Solar Community Digital and Field Organizer

OUR PURPOSE

SunCommon believes that everyone has the right to a healthy environment and safer world — and clean energy is where it starts.  Energy from the sun can power our lives, heat our homes and fuel our cars.  Our mission is to tear the barriers to renewable energy.  We do that by making it easy and affordable for all Vermonters to go solar.

ABOUT THE BUSINESS

In just a few years, SunCommon has grown into Vermont’s largest residential solar business having served over 2500 Vermonters.  We begin with a community organizing approach to marketing, via high-touch, personal interactions with home and business owners who want solar but couldn’t figure it out or didn’t think they could afford it.  We’ve done all the legwork to put together a total package that’s easy for the customer.   We picked the best equipment manufacturer, lined up the finest installers and arranged attractive financing that saves our customers real money.

ABOUT THIS POSITION

SunCommon’s Solar Community Organizers are responsible for our community outreach and education program work. This position also incorporates using digital tools to enhance the grassroots organizing strategy. The Organizers bring community members together (online or offline) to educate them about how solar can work for them, and motivate them to sign up and get them started.

The Organizer begins by working with community leaders to identify and to engage their communities around solar and understand how to reach community members whether through event work or online forums/social media. The Organizer builds a network of local solar fans, excited about significantly increasing solar in their community and excited to work with us to make it happen, in addition to building a repertoire of tools to engage potential solar customers. Moving forward, the Organizer works with this growing network of solar evangelists to launch a local outreach effort through event work and digital mobilizing.

The local organizing event work involves anything and everything—from hosting a community solar workshop, creating a July 4 parade float, curating a solar-inspired art gallery, tabling at the local farmers’ market, bringing our solar powered bouncy house to a community event, or creating a community challenge in conjunction with the Select Board.

Another part of the Organizer’s role is work with our customers. After each new homeowner goes solar, a Solar Orientation is scheduled with the local Organizer to walk-through the homeowner’s new solar system, to help them understand how to read their new electric bill and answer other questions, and to introduce them to SunCommon’s organizing program and find ways for them to be involved and recommend solar to their friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers.

In addition the Organizer works with local media to keep solar and SunCommon in the news, and contributes to our social media presence.

All in all, SunCommon’s team of organizers is responsible for generating the homeowner interest that keeps the rest of the SunCommon team busy assessing homes, designing systems, and selling solar.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS

• Positive, enthusiastic attitude is absolutely key
• Effective time management since much of the work is done independently, in the field
• Speaking with poise and presence in front of audiences
• Ability to create and manage regionally specific online initiatives including social campaigns, online advertising, online/offline strategies
• Making first contact with community leaders to introduce SunCommon
• Recruiting community members to educational events
• Motivating interested homeowners to sign up and get started
• Working with interested homeowners to set up their home visits
• Building relationships with our solar homeowners
• Event organizing
• Must be a team player
• Ability to work in our open office environment, comfortable with the proximity of 
colleagues engaged in similar volumes of work

JOB QUALIFICATIONS

The ideal candidate for this position will have: 


• Experience leading a project, program, or campaign
• Skill with public speaking and media relations

• Digital savvy including social media, online forums, event tools, community calendars, and digital advertising
• Commitment to the advancement of clean energy
• A flexible schedule  
• A willingness to meet with solar homeowners and community leaders and to do event work outside the typical 9-5 workday
• Infectious passion for our shared vision of a clean energy future
• A personal network in the geography the position serves

PAY & BENEFITS

SunCommon offers employees a competitive salary and strong package of benefits, including:▪For the employee and her/his family, fully paid medical premiums as well as a significant contribution toward medical deductible expenses,

• For the employee and a spouse or dependent, fully paid dental premiums,
• 3 weeks paid personal leave (combined vacation and sick) for year 1; 4 weeks for year 2,
• 10 paid holidays annually,
• 401k company match 1:1 up to 3% of salary that the employee sets aside then 1:2 
match for 4 or 5%.


SunCommon provides our Organizers with the tools they need to succeed at their jobs, including a car (with gas, insurance and maintenance), MacBook laptop computer and cell phone. 


HOW WE WORK 


We feel huge responsibility to succeed, to honor our triple bottom line commitments to people (our employees and their families, our Customers and residents of the communities where we do business), planet (Vermont’s beloved environment and the broader globe, given climate change) and profit (providing capital to grow, revenue to share among our employees, and a reasonable return to our investors). This is important work, and we have fun doing it.  Innovation is fun stuff.

We do it by celebrating creativity, cross-functional collaboration, high energy, hard work, good play, deep networking and with the acknowledgement that we’ll each make mistakes and learn from them.  We know success.  We know fun.  Come do both with us.

In addition to meaningful work, we offer competitive salary and generous benefits.  Our values are reflected in our workplace — our new net-positive office building with easy access to vibrant downtown Waterbury.

The Vermont Department of Economic Development named SunCommon as one of the state’s “Best Places to Work,” based in part on the delight registered by our employees in a confidential survey of our employees.

APPLYING

Formatted in PDF, send a cover letter (indicating what attracts you to this adventure and what you would bring to it) along with your resume to hr@suncommon.com.

SunCommon of course is an equal opportunity employer and we don’t tolerate harassment or other discrimination based upon sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, caregiver status, pregnancy, military or veteran status, race, color, religion, national origin, place of birth, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, genetic information or any other legally protected status.