Take ownership of a piece of the work

What a bigger role involves

Most of what changes housing policy is unglamorous and local: a public comment at the right meeting, a letter to the right council member, a room of neighbors who showed up. Chapters run on people who take responsibility for one of those things and keep it moving. That's what a Lead is.

A Lead owns a defined piece of a chapter's work rather than helping with everything. Some examples of the pieces chapters hand off:

• A campaign — one project, one ordinance, one hearing calendar, from first meeting to the vote.
• Turnout — getting members to the meetings that matter, and making sure the ones who come know what to say.
• New members — welcoming people who just joined and finding them their first action.
• Endorsements — running the chapter's candidate questionnaire and member vote.
• A recurring event — the monthly meeting, the happy hour, the reading group.

What a Lead does week to week

It looks like a few hours a week, most of it in your own city: a short check-in with your chapter head, the work of your piece (drafting the letter, confirming the speakers, running the meeting), and a message back to members about what happened and what's next. National organizers train new Leads, share what's worked in other chapters, and are a call away when a campaign gets complicated.

What you get in return is a say. Leads shape their chapter's priorities, and the ones who want to go further are the people chapter heads and national staff come from.

Who this is for

Members who have already taken a couple of real actions this year — a letter, a call, a public comment, a meeting — and want more than the next alert. You don't need experience running anything. You need to be reliable, to be local to the fight, and to want it to win.