Funding and Partnerships Coordinator - Pasifik Program

• Location: Australia-wide
• Term: Permanent On-going
• Job Type: Full-time, 37.5 hours per week (0.8, part-time will be considered)
• Remuneration: SCHADS Level 6: $111,500 - $113,850 + 11.5% Super + 17.5% Annual Leave Loading

This is a Pasifika identified position open to people of Pasifik Island heritage/descent. The role is specifically designed to work with organisations and communities across the Pasifik region.

Job Title: Funding and Partnerships Coordinator - Pasifik Program

Reporting to: Director – First Nations and Pasifik Programs

Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) is the leading environmental law practice in the Australia Pasifik Region delivering legal solutions for peoples, nature and our climate. Our vision is for a world where nature thrives. We are ambitious about the role we can play in delivering that vision and we have an incredible team across the country working to achieve it.

We are dedicated to protecting our climate, communities and shared environment by providing access to justice, running ground-breaking litigation and leading law reform advocacy. Over our 30-year combined history, we have developed a formidable track record of empowering communities and delivering effective protection of the environment through legal services.

Since time immemorial, Indigenous peoples have been taking care of their waters and lands throughout the Pasifik. These deep understandings, knowledges and experiences are critical to maintaining the health and vitality of the Pasifik’s unique wildlife and ecosystems. EDO respects these great knowledges, and strongly believes that EDO cannot achieve a world where nature thrives without working alongside Indigenous peoples of the Pasifik.

EDO has established a Pasifik-led Program to support Pasifik partners on the ground in various Pasifik countries who provide legal and advocacy services to their communities wishing to protect their environment. The Pasifik Program is designed to ensure that EDO centres understanding of – and respect for – Indigenous perspectives in our work, through utilising its resources to provide legal, governance and administrative support to the Pasifik Partners.

As the region’s legal experts in our field, we aim to be a brave, unified, and focused team, committed to inclusion and excellence in all that we do. We strive to be a diverse and inclusive workplace supporting a highly skilled, engaged, and effective team, where everyone can feel that they belong.

The opportunity:

We have a rare opportunity for a program / project manager of Pasifik Island heritage/descent to co-lead our Pasifik Program with the Managing Lawyer – Pasifik Program. This opportunity occurs at a crucial time to work strategically with international and regional players and local communities to take on some of the biggest environmental issues facing the Pasifik region.

The Funding and Partnerships Coordinator - Pasifik Program, will manage the partnerships and funding of the Program, and will work alongside the Managing Lawyer – Pasifik Program in the delivery of current work and play a key role in the future design and development of the Program.

Our Pasifik Program embodies Pasifik values, providing pathways for Pasifika environmental lawyers and represents EDO’s regional presence in the wider Pasifik region through maintaining and developing long-standing and trusting relationships with government, partner organisations and local communities across the region and international organisations who share EDO’s vison of a world where nature thrives. The Pasifik Program is focused on working alongside Pasifik partners to uphold their efforts in the protection of nature in the Pasifik. The Program works to deliver key environmental protections via strengthening public interest environmental law in the Pasifik, delivering strategic legal interventions and ensuring local knowledges, custom/kastom and culture plays a central role.

To date the Program has focused on work in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu and has relationships across the entire region. Our work to date involves supporting our partners on the ground to run cases in local courts, use international mechanisms to assist domestic actions, analyse policy and law, support community outreach through advocacy, communications and story-telling about environmental issues and communities in the Pasifik.

To maximise our impact, our Program works closely and collaboratively with international donors, environmental lawyers, journalists, and human rights organisations and a Pasifik-network of organisations, communities and individuals.

Candidate Profile:

Our candidate is across the environmental issues facing the region and has a strong understanding of the salient values of the Pasifik peoples such as collectivism, reciprocity/relationality and respect. You are someone looking to make a big difference in a crucial space, at a crucial time and understand the historical and contemporary Pasifik context.

You will have the ability to collaborate and work closely with colleagues who specialise in different fields to collectively provide the best circumstances for the Pasifik Program and Pasifik partners to flourish in. You understand that everyone in the team brings something unique and important to the table – enabling a collaborative work environment within the team, across EDO and with solicitors and partners across Australia, the Pasifik region and internationally.

You will have strong relationship building skills and be confident in developing trusted relationships with a diverse range of clients and other stakeholders, including government, partner organisations, local communities within the Pasifik region and media.

We are looking for an independent and strategic thinker, a skilled communicator and someone with a proven track record of sourcing and sustaining multiple funding streams, with an ability to think outside the box and deliver effective results for partners and clients.

