Program Associate - Investor Alliance for Human Rights

The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) is seeking a half-time Program Associate to support the Investor Alliance for Human Rights, a collective action platform for responsible investment that is grounded in respect for people’s fundamental rights. The Program Associate will provide administrative and programmatic support to the Investor Alliance Directors as they educate investors about the investor and corporate responsibility to respect human rights, develop tools and guidance for investors, engage with policymakers and standards setting bodies, and engage with companies on critical human rights issues. 

About the Investor Alliance for Human Rights

The Investor Alliance for Human Rights is a collective action platform for responsible investment that is grounded in respect for people's fundamental rights. We are a membership-based, non-profit initiative focusing on the investor responsibility to respect human rights, corporate engagements that drive responsible business conduct, and standard-setting activities that push for robust business and human rights policies. Our membership is currently comprised of over 200 institutional investors, including asset management firms, trade union funds, public pension funds, foundations, endowments, faith-based organizations, and family funds. Our members currently represent a total of over US$12 trillion in assets under management and 20 countries.  Along with civil society allies, our team equips the investment community with expertise and opportunities to put the investor responsibility to respect human rights into practice. We do this by:

1. Providing practical tools to support investors in their implementation of responsible business standards at each step of the investment lifecycle;
2. Supporting direct engagement with portfolio companies on their own human rights practices; and
3. Coordinating actions that ask policy makers and standard-setting bodies to create level playing fields for responsible business.

To learn more about Investor Alliance, please visit www.investforhumanrights.org or find us at @InvestforRights on Twitter.

About the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility

Founded 50 years ago, ICCR is a pioneer coalition of over 300 active institutional investor members representing faith-based communities, socially responsible asset managers, labor unions, and others who leverage their investments as a catalyst for change. ICCR members work in coalition to engage the world's largest corporations on a range of social and environmental issues impacting communities in the U.S. and globally, including human rights; climate change; food justice; health equity; and corporate influence via lobbying and political spending. 

To learn more about ICCR, please visit www.iccr.org or find us @ICCRonline on Twitter.

What you’ll do:

The following list provides a high-level overview of the types of responsibilities, tasks, and expectations of the Program Associate. The Program Associate may ultimately be responsible for a subset of these functions, depending on direction provided and program priorities. These functions will be performed in relation to the range of Investor Alliance areas of work, but will begin with a focus on the technology and human rights programmatic work.

• Organizational, programmatic, membership, and administrative support
• Support on membership outreach and maintenance, including updating and optimizing the use of the membership database
• Develop agendas for meetings, sharing event invitations, crafting and distributing agendas, and sending follow-up emails afterwards with action items highlighted
• Help facilitate logistics around Investor Alliance webinars and briefings, including pre-event discussions, developing relevant materials, including promotional materials, sending out event invitations, completing technical set-up, etc.
• Support on website update and ongoing maintenance and content updates
• Attend various member and staff meetings

• Research support
• Conduct research and summarize findings to contribute to awareness raising of Investor Alliance members, allies, and other stakeholders
• Research developments around the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and other international business and human rights frameworks through current events, publications and reports, and attendance at webinars/events on program-relevant issues
• Assist in writing blogs, briefs, guidance, investor statements, and newsletters for educational, awareness raising, advocacy, public communication, and other purposes
   
• Engagement support
• Prepare for and participate in meetings and corporate engagements, including gathering needed background information, taking notes, and developing and distributing agendas
• Help to coordinate regular Working Group calls with investors on specific issue areas or targeted companies, including supporting outreach to speakers, sharing event invitations, crafting and distributing agendas, and sending follow-up emails afterwards
• Provide coordination support for company engagement campaigns by maintaining regular communication to meet deadlines and sharing critical materials for engagements, such as updated corporate engagement tracking worksheets

Who you are:

You are someone with a passion for human rights and an interest in learning more about investor responsibility. You can take initiative and are self-directed, are detail-oriented and well-organized, can manage multiple projects and competing priorities, can work independently, and are excellent at follow through and managing workflow of Alliance directors. You understand that smooth administrative support is critical to the overall success of Alliance programs and initiatives.

Specifically, you will have many of the following qualifications:

• Intermediate to advanced knowledge of MS Office and technology for virtual meetings and webinar platforms required. Experience with Salesforce and Drupal is a plus.
• Excellent written, oral communication, and research skills. This includes formal writing, such as briefings, and communications to Alliance members, such as email outreach, updates, and newsletters.
• Strong organizational skills with a demonstrated ability to multitask, take initiative, and work independently while being part of a team.
• Experience working on campaigns in human rights or social justice is a plus, as is familiarity with business and human rights issues, in particular expertise, interest and background in the area of technology and human rights (digital rights), including artificial intelligence, would be a plus.

What else you should know:

This position is 20 hours per week. ICCR’s office is in New York City: Work is currently remote, with hybrid available for those in the NYC area who would like to work from the office.  Candidates for this position are welcome to be fully remote, but must be within commuting distance of New York City to be able to attend both required staff planning meetings and the ICCR conferences.

The starting salary for this role is $35,025.  This is a one-year, grant-funded union position, subject to renewal. This position does not include paid benefits, but includes paid vacation, sick days, personal days, and ICCR paid holidays, pro-rated for half time.

It is the policy of ICCR to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, marital status, disability, or prior criminal record. This policy is intended to reflect the values and ideals of ICCR’s members and to help ICCR itself model the equal employment opportunity (EEO) and affirmative action practices that its members urge corporations to adopt.  

How to apply

Send a cover letter and resume to Anita Dorett at jobs@iccr.org. Please write “Program Associate: Investor Alliance for Human Rights” in the subject line. Resumes without a cover letter will not be considered. Cover letters must include at least 2-3 sentences about why you are interested in the Investor Alliance and should be considered for this specific role. Applications will be accepted until July 15 and interviews will be conducted on a rolling basis beginning June 26. We apologize that because of the volume of applications, we are only able to respond to those applicants granted an interview. No phone calls, please.