Organizational Development & Training Coordinator 

The application deadline is July 22nd at 6pm. Interviews will take place during the week of August 9.

The Centre for Community Organizations (COCo)

The Centre for Community Organizations (COCo) is a non-profit that works to nurture an inclusive, social-justice oriented Quebec community sector where grassroots organizations can thrive. We believe that is an important part of creating a more just and equitable society overall. To this end, COCo provides training, accompaniment, and technological support to small, ground-up, and social-justice focused organizations. We also use our research to steward dialogue and change on issues of inclusion and diversity in the Quebec non-profit sector.

About the Job

COCo is hiring two people into the role of Organizational Development and Training Coordinator. This role’s primary responsibilities include: 

• Organizational Development and Training Coordination: The ODT Coordinators will be jointly responsible for overseeing COCo’s facilitation and consulting services to nonprofit organizations in Quebec, focussed around organizational development, conflict resolution, and anti-oppression work.  COCo offers services to 100-150 organizations per year, and these services are evolving quickly to respond to the needs of the sector and our own Theory of Change. 
• Collective Management: COCo is a collectively run organization, and as members of the core team, each coordinator will take active leadership in COCo’s collective structure, including contributing to organizational development, providing co-supervision, and participating in collective tasks. 
• Organizational Health Consultant: Each coordinator will support grassroots community organizations to thrive through individual accompaniment, facilitation and training.

Application deadline: July 22 at 6pm. Ideal start date is September 6, 2021  Contract length: One year, renewable Hours: 30 hours a week. Occasional early morning, evening and weekend work will be required with notice.  Compensation: $31.67 an hour with annual 2% increases Benefits: Health insurance, pension plan, 4 weeks vacation as well as 2 weeks paid off in December, biweekly stipend to cover work-from-home costs while this is required by COVID.

Tasks and Responsibilities:

Organizational Development and Training Coordination: 

• Lead assessments with community groups to help identify their core needs and areas for growth and then play matchmaker with our team of skilled facilitators
• Coordinate the consulting and facilitation team, including: hiring and training new team members, supporting facilitators in professional development, and designing opportunities for connecting and learning as a team 
• Ensuring supportive working conditions for facilitators, including working with BIPoC facilitators navigating complex anti-racism accompaniments
• Manage relationships with clients in collaboration with the facilitation team, including problem-solving when difficulties arise
• Develop and maintain an internal archive of training, facilitation, and process design tools for the consulting team
• Carry out the regular administrative tasks needed to sustain our organizational development and training services, including updating our database, ensuring contracts are signed, and invoices have been sent  
• Provide oversight and strategic orientation for our organizational development and training services, including conducting regular evaluations, monitoring finances of the program, and leading and implementing changes to our services

Organizational Health Consultant: 

• Support the health and well-being of grassroots community organizations
• Accompany organizations through long-term organizational change (vision and mission work, strategic planning, restructuring etc.)
• Design and facilitate workshops, training, and group change processes 
• Continued development of organizational change strategies related to anti-oppression, anti-racism, and social justice values 
• Mediate interpersonal conflicts within organizations

Collective Management: 

• Actively contribute to COCo’s organizational development, collective management and administration through its horizontal and consensus-based decision-making structures
• Provide human resources support and participate in co-supervision
• Participate in collective tasks including office and phone coverage and office maintenance
• Actively engage in critical reflection (both on an individual and organizational level) about anti-oppression, social justice and accessibility principles and their implementation in the workplace

What We’re Looking for in a Candidate:

The ideal candidates have a gift for understanding and articulating the needs of organizations and the kind of support they could use. They have a love for coaching and supporting others in their work, and they like to work in a team.  They bring a sharp understanding of organizational anti-racism work and a commitment to supporting BIPoC facilitators in that context. They don’t find administration overwhelming, love creative problem solving, and can see the big picture and the long game. They enjoy translating an organizational vision into day-to-day practices, and making informed choices about where and how to allocate our resources. They care about the well-being of the Quebec community sector! 

No candidate will have everything on this list, and you don’t need to! We encourage applications from candidates who meet some of the qualifications and are excited about the job. Particularly for this role, because we are hiring for two positions, we can look at creating a complementary skillset. 

Qualities and skills: 

• Capable of strategic thinking on behalf of the organization and the program
• Able to manage systems and improve on them 
• Organized and able to stay on top of (and even enjoy!) administrative work
• Responsiveness to emerging needs and issues and ability to generate creative and people centered solutions
• Able to discern a process, path or boundaries when presented with complex organisational situations 
• Ability to offer coaching, support, and mentorship to our facilitators
• Have supervision skills that can be applied within a collaborative and flat structure 
• Depth of understanding of anti-oppression and anti-racism
• Ability to listen deeply and communicate clearly 
• Demonstrates responsibility and leadership
• Desire to support COCo’s commitment to amplifying marginalized voices in the community sector
• Bilingualism: functional fluency in both French and English

Experience or Training:

• Experience with consulting, facilitation and/or mediation, training in organizational development contexts preferred  
• Experience in implementing anti-oppression practices in organizations
• Experience in conducting and analyzing needs assessments 
• Experience in training consultants, trainers, and facilitators
• Experience in leading groups, overseeing processes and structures, and/or providing supervisorial support
• Experience and interest in working in collaborative contexts, including in horizontal management structures 
• Experience with Quebec’s community sector

Knowledge: 

• Understands major components of organizational health (e.g. people management systems, workplace culture, strategic planning, governance and processes etc.)
• Developed understanding of anti-racism and other social justice movements, and their applications in facilitation and consulting 
• An understanding of barriers experienced by racialized and other marginalized communities in Quebec
• Understands process consulting approach 

Work Environment: 

You would be joining a team of 10 staff members and a community of affiliate facilitators in:

• a horizontal, highly collaborative, and non-traditional work environment 
• a fast-paced and dynamic team
• During COVID, COCo has been entirely remote and team members have been working from home and collaborating across virtual platforms. Our expectation is to return to the office once it is safe to do so. 
• In regular times, COCo works out of an open office environment in downtown Montreal/Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyaang. 

Accessibility: 

COCo’s physical offices and bathrooms are wheelchair accessible. As we are in a shared building, we cannot guarantee a scent-free space. However, we aim to have a scent-reduced space. We are still learning about online accessibility as it relates to our work from home practices. If you have specific questions relating to the accessibility of our work from home practices or our physical office space, please email Kira at (kirap@coco-net.org). 

Hiring Process:

To Apply:

All candidates are asked to fill out this form, in English or in French, instead of a cover letter. The form will also ask you to include your resume in a PDF format. Note that you cannot edit your responses after they have been submitted. If you have any problems with the form, please contact kirap@coco-net.org. 

Our Hiring Process:

We evaluate all applications anonymously, to ensure a higher degree of objectivity in our selection process. Only candidates chosen for an interview will be contacted. Interviews will be conducted in both English and French and should take place during the week of August 9, 2021. 

If You Wish to be Considered for Employment Equity:

COCo believes our work is stronger when it benefits from the experience, knowledge, and wisdom of people who have faced systemic barriers. We encourage, among others, Indigenous people, people of colour, people with disabilities, people identifying as LGBTQI2, women, formerly incarcerated or institutionalized people, immigrants and people from working-class backgrounds to apply. We also understand that applicants may experience a number of these identities simultaneously in ways that reinforce and nuance their experience. We are committed to creating an organization as diverse as the communities we serve.

If you wish to be considered for employment equity, you can let us know in the application form. 

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