Maryland Policy Manager

Position Overview

Greater Greater Washington (GGWash) is seeking a Maryland Policy Manager to support our work on Maryland state housing policy, with some work at the local level in Montgomery County. You’ll be immersed in our 17-year effort to build community through advocacy, education, and engagement in the Washington, DC, region, which has expanded to include land use, housing, and transportation policy work in Maryland and Virginia.

Maryland is at a pivotal moment right now, as there’s a growing awareness of how our housing shortage has pushed up prices and pushed out working people. You’ll help build out our ongoing campaign for more housing production, connecting community leaders, advocates, and organizations across the state.

This position is the right fit for someone who’s interested in housing and social justice issues, a strong storyteller online and off, and is excited about meeting people, building relationships, and learning new places. We encourage those who can bring a diverse perspective to our organization and our work, in terms of race, socioeconomic status, geographic diversity, sexual orientation, or gender identity, to apply.

Responsibilities

Advocacy (50% of time)

• Represent GGWash in meetings, forums, and other visible opportunities.
• Build and maintain relationships with relevant local groups and individuals to foster a collaborative approach to advocacy.
• Lead planning and logistics for compelling in-person and virtual events such as but not limited to briefings, educational events, and meet-ups.
• Support our 2025-2026 endorsement processes in Maryland and Virginia, including communicating with candidates, reviewing questionnaires, and producing materials for voters.

Policy Analysis & Writing (40% of time)

• Monitor policy developments at the state and local levels in Maryland.
• Write and ensure the timely submission of testimony on GGWash priorities for public hearings. Occasionally testify in public hearings.
• Support public opinion research on housing issues, including drafting poll questions and reviewing results.
• Occasionally write content for the GGWash publication, including campaign updates and policy analysis.
• Contribute to the strategic vision for the policy department, helping to ensure that the department’s identity and purpose are connected to the organizational mission.

Administrative (10% of time)

• Maintain accurate constituent/supporter records and support list-building efforts.
• Support efforts to acquire financial support for the policy department via grants.

Preferred Qualifications

If you meet 80% of the below qualifications and competencies, please consider applying:

• Four or more years of experience in nonprofits, state or local government, and/or political campaigns.
• Four or more years of experience organizing people around certain policies or ideas.
• An understanding of housing, land use, and ideally transportation policy, and how the three issue areas intersect.
• Experience with political messaging, and how to translate complicated policy ideas for a non-technical audience.
• Familiarity with online publishing and social media, and how they can be used to advance campaign work.
• An undergraduate or graduate degree, preferably in public policy, political science, social science, urban planning, engineering, law or a related field that entails critical thinking and analytical skills.

Required Competencies

• The ability to balance daily to-dos and completing short- to medium-term tasks and projects.
• You can communicate clearly and directly in a timely fashion, whether delivering persuasive oral arguments to government officials or conveying complicated policy arguments in writing to laypeople.
• The self-awareness to know what you don’t know—and the interest to find out.
• The capacity to build and maintain empathetic and supportive relationships with our allies, and to engage constructively with good-faith yet skeptical actors.
• An understanding of power, politics, and the public sector, as well as an interest in parsing out the potential effects of proposed policies.
• You can think strategically about the big picture and help identify the most impactful way to tackle problems.
• A demonstrated commitment to racial, social, and environmental justice, and advancing equity through policy reforms.
• An understanding of institutional racism’s role in shaping policy decision-making.

Salary and Benefits

This is a full-time (40+ hours/wk) exempt salaried position within a salary band that ranges from $70,298 – $93,072 per year depending on experience. There is opportunity for growth within the salary band.

Greater Greater Washington offers a comprehensive suite of benefits for this position, including employer-sponsored health, dental, and vision insurance with employer contribution; employer-paid long-term disability insurance, basic life insurance and AD&D; an employer-matched 401(k) plan (up to 3%); a transit commuter stipend; and cell phone subsidy. Paid time off for this position includes: 20 days per year for vacation on an accrual basis, 20 days per year for sick leave, numerous holidays, winter break, and other forms of leave. All benefits are subject to the terms and conditions in the applicable plan documents and/or Greater Greater Washington’s employee handbook and other policies, as modified from time to time.

Work Environment

At this time, GGWash has a flexible, hybrid work environment, with some in-person work required at the GGWash office in the Navy Yard neighborhood of Washington, DC, as well as work in the field. This position requires access to a workspace with an Internet connection. A GGWash-owned laptop will be provided. Given anticipated travel to Maryland communities not accessible via transit, a valid driver’s license and access to a car are helpful but not required.

GGWash’s standard work hours are 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday through Friday, though this role will involve attending some evening and weekend events.

About Greater Greater Washington

Greater Greater Washington is a nonprofit organization that works to advance racial, economic, and environmental justice in land use, transportation, and housing throughout Greater Washington.

Our work builds civic capacity and moves the needle on important issues, in service of a broader vision of a dense, growing Washington region with an abundant supply of quality housing, attainable at all income levels, and a regional transportation network that prioritizes the needs of underserved users and makes it safe and easy to travel without a car. We work in support of public processes, plans, and policymaking that embrace both our responsibility to care for people we don’t know personally and the need for cities to be shared among people who are here now and who will come in the future.

How to Apply

Interested candidates should send their resume, a one-page cover letter explaining why you think this role is a good fit for you, and a short writing sample to [email protected] with “Maryland Policy Manager Application” in the subject line by 11:59pm on Sunday, March 23, 2025.

Please direct any questions about the position to Dan Reed at dreed[at]ggwash.org.

Greater Greater Washington provides equal employment opportunities to all applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, military status, marital status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal or local employment discrimination laws.