Changes at TakeAction

I’ve been at TakeAction Minnesota since we opened our doors more than 10 years ago, and I can tell you first-hand that this organization has never stood still, not even for a day.  Our network of powerful people and people’s organizations is always growing and changing.  And today we announce some more changes – both exciting and sad.

First the sad.  Liz Doyle, our Associate Director for almost all of these past 10 years will be leaving us.  While she will stay on our staff in a reduced role over the next couple months, she will be transitioning out of TakeAction Minnesota to seek out new opportunities.  Liz is a uniquely gifted strategic thinker, a talented and relentless organizer and coalition builder and, she is simply one of the most effective and powerful people I’ve ever known.  Period.  While she is not always in the limelight, ask anyone who has worked with Liz and they will tell you: if something good is happening, Liz Doyle is at the center of it.  From expanding health care to banning the box to passing earned sick and safe time in Minneapolis to much much more, she’s a driving force for justice in our state.  She’s also my friend, someone who I’ve worked closely with for a long time and who pulled double duty during my 3(!) paternity leaves, and someone I’m going to miss seeing every work day.

We are also announcing that our Communications Director of the last several months, Jane Booth-Tobin, is moving on as well.  Jane, who started with us out of college – 7 years ago! – developed our digital program, one of the strongest and largest in the state, until we promoted her a few months back. I can’t stress enough the value Jane added to our organization by developing our digital communications – something we weren’t really considering until she made its necessity clear. Our digital program has been instrumental in telling our story, winning campaigns, and developing the racial, gender and corporate analysis with our members.  Jane and the woman she’s engaged to marry want to move out of state and Jane found another gig that works for them.  Jane’s vision, talent, tenacity and deep commitment to the progressive movement will be missed, as will her deep commitment to helping Minnesotans tell their stories.  We will post for her replacement soon.  Stay tuned.

Losing a leader like Liz and a talent like Jane is never easy, but it’s also inevitable.  Great staff go off and do other good things.  While any staff transition is hard, it’s also an opportunity.  Over the last couple months our senior team including Liz, Jane, Ruben Vazquez (Director of Operations & Organizational Effectiveness), Elizabeth Lienesch (Organizing Director) and I, along with the Executive Committee of our Board of Directors, has been thinking about how to not just replace who we had, but how to take major strides toward TakeAction’s goal of changing who decides and who benefits in Minnesota.  And that’s where my excitement comes in.

One major step forward is to promote an outstanding staff leader in his own right – Chris Conry – to the new position of Strategic Campaigns Director.  Chris has been on the TakeAction team for 8 years coming to us after years of labor and electoral organizing.  During his time at TakeAction he has led our work to raise progressive taxes, close corporate tax loopholes, pass the Affordable Care Act, raise the minimum wage, and pass earned sick and safe time.  He’s an excellent campaigner – but he’s an even better strategic thinker.  Chris sees the big picture and can connect it to what needs to be done today, and that’s what’s most important about this new role.  TakeAction has a long-term vision for building governing power.  We know we need to run strategic campaigns that win concrete structural changes, build a stronger movement, and change the dominant narrative.  In this new role, Chris will oversee the staff who lead our campaigns for health care, Justice 4 All, climate, and a new economy, and connect what we do today to our larger vision, working alongside our talented organizing, communications and operations staff.

Second, starting today, we are looking for a Managing Director.  This new position will report to me as Executive Director, and ensure that the work of TakeAction’s staff is aligned toward the big goals of our strategic direction.  This position will help me to operationalize our organizational vision by facilitating staff communication and collaboration, setting clear and measurable goals, and providing support and ensuring accountability toward those goals.  We need someone who is a proven strategic thinker, an experienced and effective manager, someone who is goal oriented, effective, flexible, creative, and practical.  And a sense of humor never hurts either.

We are proud that more than one-third of TakeAction’s staff are people of color.  We want to continue to grow our racial and geographic diversity at all levels in our organization, and as with all positions at TakeAction, I want to encourage people of color, women, LGBTQ persons, and persons with disablities to apply – because we need a staff that reflects our membership and the kind of statewide multi-racial movement we need to build.

Lastly, my role as Executive Director will change.  The addition of a Managing Director means that I will spend less of my time managing the day to day work of our staff and more of my time working directly on our top organizational priorities.  That means spending more time traveling in greater Minnesota and seeking out new allies, more time building deep and transformational relationships with organizations of color who are leading the fight for equity and justice in our state.  It means working with organizational, community and elected leaders to envision what it looks like for the people of our state to govern our state and developing long-term strategies to do just that.

It’s no exaggeration for me to say I love my job.  Every day, after I drop my kids off at school or daycare, I go to work with people who care passionately about making the world a better place, who have a relentless sense of hope that more is possible, and who believe that everyone has the potential to make a difference.  Thank goodness that TakeAction Minnesota has never stopped growing and changing.  These staffing changes are a good sign – a sign that it’s time for our staff and our structures to catch up to the organization we have become.

Thanks – as always – for being a part of TakeAction Minnesota.