Chief Policy and Communications Officer

Role Overview

• Develop and drive integrated advocacy work plans that connect ALC's litigation, policy, and communications work into a unified strategy.
• Ensure that significant cases, regulatory moments, or legislative opportunities are accompanied by a coordinated policy and communications plan.
• Identify strategic opportunities and bring the right partners together to assert power on behalf of ALC's clients and communities.
• Broaden ALC's coalition of partners, including labor, faith communities, and allied advocacy organizations, to expand collective power across issue areas.
• Own and lead ALC’s public policy positions in alignment with legal strategy.
• Build out a lean, high-quality, high-impact policy and community engagement team, making targeted investments in capacity that lay the groundwork for a stronger function over time.
• Lead the development of accessible community education materials: know-your-rights resources, policy explainers, digital content, and print materials that translate complex legal and policy issues for the broader API and AMEMSA public.
• Provide senior legal and policy direction to the Policy team, including close engagement with drafts, briefs, and memos to ensure that ALC has impact at the local, state and national levels of government.
• Own and lead ALC’s narrative change strategy.
• Own and lead communications and narrative strategy and develop communications tools and channels that help scale up ALC’s impact and thought leadership externally.
• Oversee ALC's Communications team, ensuring the organization's voice is cohesive, clear, consistent, and strategically deployed.
• Utilize legal and subject-matter expertise to cut through internal review processes and get content out the door at the speed the moment demands.
• Build ALC's profile as a thought leader through op-eds, public comment, media relationships, and strategic positioning on the issues that matter most to its communities.
• Serve as a full member of ALC's executive team alongside the ED, COO, Chief Development Officer, and Legal Director, contributing to organizational strategy, planning, and cross-functional coordination.
• Work in close, ongoing partnership with the Legal Director to ensure ALC's policy, communications, and community education work is integrated with and informed by its litigation and legal strategy.
• Collaborate actively with all executive team members to align external-facing work with ALC's programmatic priorities and organizational direction.
• Represent ALC leadership in external policy, community, and funder spaces with a specific lens on furthering ALC’s thought leadership as needed with credibility, clarity, and authority.
• Supervise and mentor Communications Director and Policy Director, with an eye towards building leadership, accountability, and effective teams.
• In collaboration with the Legal Director provide mentorship to legal department staff in litigation, integration of ALC’s core strategies, developing and growing external relationships, and moving ALC’s work forward.
• Act as a dotted line supervisor across programmatic staff on various cases, projects, or initiatives.

Requirements

• B.A./B.S. and J.D. degrees
• California bar membership required
• 10+ years of relevant experience in policy making, community engagement, and/or communications in a legal non-profit organization
• Substantive knowledge in one or more of ALC's core issue areas including immigrant rights, workers' rights, housing, national security and civil rights, or voting rights and the intellectual range and curiosity to engage credibly across all of them.
• A strong writer and sharp analytical thinker; someone who reads carefully, identifies gaps quickly, and produces work that moves people.
• Demonstrated experience managing and building teams, including supervising, developing staff, setting expectations, and driving accountability.
• A track record of running complex initiatives that required coordinating across legal, communications, and policy or community engagement functions.
• The strategic judgment to triage priorities and keep teams focused accordingly.
• Collaborative by nature; someone who builds trust with peers and brings out the best in the people around them.
• Deep commitment to and familiarity with API and AMEMSA communities and the issues ALC works on.

Benefits

• generous vacation and paid holidays
• medical, dental, disability, and life insurance coverage (ALC pays 100% of premiums for employees and 75% for qualified dependents)
• a flexible spending account (FSA)
• a 401K retirement plan with employer non-elective contribution and match