TexPIRG State Advocate

TexPIRG’s mission is to champion the public interest—to raise our voices on behalf of the public when decisions are being made that affect our health, our safety and our rights as consumers and citizens. The problems we address aren’t progressive or conservative, they’re just problems that our country shouldn’t tolerate in an age of great abundance and technological progress. And these problems affect all of us, whether we live in a blue state, red state or purple state. To solve them, we need to find common ground around commonsense ideas.

Over the past 50 years, TexPIRG has won consistent improvements in the lives of Texas’ public. In just the last few years, we have convinced Austin’s voters to approve a first-of-its-kind $7 billion investment in public transit; gotten CapMetro, the Austin transit agency, to commit to all electric transit buses; helped push the Legislature to end surprise medical bills for consumers; educated tens of thousands of consumers on dangerous products from toys to financial products; and much more.

CURRENT PRIORITIES

Texas is a big, diverse state, with many opportunities to champion the consumer cause. TexPIRG is focused on three main areas of critical importance to Texas’ future: combatting the COVID-19 pandemic, transforming Texas’ transportation options to make it cleaner and easier to get around, and running safe, secure, and accessible elections.

You can see a full list of the campaigns we support on our website.

Representative Responsiblities

Run campaigns to protect and educate consumers in Texas:

• Program development and strategy: Help develop programs and campaigns around relevant consumer and public interest policy, including researching the issue, creating viable policy solutions, and proposing the right political strategy.
• Advocacy: Represent TexPIRG in meetings, hearings and other forums. Meet directly with decision makers in government, corporations and academia and make our case. Develop strong and collaborative relationships with state agencies, partner organizations, coalitions, legislators and legislative staff on both sides of the aisle, and other stakeholders to advance shared goals.
• Communications: Work with your team to develop messaging and materials for decision makers, the public, and the media to help advance our campaigns, including opinion editorials, press releases, letters to the editor, action campaign emails, fact sheets, bill summaries and policy briefs, regulatory comments, analyses, and presentations.

Fundraise from charitable foundations and individual donors to support our program:

• Meet with foundation staff and donors to pitch projects for funding.
• Work with your team to write and submit grant proposals.
• Meet with individual TexPIRG supporters to deepen their giving and build our donor base.

Build a team:

• You will be part of a Texas based team of advocates and campaign staff to advance our policy goals. Advocates may serve as mentors or supervisors to less experienced staff.
• Participate in recruitment and make hiring recommendations for the state office team.

Qualifications

You are:

• An campaign advocate, campaign staffer or grassroots organizer with at least 3 years of experience team building and/or coalition building,
• An effective communicator with excellent writing and verbal skills. Experience with traditional media or digital communications is a plus,
• Creative and effective at solving complex problems, a strategic thinker who can take advantage of new opportunities,
• A people person and good listener with a track record of successful access-building,
• Well-organized and able to work on multiple legislative and administrative proposals,
• Able to oversee significant projects and have excellent judgement and discretion,
• Passionate about protecting consumers and the public interest, making concrete change in people’ lives, and using the power of grassroots organizing to win campaigns.

Additional helpful experience:

• Experience in a legislative office within Congress, a state legislature, or with an environmental or public health advocacy organization is a plus but not required.
• Fundraising experience, particularly in grant-seeking from charitable foundations.
• Spanish language proficiency.