MAP Engagement Coordinator

THE ORGANIZATION

The Center for Justice Innovation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing community safety and racial justice. Since 1996, we’ve worked alongside communities, courts, and those most directly affected by the justice system to build stronger, healthier, and more equitable neighborhoods. With a team of over 900 staff and an annual budget of $130 million, the Center carries out its mission through three core strategies:

1. Operating Programs that pilot new ideas and address local challenges;
2. Conducting original research to evaluate what works—and what doesn’t; and
3. Providing expert assistance and policy guidance to reformers across the country and beyond.

Backed by decades of on-the-ground experience and nationally recognized expertise, we bring innovative, practical, and lasting solutions to justice systems nationwide. Learn more about our work at www.innovatingjustice.org.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Neighborhood Safety Initiative, is seeking a MAP Engagement Coordinator for Brownsville and Van Dyke Houses to support a resident-driven; community organizing initiative in partnership with the Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety (MAP). Underway since 2015, MAP is a comprehensive strategy to enhance public safety and strengthen community well‑being in 15 public housing developments across New York City. The initiative aims to enhance safety and overall quality of life by strengthening collaboration and capacity among public housing residents. Since 2016, citywide meetings have been convened to share information and data, facilitate community engagement to identify neighborhood priorities, enhance the quality of life and spur collaboration and accountability among city agencies and local stakeholders.

Neighborhood Safety Initiative serves as an implementation partner for NeighborhoodStat. NeighborhoodStat (NSTAT), the operational centerpiece of MAP, is a community-based, problem-solving process grounded in the belief that public safety cannot exist without the public. It is an acknowledgment that safe and thriving neighborhoods require resident leadership, community and government support, and resources to produce sustainable change. To that end, NeighborhoodStat employs a series of local meetings that engage residents and MAP partners in sharing, analyzing, and using data to identify public safety priorities and implementation of solutions. These meetings, the information they generate, and the actions that follow are an important part of MAP’s strategy to enhance accountability by providing local residents and stakeholders with considerable resources and access to key decision-makers.

Neighborhood Safety Initiative is seeking an organizer from the Brownsville & Van Dyke community who will support residents, community partners and local city agency representatives through the process of identifying and solving issues that create vulnerabilities in community safety and well‑being. Reporting to the Associate Director, the MAP Engagement Coordinator will lead the planning and implementation of NeighborhoodStat at their designated site. The MAP Engagement Coordinator is expected to:

• Recruit and retain a team of local residents and support building their capacity in policy and placemaking, organizing and advocacy, and other relevant competencies;
• Facilitate the implementation of resident-led community-building projects;
• Work in partnership with the Program Administrators to coordinate city agencies to respond to community needs via all aspects of the NeighborhoodStat process;
• Promote positive cultural norms around behavioral change to maintain community-led public safety; and
• Use data to inform resident-led strategies that promote community safety.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to

Organizing and Direct Action

• Recruit and manage a diverse resident team: representative of the development’s diverse subgroups, including religious affiliations, ethnic identities, cultures, languages, age groups, and histories of community organizing and civic engagement;
• Develop and retain a comprehensive engagement plan, with a clear strategy, benchmarks, and outcomes, to create partnerships and gain a solid understanding of key community priorities;
• Attend in-person, teleconference, virtual meetings, and community events, including; precinct council meetings, community board meetings, and Tenant Association meetings;
• Conduct research and engage experts to create meeting and action agenda’s that introduce residents to a variety of interventions strategies and/or frameworks for community organizing and problem-solving;
• Facilitate resident and stakeholder planning meetings that support engagement, problem identification, problem-solving, practice and action steps, and memorialize plans in a centraliz