• Classification: Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award. Social and community services employee 3.4 to 4.4, depending on experience. Better Renting pays above award rates equivalent to an annual salary of $80,306 to $92,946, pro-rata. Hourly pay rate of $40.53 to $46.91 per hour. The award includes leave loading of 17.5%. Salary packaging/fringe benefits available.
• Location: We are open to remote employees based anywhere. Current staff are based in Adelaide and Canberra.
• Time commitment: Part-time, 0.8 FTE (30 hours). Weekly workload can be flexible according to your needs.
• Probation period: Three months.
• Position length: Contract to 20 December 2024, with option for extension.

About Better Renting

Better Renting is a community of renters working together for stable, affordable, and healthy homes. With more Australians locked out of homeownership, more of us are renting, and renting for longer. But renters are denied the rights and protections of homeowners. We can't all own a house — but we should all be able to rent a home. Renting can be a genuine alternative to ownership — and Better Renting exists to make it happen.

You can learn more about us from our Impact Reports from 2021-22 (https://www.betterrenting.org.au/better_renting_impact_report_2021_2022) and 2018-2020 (https://www.betterrenting.org.au/impact_report)

What we’re up to

Better Renting campaigns on a range of other rental issues: energy performance standards for rentals, ending unfair evictions, and winning limits on rent increases. We’re looking to get renters more involved in this work, building the capacity of renters across Australia to work together to influence policy. We primarily reach these renters through online channels, with a growing amount of work happening through spaces like Facebook Groups, Discord, and WhatsApp communities.

For the next year or so, a central focus will be the upcoming federal election. We've begun consulting renters on a draft strategy. We want to use this as a crucial moment to build renter power, win better outcomes for renters, and demonstrate that renters are a political force that can decide election outcomes. This is a crucial area you'll work on, helping to engage renters and support them to be part of this work.

Alongside that, we'll keep working on Healthy Homes for Renters. We are coordinating a national collaboration of about 130 organisations pushing for minimum energy efficiency standards for rental properties. We work closely with organisations in every jurisdiction across Australia. There’s great potential to expand our organising and comms work around this — we’d love to do more to amplify renters’ stories, both positive and negative, around energy performance issues. And it’s crucial that we are able to activate online supporters at key campaign moments.

The role will involve

Turning Better Renting’s online audiences into a political constituency. We currently reach renters through social media channels, including a dedicated Facebook group, and our email list. We want to do this more, and better, and more strategically. This means a focus not just on having more followers, but on translating this into political power, through building connections with supporters and increasing our capacity to activate them at critical moments. This will also include relational work with individual supporters and renter leaders. The core of this role will be developing and then implementing a plan for this.

Managing Better Renting’s digital channels. Related to the above, you’ll be responsible for keeping our social media channels active and up-to-date. We’re keen on a spicy voice that is unashamedly pro-renter and taps into the frustration and anger that renters are feeling. You’ll also plan and coordinate email communication with our list, including copy-writing, and the development of supporter journeys.

Helping to promote renters’ stories around energy issues. You’ll amplify renters’ stories through our own channels, talking to renters about their experiences around energy issues, and then helping to get these stories out there. We want to highlight the problems that renters currently face, as well as the positive opportunities from energy efficiency, electrification, and solar power. You’ll also help renters to engage with traditional media, recruiting renters to speak to journalists and supporting them to do so.

The interpersonal dimension of this work is important. It is essential that you are excited by the prospect of having conversations - sometimes challenging - with renters in all sorts of different circumstances, and that you have the emotional intelligence and leadership skills to support these people to confidently share their voices.

Here’s what your role might look like day-to-day:

• Organising renters to take action. Implementing a three-month plan you developed at the start of the quarter, you organise and run an online welcome session for new renter activists, and help to turn people out to come along. You use the meeting to recruit renters to take part in an upcoming event where renters across Australia will get training in writing letters to the editor and support each other to try out this tactic.
• Responsible for social media channels. You schedule a range of posts across our social media channels, drawing upon recent news articles as well as creating original Better Renting content in collaboration with other staff. You make sure to engage community members to encourage interaction and participation.
• Preparing emails for our community. Consistent with a communications plan you’ve been working on, you write an email, help to review another, and then set them both up to go out through NationBuilder, including segmenting the audiences, setting up appropriate scheduling, and recording these in our email coordination AirTable.
• Working with renters as media talent. You read someone’s survey response and have a chat with them on the phone to learn more about the issues in their rental. You connect this renter with a journalist who is writing about the latest Domain Rental Report, and give that renter the support to feel comfortable and empowered to share their story.

What it’s like working here

For the right person, Better Renting is a great place to work! We want to help you determine if it’s right for you.

You can read a bit here about our employee entitlements and conditions.

You can read a bit here about our team culture.

Selection criteria

We will be evaluating applicants on the following:

• A good fit for the team. We’ve got a great culture at Better Renting, and we want a team member who will help to strengthen that. Key parts of this culture are a commitment to reflection and ongoing learning, to vulnerability and honest feedback, and to rigorous ‘accountability with empathy’. We are also a small team where staff need to be on top of their patch but also able to support one another as needed.
• Social media skills. Could you keep up an engaging social media presence for Better Renting, while still having time for your other responsibilities? Do we feel like you could get the voice right and also bring new ideas and approaches to improve our work here.
• Organising skills. Do you have a demonstrated ability to connect with supporters, move people to action, and develop leaders over time. Can we imagine you fostering commitment in renter leaders and encouraging people to take on new and greater responsibilities?
• The ability to manage tasks and get things done. We’ll want to see evidence of your ability to plan out a project, keep it on schedule, and smash through a to-do list. A good applicant here would be able to give examples of this, as well as analyse their own systems and approaches to keep things running smoothly and deal with hiccoughs.
• Communication skills. Partly, we want someone who can communicate effectively to external audiences. But this is also about internal communication: can you get your point across concisely, understand and follow instructions, and be part of a team that depends upon everyone’s ability to communicate to support our collective goals.
• Understanding of renting and campaigning. You’ll learn on the job, of course, but the ideal applicant will demonstrate rapidly that they understand what we are about: what it is to be an advocacy organisation, the challenges that renters face, what we are trying to do about it. Past experience in advocacy non-profits will likely serve you well, as well as current or recent lived experience of renting.

We encourage you to apply even if you don’t have all of the above characteristics. A passion for the work and an eagerness to learn are the most important things.

Recruitment process

Applications are due on the advertised date — we will begin reviewing applications that day, and will not consider applications received later than this date.

If you have any questions you can contact us via [email protected] using the subject line: Digital Organiser enquiry via EthicalJobs.

We plan to complete interviews and make an offer before the end of March 2024, looking for a candidate to start in early April.

Better Renting is an equal-opportunity employer. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, women, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, LGBTQI people, and people with a disability are encouraged to apply.