Nonprofit Remote Digest - Issue #367

Decriminalize Sex Work is a national organization pursuing a state-by-state strategy to end the prohibition of consensual, adult prostitution in the United States. We work with local organizations, advocates, and lobbyists to build community support and convince legislators to stop prostitution-related arrests. Evidence shows that decriminalizing sex work will help end human trafficking, improve public health, and promote community safety. 

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Decriminalize Sex Work — decriminalizesex.work Decriminalize Sex Work (DSW) is a national organization pursuing a state-by-state strategy to end the prohibition of consensual, adult prostitution in the

Executive Assistant

Decriminalize Sex Work (DSW) prefers for the Executive Assistant (EA) to live in the Austin area but, if not, then certainly somewhere else in the continental United States.

The EA position requires a great deal of self motivation. While the EA’s task list is well defined, it’s for the EA to organize their own work so as to meet all deadlines. Also, because it’s highly likely that the EA would need to work from a home office (or another location where other DSW staffers aren’t present), the EA should be a “self starter,” managing their own workload without relying on colleagues for daily inspiration.

As can be seen from the relatively small staff size — DSWork.org/team — there isn’t room for upward advancement (or even a lateral move) within the organization. As such, the EA would ideally be motivated by a passion for the organization’s mission and/or the feeling of a job well done, rather than an escalation of titles and authority.

Of course, the EA would need to support the policy goal of decriminalizing adult, consensual prostitution (and other forms of sex work). But, in addition, the EA would also need to support marijuana legalization.  This is because the EA would be assisting with two tiny marijuana organizations, in addition to DSW and its lobbying arm, the Campaign to Decriminalize Sex Work.

That said, of these four organizations, DSW consumes 95% of the EA’s working hours. As such, the job description below refers to “DSW” and/or a singular “organization,” for ease of reading.

1. BOOKKEEPING (25%)

The EA must have experience using QuickBooks (or the equivalent software) to maintain the organization’s bookkeeping. And while accountants aren’t disqualified from the EA position, the skills of an accountant are more than what DSW needs.

The EA is responsible for:

* paying all bills and depositing all revenues;

* reconciling QB with bank statements monthly;

* reconciling QB with credit-card statements monthly;

* serving as the point of contact for most vendors;

* paying independent contractors; and

* administering payroll and benefits for all employees.

2. HUMAN RESOURCES (20%)

The EA’s responsibilities in the realm of “human resources” are somewhat narrow and should not be compared to other companies’ human-resource officers, who oftentimes have authority over other employees, serve as pseudo-therapists or sounding boards, and so forth.

Rather, by process of elimination, the need to understand employee-related policies ends up falling in the domain of the EA:

* providing new employees with onboarding materials, as well as tying up loose ends with departing employees;

* understanding the details of the organization’s benefit plans for health insurance, retirement, and Health Savings Accounts;

* developing and “enforcing” processes for employees’ use of credit cards, the submission of receipts, and reimbursements for allowable expenses; and

* continually updating the staff manual, which contains the organization’s internal policies and methods of operation, while omitting topics that are covered “externally” by state and federal laws.  (The EA doesn’t need to have serious knowledge of laws relating to employment or otherwise.)

3. GOVERNMENTS (20%)

The EA is responsible for interfacing with all levels of government in areas that involve the organization’s legal obligations. This includes:

* ensuring that QuickBooks is properly triggering monthly tax payments to various levels of government;

* ensuring that the organization is in compliance with ad-hoc government policies (such as workers comp in New York State);

* filing renewals of the organization’s charitable-solicitation registrations with state governments;

* maintaining the legal status of DSW as both a business and an employer in a handful of states;

* assisting with the periodic filings of campaign-finance reports for two Political Action Committees relating to the organization;

* assisting with the annual filing of each nonprofit organization’s Form 990 with the IRS; and

* compiling and issuing annually the Form W2 and Form 1099 to the organization’s employees and independent contractors, respectively.

4. MEMBERSHIP DATABASE (15%)

Ideally, the EA would have previous experience with any kind of membership database or “content management system,” such as NationBuilder, Razor’s Edge, Salsa, or a similar system. At DSW, which uses Salsa, the EA …

* serves as one of two staffers responsible for updating the contact information of donors and non-donor supporters of the organization.

* issuing thank-you letters and emails to donors.

5. ASSISTANT TO THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (20%)

The EA helps the organization’s Executive Director by:

* being in charge of the ED’s calendar, which includes scheduling meetings and other appointments with DSW staffers, as well as people outside the organization;

* making all travel arrangements, usually for the purpose of attending conferences;

* making various (online) purchases on behalf of the ED; and

* tending to miscellaneous and/or unforeseen tasks that would save the ED time.

“BONUS POINTS”

While the five areas of responsibility above are job requirements, the following three skill sets are not mandatory, but rather highly valued.  To wit, if two or three finalists for the EA position are equally qualified in all aspects of the job description, but only one applicant is a nearly flawless proofreader, that applicant would almost surely be hired.

A. PROOFREADING: DSW’s policy staffers don’t have time to proofread their colleagues’ writings, so the organization would greatly benefit from having (at least) one person on staff who would be tasked with proofreading all documents that are intended to be public.

B. SPANISH LANGUAGE: DSW doesn’t currently have anyone on staff who is fluent in Spanish.  An EA who knows conversational Spanish would be a nice addition to the team, but an EA who writes well in Spanish would have enormous value.

C. POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS: Any organization that endeavors to change laws will automatically be in opposition to various government officials, organizations with missions that are at odds with DSW’s mission, and even DSW’s allies who engage in infighting. The air of conflict that underlies (but doesn’t consume) the organization’s day-to-day affairs can be vexing for sensitive individuals. On the other end of the spectrum are people who have worked on political campaigns, which are usually consumed by candidates attacking and lying about each other; hence, political campaigns are ideal training grounds for working at DSW.

THANK YOU, AND GOOD LUCK!

Thank you for your interest in Decriminalize Sex Work and its sister organization, the Campaign to Decriminalize Sex Work. If you wish to apply for the EA position, please carefully follow all of the instructions that you should have already seen on a previous web page: www.DSWork.org/jobs