History and Accomplishments

In the 19th century, the Merrimack Valley, with its miles of red brick mills, was the birthing ground of America’s industrial revolution. Beginning in the 1950s, the region began losing thousands of quality manufacturing jobs to cheaper labor markets in southern U.S. states, and later overseas. By the 1980s, the majority of the old mill jobs were gone.  Meanwhile, an influx of Latino, Southeast Asian, and later, African immigrant groups transformed the face of the Valley’s cities. The combination of job losses and new immigration spurred an exodus of white, middle-class residents to the suburbs, creating the dramatic economic and racial segregation we still see in the region today.

In 1989, a group of faith, labor, and community leaders created the Merrimack Valley Project to unite people across the region’s widening racial, ethnic, and economic rifts in common action to strengthen our communities. Through MVP, people like the Rev. Victor Jarvis, an evangelical pastor from Lawrence, Annia Lembert, a Dominican immigrant, Malden Mills inspector and union member in Lawrence, Father Jim Dukowski, a Catholic priest from Lowell, and Eric Kintner, a physicist from an Episcopal church in Westford have worked together to save over 1,600 manufacturing jobs in the Valley, protect over 600 units of affordable housing, improve the job prospects of the region’s growing temporary worker population, and bring over $10 million to the Valley for housing, job training, and community development.

MVP’s innovative campaigns to fight plant closings, to create democratic economic institutions such as the tenant-owned Amesbury Gardens in Lawrence, and to address the explosive growth of the temporary labor industry, which employs over 15,000 Valley residents and 70,000 people in Massachusetts, have offered state-wide and national organizing models and have had an impact far beyond our region.

Today, MVP has grown to over 30 member groups, including congregations, unions, and community-based organizations from Amesbury, Andover, Chelmsford, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lowell, North Andover, and Westford.  MVP places a strong emphasis on developing the capacity of faith communities to act on their commitments to social and economic justice, and is part of a growing faith-and-values-based organizing movement in America. In 1998, MVP helped found the InterValley Project, a regional organizing network that unites the power of 6 community organizations that is advancing faith-and-values-based organizing throughout New England.

The Merrimack Valley Project (MVP) is searching for a talented Senior Organizer to join our staff.  MVP is a 15-year old community organization that unites congregations, local unions, and community groups in organizing campaigns for social and economic justice in the Merrimack Valley region of Massachusetts. The Senior Organizer will work with the MVP Lead Organizer / Staff Director and a team of talented leaders to advance effective, broad-based organizing campaigns to improve the quality of life in Valley communities. MVP addresses racial, ethnic, and economic segregation through groundbreaking organizing initiatives to increase economic opportunities and good jobs for low-income residents and new immigrants, and powerful campaigns to save and create affordable housing. Last May, MVP leaders voted to make the rights and needs of the region’s more than 115,000 immigrants our top organizing priority for the coming year.

• Recruit and develop leaders from a diverse membership of religious, labor, and community organizations in the Merrimack Valley, and work with these leaders to strengthen MVP’s power.

• Staff organizing campaigns on economic and social justice issues, including immigration, jobs and workers’ rights, affordable housing, and other issues important to MVP’s constituency.

• Work with leaders on local fundraising campaigns and membership dues collection, supporting the organization in achieving fundraising goals. Assist with grant writing when needed.

• Assist with supervision of organizer apprentices, field study students and interns working with MVP.

• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Minimum 3 to 5 years work experience as a community, congregation-based, or labor organizer.

• Passion for social and economic justice.

• Strong commitment to faith- and values-based organizing.

• Proven ability to mentor leaders and carry out successful issue campaigns.

• Appreciation for and ability to work with a broad range of religious and cultural traditions.

• Excellent team-building skills, high energy, and strong one-to-one relationship-building skills.

• Self-disciplined work habits and excellent communication skills.

• Experience working with diverse immigrant communities; bilingual ability in Spanish, Portuguese, French Creole, or Khmer preferred.

Competitive salary, commensurate with experience, with excellent benefits, including 4 weeks paid vacation. 

Position will remain open until filled. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply.

Please send resume and cover letter to Loren McArthur, MVP Lead Organizer / Staff Director.  Include in your cover letter an explanation of why you are committed to organizing as a means to addressing social and economic justice issues, and describe your relevant organizing experience.

Merrimack Valley Project
1045 Essex Street
Lawrence, Massachusetts  01841
Ph: (978) 686-0650
Fax: (978) 685-5665
email:  mvalleyp@aol.com
www.merrimackvalleyproject.org