Research Associate - Public Finance for Parks
Job posted by: The Trust for Public Land - SF Headquarters
The Trust for Public Land is the leading U.S. nonprofit organization focused on creating parks for people in cities across the United States. We are committed to getting every American within a 10-minute walk of a park, especially in those cities and urban counties where residents currently lack this access. We are currently seeking a Research Associate who wants to join our team and help us in our work to advise top city leaders across the U.S. on how to create the public funding to make the 10-minute walk goal a reality.
The Research Associate will join our research team, a national group of experts with decades of experience in public policy, economics, planning, marketing, and public finance. The research team's work has been central to the Trust for Public Land's ability to create more than $58 billion in voter-approved funding for parks, land conservation and restoration since 1996. Our research and field teams (a group of 20 spread across the country) work in tandem to advise top elected officials and their staffs who seek our technical expertise to research, design and pass ballot measures and legislation.
Since 1996, we have passed 479 state and local ballot measures while achieving an 81 percent passage rate. We have helped pass measures in major cities and urban counties throughout the United States.
The Research Associate's primary focus will be to help us achieve our 10-minute walk goal by helping cities/counties create the public funding needed to achieve that goal. More specifically, the Research Associate will investigate in depth how major cities/urban counties where we are working can create the substantial public funding to increase access to parks. They will also help with two major research databases (LandVote and the Conservation Almanac) that we created and that serve as essential accountability tools for the parks and land conservation movements in the U.S.
The ideal candidate will have a strong interest in The Trust for Public Land's mission of creating parks for people, especially in neighborhoods where residents often lack access to parks, playgrounds, community gardens, and trails that may be found in other parts of a city or county.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:
- Feasibility research and written reports for the Conservation Finance program's urban Parks for People finance work. These reports evaluate the potential of state and local governments to design public funding programs for parks. Typical reports include the following: an outline the range of legal revenue options, including new and innovative mechanisms for financing urban parks, that a community could use, how much revenue could be generated, the ballot language requirements, the legal pathways to the ballot, the election history of that jurisdiction, review of the political landscape including elected officials and their terms in office. It includes a review of other key community issues that could affect the passage of a measure.
- Research for the Conservation Almanac, a comprehensive database of public land conservation activities and for the National Conservation Easement Database, a comprehensive database to track conservation easements in the United States.
- Identify and collect information from stakeholders through email and phone contacts; gathering data and qualitative information from existing materials (e.g. journal articles, government reports, legal statutes). Format data for input into online databases. Also to manage project relationships and project documentation.
- Design of our research products including research papers and reports that require data analysis and data summaries in the forms of excel spreadsheets, charts, dashboards, graphs, etc.
- Distillation research reports into marketing materials, development of PowerPoint slides, and effective utilization of social media platforms to garner more attention for our research, and coordination with marketing staff.
- Perform other relevant duties, including writing and administrative tasks, as necessary.
QUALIFICATIONS:
- Bachelor's Degree in environmental policy/natural resources or a degree in public administration, political science, urban planning, environmental science or related field with a demonstrated interest in the environmental sector.
- 1-2 years relevant experience.
- Strong familiarity with how local and state governments operate and respect for and belief in the public policy, political, and electoral process. Experience or demonstrated interest in public policy, politics, campaigns, and elections is highly desirable. We are a non-partisan organization and we work successfully with public officials from across the political spectrum and all members of our team, regardless of their personal political views, must be able to work effectively with public officials of all political backgrounds.
- Experience or work in an urban environment in public finance, particularly financing urban park acquisition, development, operations, and maintenance.
- Experience creating literature reviews, policy statements or involvement in the development of academic research papers is required.
- Experience preparing research and presentation materials for meetings, conferences or presentations.
- Knowledge of the basics of GIS is helpful.
- Experience developing marketing materials (websites, social media blasts, pamphlets, newsletters) is helpful.
- Demonstrated success working in a team-oriented environment.
- Experience and comfort with clear and effective communication in person, in writing, online, and over the phone with a diverse variety of internal and external audiences.
- Mastery of software applications, particularly Excel, Access, Word and Power Point.
- Experience with database applications and graphics programs (such as InDesign) preferred. Experience with relational databases is a plus.
- Self-motivated and ability to work independently with limited supervision.
- Attention to detail, organization, diligence and commitment to excellence.
- Ability to work under deadline pressure on multiple projects with multiple deadlines.
- Some national travel for projects and conferences, which might be 2-4 times per year.
How to apply
Apply via the job posting on our website:http://www.tpl.org/about/jobs/research-associate-public-finance-parks