You will have the requirements to successfully deliver projects, including budget management, partner relations and compliance matters.
At a personal level you will be comfortable working with diverse communities, and in remote and isolated areas. You will have resilience, tenacity, and compassion.

Key selection criteria:

Essential

• The ability to hold and foster cultural relationships across the Pasifik, including a strong understanding of Pasifik kastom(s) and cross cultural competency.
• Lived experience of a Pasifik culture(s) and a strong understanding of the cultural diversity across the Pasifik.
• An understanding of the political and cultural contexts of the Pasifik – including its colonial history and ongoing influences of colonialism and climate and environmental racism.
• Excellent emotional intelligence and communications skills.
• Experience in program / project management, including fundraising and donor management, writing grant applications and reporting, grant compliance, budgeting, drafting of MoU’s and negotiation.
• Demonstrated ability to work productively and to deadlines
• Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain good relationships with partners and funders.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including an ability to communicate clearly in plain English and an understanding the importance of Pasifik ‘story-telling’ and ways to achieve this story-telling when working via Western constructs.
• Experience in implementing strong governance mechanism (i.e. policies, processes).

Desirable

• Fluency in one or more Pasifik language.
• Experience in implementing strong governance mechanism (i.e. policies, processes).
• A working knowledge of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
• Understanding of community outreach issues
• A strong knowledge of context compatible environmental law developments such as, ecocide, a right to a healthy environment, Indigenous led rights of nature.
• Experience working with, or an understanding of, compliance requirements under Australian Council for International Development (ACFID)'s Code of Conduct.
• Experience with public communications and news media.

Personal Qualities and Cultural Competency

• A champion of the EDO values
• Strong initiative and self-motivation
• Commitment to the protection of human rights and the environment
• A strong sense of ethics and understanding of professional obligations
• Demonstrable understanding of Pasifik values, contexts and way of life
• Demonstrated awareness of and sensitivity to the needs and concerns of Pasifik peoples and those from diverse cultures, backgrounds and orientations in both the delivery of our work and our internal culture
• Demonstrated ability to work in a collaborative and team-based environment

Our Culture and Benefits:   

• We care deeply about creating a workplace where our team members feel valued, respected, and empowered. We are committed to providing equal opportunity regardless of gender identity, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, or life stage
• The chance to be part of the largest environmental legal practice in the Australia-Pasifik
• A very flexible and family-friendly workplace
• Option to work from home and the office
• 8 weeks paid parental leave, regardless of gender or carer status
• 15 days personal/carer’s leave
• 3 days paid cultural leave
• Extra leave over the Christmas period
• Access to Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Ongoing professional development opportunities
• EDO proudly has a JEDI (Justice, Equality, Diversity, Inclusion) Committee and a Mental Health Ambassador Committee, and has developed a First Nations Program with the aid of Indigenous-led consultancies
• Affinity groups for the following: Global Majority*, LGBTQIA+ & Disability Affinity Group

*Global Majority is a collective term that first and foremost speaks to and encourages those so-called, to think of themselves as belonging to the majority on planet earth. It refers to people who are Black, African, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, Indigenous to the global south, and or, have been racialised as “ethnic minorities”.

Our Values

Commitment – We are committed to; a united organisation, to each other, to collaboration, to justice, to our communities and to creating a world where nature thrives.

Diversity – We are respectful of and welcome diversity of staff, volunteers, offices, environmental regions, communities, stakeholders.

Integrity – We work effectively, efficiently, strategically, professionally, and ethically; “justice is in our nature”.

Vision – We lead change and environmental empowerment using innovation, creativity, and courage.

How to Apply

• Click 'Apply Now' above
• To review the position description, please see the attachment below.

If you have queries in regard to this advert, please feel free to contact the Director – First Nations and Pasifik Programs at [email protected], using the subject line: Funding and Partnerships Coordinator - Pasifik Program - Remote / Australia-wide enquiry via EthicalJobs. 

Applications must include a CV and a letter that clearly addresses each of the selection criteria.

Please note: Your application may be considered for future roles at the EDO within the next 12 months without additional advertising. Please notify us in your application if you would not like to be considered for similar roles beyond this recruitment.

If you have any accessibility needs for the recruitment or interviewing process, please let us know in your application or by emailing [email protected].

Other Information

All offers of employment may be subject to satisfactory background checks including a National Police Check, disclosure of previous or current disciplinary action, referee checks, proof of eligibility to work in Australia and qualification checks.