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Our new server, Solarpunk Ohio River Valley, is a space to collaborate on local solarpunk and sustainable community projects, share resources, share art, and post jobs. Our goal is connecting Ohio River Valley communities in PA, WV, and OH together to reimagine what our future can be.

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The Children’s Institute is hiring an Assistant Director of Annual Giving

Position description: The Assistant Director of Annual Giving and Community Relations is responsible for leading annual giving to meet The Children’s Institute’s annual fund goals in collaboration with the Senior Director of Individual Giving. This position will drive initiatives to increase unrestricted dollars raised and grow the number of new and retained donors by leading strategies that meaningfully engage our individual donors and increase their understanding of and commitment to The Children’s Institute. In coordination with the Senior Director of Individual Giving and the Chief Advancement Officer, this role will focus on building a year-round fundraising plan for the Amazing Kids Fund, the foundation of the Institutional Advancement team’s unrestricted fundraising initiatives.

Responsibilities include:

• Leads, project manages, and executes annual appeal campaigns to support the annual fund goals for The Children’s Institute Foundation and its entities in collaboration with the Senior Director of Individual Giving.

• Responsible for leading and increasing community-led and organization-led fundraising strategies and tactics for The Children’s Institute Foundation and its entities.

• Grow and maintain community-led partnership relationships that garner monetary and in-kind support for annual fund and Amazing Kids Fund.

• Lead giving days such as Critical Needs Alert Day and Giving Tuesday to ensure community support is garnered and woven into the annual fund current campaign for consistent messaging to constituents.

• Keep up with current issues and trends in annual giving and community fundraising and make recommendations for implementation of new strategies/processes to the Senior Director of Individual Giving.

• Oversee email solicitations and update content on CI fundraising pages and peer-to-peer pages.

• Work with each development team member on their respective activity and if required, act as liaison to CRM support team.

Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Experience: Mid-level

Salary/Pay: $63,623-$74,850/year

Learn more about the position here!

The Children’s Institute is hiring an Senior Director of Individual Giving

Position description: The Senior Director of Individual Giving plays a crucial role in advancing the mission of The Children’s Institute. In partnership with the Chief Advancement Officer, they will spearhead the growth of giving with individual donors and family foundations and play a leadership role in laying the groundwork for a comprehensive campaign. The Senior Director will lead teams responsible for growing annual, major, and planned giving, achieving fundraising goals.

Key responsibilities include:

• Develop and lead a comprehensive individual giving program strategy to maximize annual, major, and planned giving from individuals and family foundations.

• Hire, train, inspire and lead professional staff for the annual giving and individual giving teams.

• Cultivate and solicit a portfolio of 75 - 100 individual donors and prospects for both major and planned gifts with metric driven goals for monthly visits, proposals, and dollars raised. In partnership with the Chief Advancement Officer, develop and execute new donor acquisition strategies.

• Lead individual prospecting efforts and strategies to attract new donors, particularly those capable of making five to seven-figure gifts. Oversee a stewardship and engagement strategy to retain individual donors, incorporating events, donor recognition societies, and individualized plans to maximize support.

• Create and oversee execution of department operating plans, establishing activity and solicitation goals.

• Develop a major gift pipeline of planned solicitations and track team progress and key program metrics.

• In collaboration with the Chief Advancement Officer, engage the President/ CEO, board members, and program staff in donor identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. In partnership with the Marketing team, oversee the creation of key donor communications including appeals, newsletters, impact reports, and other stewardship materials.

Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Experience: Senior-level

Salary/Pay: $102,467-$120,550/year

Learn more about the position here!

PennState is hiring a Communications "Eco-Author" Writing Intern

Position description: Are you a passionate wordsmith with a green heart? Penn State Sustainability wants YOU to join our communications team to help spread the word about Penn State’s statewide sustainability advancements! As our Communications “Eco-Author” Student Intern, you’ll play a vital role in creating engaging written content that showcases Penn State’s sustainability achievements to a broad public audience. In this position, your primary function will be writing articles for Penn State News, Our Nature (SustainPSU's student opinion blog), Research Spotlights, and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Snapshots. Plus, you’ll develop a high-quality body of work that can be used to develop your professional portfolio!

Key responsibilities include:

• Pitch and prioritize writing assignments.

• Reach out to potential subjects for interviews and craft high-quality articles that promote sustainability initiatives, advancements, achievements, and ideals to various audiences.

• Develop and rework stories for SI’s Biennial Report.

• Occasional attendance at sustainability-focused events to assist with communications-related needs.

Location: University Park, PA

Experience: Internship

Salary/Pay: Part time position - pay not disclosed

Learn more about the position here!

Environment America is hiring a Clean Water and Conservation Organizer

Position description: PennEnvironment is looking for a skilled and savvy organizer to build public support for clean water and conservation campaigns to preserve Pennsylvania’s incredible natural heritage. This includes PennEnvironment’s campaigns to preserve our parks, forests, and public lands, and our efforts to protect and restore Pennsylvania’s incredible rivers, lakes and streams from major sources of pollution.

The Clean Water and Conservation Associate will help defend our cornerstone conservation programs from attack at the federal and state level; work to promote and increase stewardship of our public lands and open spaces; and tackle the threats of fracking, encroaching development and illegal polluters that endanger our waterways, our wildlife, and our health.

