Campaign Director

Permit Power Campaign Director 

tl;dr Join Permit Power to oversee local advocacy campaigns in multiple states to dramatically accelerate the installation of clean energy equipment, from rooftop solar and energy storage to electric heat pumps and EV chargers. 

What we do at Permit Power 

To meet our climate goals, homes and businesses across the United States need to install 650 million clean energy appliances, such as rooftop solar, battery storage, EV chargers and electric heat pumps. Most of these appliances need sign-offs from municipalities, homeowners associations, and/or utilities. At Permit Power, we are working to make clean energy installs faster and cheaper by streamlining the processes to get them approved.  

Costly, lengthy and unpredictable permitting and interconnection are a major barrier to deploying small-scale clean energy equipment as widely and broadly as necessary, just as it is for offshore wind farms and inter-state transmission lines. Municipal permitting challenges alone, for instance, are a major reason that the price tag for rooftop solar in the United States is double the price tag in Europe. Studies show that appliance permitting barriers have a disproportionate impact on low income and disadvantaged communities, as they are the least able to bear the increased costs, delays and uncertainty. Automating permitting will unlock billions of dollars of IRA funding for clean energy appliance installs. 

We have already made great progress. In California, Maryland, and Minnesota, our team has successfully secured state funding and/or passed legislative mandates to automate permitting for residential solar and storage systems. Going forward we will leverage these policies to drive automated permitting adoption by cities and counties, scale our legislative model to other states across the country, and extend our work to include other clean energy equipment. 

We are looking for a seasoned Campaign Director to lead our implementation campaigns– translating our statehouse wins into results on the ground. You’ll be responsible for ensuring that jurisdictions follow the mandates we’ve helped to pass and take advantage of the state grant programs that we’ve helped create. In partnership with our Chief of Advocacy, you’ll also provide support to our state legislative and budget campaigns.

What you will be doing: 

• When a state law is passed that requires local jurisdictions to automate the permitting of rooftop solar and energy storage, for instance, you will be responsible for ensuring as many local jurisdictions follow the law as possible.
• When the state creates a funding program that provides incentives or grants to local jurisdictions to automate the permitting of rooftop solar and energy storage, for instance, you will be responsible for ensuring as many local jurisdictions apply to the grant program as possible.
• Your responsibilities in these implementation campaigns will include:

• Evaluate, recruit, and select groups to partner with and support in each state, and help build coalitions that will conduct implementation and enforcement campaigns.
• Oversee and influence comprehensive campaigns led by state-based organizations and agencies, including advocacy, organizing, communications, and legal. Leverage Permit Power’s resources to support campaign tactics and strategy.
• Work with state agencies to design programs that are strong, comprehensive, and maximize the number of participating and/or compliant jurisdictions.
• Familiarize yourself with the approval processes for clean energy equipment installs at the local level in order to help evaluate jurisdictions’ compliance with state policies and programs, in collaboration with our policy and legal team.
• Negotiate and manage Permit Power’s grants and/or contracts with partner organizations for policy implementation and enforcement work; serve as a key point of contact and collaboration for grantees .
• Represent Permit Powers with policymakers, allies, donors, and the media.

• Help support and execute state legislative and budget campaigns as needed, including developing strategy, coordinating with partner organizations, and planning and implementing tactics.

The experience we are looking for: 

• Experience running successful state and local advocacy campaigns across multiple states and working directly with state and local governments. The strongest candidates will have experience leading campaigns involving grassroots and grasstops organizing, communications, and legal strategies
• Familiarity with the climate and environmental movement ecosystem
• Knowledge of clean energy and/or environmental policy issues
• Experience evaluating and recruiting potential partners, building organizational partnerships and overseeing coalitions

What will make you a good fit: 

• Entrepreneurial and self-directed. We are a small team, and you will need to be able to figure out both what your goals should be and how to achieve them.
• Outcomes-oriented. We will measure ourselves by how much we can drive down the cost and timelines for installing clean energy equipment, and how much more clean energy equipment we can get installed. We are looking for someone that will find fulfillment in achieving those concrete goals.
• Relationships with environmental, consumer, and good government organizations
• Collaborative and low-ego. We’re a start-up organization and will make many mistakes. We will only succeed if we work together, acknowledge our mistakes, and learn from them.