, women and gender non-conforming applicants are strongly encouraged to apply.