Key responsibilities:

Work with organizations and affected constituency groups across the political spectrum that are invested in protecting Pennsylvania’s natural heritage, wildlife species, and rivers and streams to demonstrate support and engage them in our strategies and campaigns to achieve our conservation and water campaign goals. Organize events and work with volunteers: Organize webinars, community events and public meetings. Recruit organizations and members of the public to attend and participate. Earn traditional media and social media attention: Organize media events and write opinion pieces. Build a following on social media for your campaigns. Lobby elected officials: Coordinate strategy with champions in Congress or in the Pennsylvania General Assembly. Make a convincing case to legislators to support important conservation and clean water policies, and to oppose proposed rollbacks. When a critical vote is happening on our water and conservation campaigns, work to demonstrate the support you’ve been building on the ground to help line up the votes needed to win. Recruit new people to your team: Help build our team by recruiting volunteers, interns and full-time staff. Run a grassroots campaign office each summer: Run a campaign office for the summer to raise money to support our campaigns, build our organization and membership, and help build critical and timely grassroots support to win key campaigns while honing your organizing and management skills. You may be assigned to a different office location for the summer and should be flexible to move.

Location: Hybrid near Philadelphia, PA

Experience: Entry-level

Salary/Pay: $37,000/year

Learn more about the position here!

Dickinson College Farm is hiring 2025 Farm Apprenticeships

Position Description: The Dickinson College Farm offers a unique opportunity to recent graduates and young professionals interested in embarking upon a six-month learning and working intensive through a residential Farm Apprenticeship program. Apprentices will gain the skills, experience, and knowledge needed to advance toward leadership roles within the professional arena. In addition to farm-specific training, this experience is applicable to furthering academic studies and employment opportunities related to the food system, sustainability, and education.

Key responsibilities:

• Pastured Cattle Care

• Meat Marketing

• Organic Greenhouse Controlled Environment Management and Seedling Production

• Organic Vegetable Irrigation

• BCS Two Wheel Tractor Operation

• Fresh Product Inventory Management

• Farmer’s Market Management

• Fresh Product Processing for Freezing

• Compost Production

• Biogas Production and Food Waste Recovery

• Food service-related event support

Location: Boiling Springs, PA

Experience: Apprenticeship

Salary/Pay: Temporary, Full-time $15/hour

Learn more about the position here!

Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve is hiring a Development and Communications Coordinator

Position description: The development and communications coordinator is a crucial part of both the Preserve’s fundraising and community engagement efforts. This position is responsible for managing the Preserve’s marketing and communications and supports the Preserve’s fundraising strategies.This position reports directly to the director of donor and partner relations.

Key responsibilities include:

• Administrative

  • CRM database management

  • Gift processing

  • Development committee support

  • Campaign management

  • Collateral design

  • Periodic retail coverage

• Cultivation

  • Current and prospect donor research

  • Tributes and Memorial Program management

• Communications Partnerships

  • Develop media, press, industry and local/regional tourism partnerships

  • Oversee advertising , promotions and key Preserve communications

• Brand Manager

  • Oversee branding guidelines and alignment

  • Develop all marketing collateral

• Publications Editor-in-Chief

  • Oversee regular Preserve communications, including monthly digital newsletter and education programming memo, and annual print newsletter

Location: New Hope, PA

Experience: Mid-level

Salary/Pay: $48,000 - $50,00/ year

Learn more about the position here!

Environment America is hiring a Canvass Director

Position description: We’re hiring and training Assistant Canvass Office Directors to make an impact on some of the most important problems of our time – like tackling climate change, eliminating plastic waste that is polluting our oceans, ensuring we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, and more. We believe that having solutions to these problems isn’t enough to solve them. To get our decision makers to act, we need to educate, engage and mobilize people across the country. We’re hiring Assistant Canvass Office Directors to build the people power it will take to solve these problems. We have immediate positions available as well as positions starting throughout the year.

Key Responsibilities:

• Educate and engage the public on campaigns like tackling climate change and moving beyond single-use plastics

• Build support and fundraise for leading non-profit groups working on these issues, including Environment America and PIRG

• Hire, train and manage your own team

• Work at the most effective citizen outreach operation in the country. We have raised over $700 million for environmental and public interest organizations, run hundreds of campaigns in all 50 states, and educated and mobilized millions of people on important issues

Location: Philadelphia, PA

Experience: Entry-level

Salary/Pay: $40,250 - $52,500/year

Learn more about the position here!

Upcoming Events

Clean Air Council is hosting Swissvale Community Composting Workshops

Clean Air Council is hosting workshops and other community events starting in early 2025 to educate residents about composting, and offers free compost bins for interested parties in order to support the community and the environment. Those interested will have an opportunity to discuss what they would want composting in Swissvale to look like.

CAC staff will have a follow-up meeting with those who receive a compost bin to address any issues or concerns throughout the process. The amount of organic waste composted will also be measured during a tracking period to calculate how much waste has been diverted from landfills.

Location: Borough of Swissvale

Do you have an interest in learning more about composting and forming connections with your neighbors?

Learn more about the workshops here!

involveMINT is hosting Hazelwood Food Recycling Volunteer Event

Location: This time around we, will be meeting at the Carnegie Library - Hazelwood: 5006 Second Avenue, Pittsburgh PA 15207

​Activities: We will discuss activities for the New Year, as well as networking opportunities to grow the community resource sharing network in support of the site and local urban agriculture

​This event will be indoors, but make sure to bring clothes toed shoes, long pants, and wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty in case we make a site visit!

​We will have lunch available, but we encourage you to bring your own water!

Event Details and Registration here!

Recommended Solarpunk Reading

Solarpunk Short Story: The Case of the Turned Tide by Savitri Horrigan Read for Free Here!

Stories by N.K. Jemisin: How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? Book Details Here!

Check out our webpage for more resources!