Governance recruitment
To build accountability to our community, SHIFT’s decision-making committees all engage a diversity of perspectives from across the university and communities we work with to make decisions about how SHIFT's resources are invested towards social transformation
Deadline to apply (all positions): Monday October 7 2024, 5:00pm
About the Steering Committee
The SHIFT Steering Committee (SC) is a core component of SHIFT’s governance model and is responsible for ensuring that our activities, objectives and future directions are aligned with our mission and values.
Engaging in questions of high-level strategy concerning SHIFT’s evolution over time, deliberation among members is enriched by shared commitments to deep listening and generative dialogue. The Steering Committee’s decisions are informed by regular input from SHIFT staff and community members, facilitated through communication with our program hubs.
The SHIFT Steering Committee is not recruiting for 2024-2025.
Program hubs
What is a hub?
Program hubs are the primary decision-making site for major program-level decisions at SHIFT. They support staff in developing program-level strategy, providing additional perspective to major operational decisions, and actively bridging the day-to-day work of the staff team with the multi-year horizon of the Steering Committee.
Hubs are composed of four to six members of the SHIFT community, including a Steering Committee member and a staff member. Ideally, hub members will represent a mixture of people who have expertise in the topic area and people who are likely to be impacted by the hub’s decisions.
The Fund Disbursement Hub and the Governance Hub bring together a diversity of voices from across the SHIFT community and broader ecosystem to inform the strategic programming decisions related to their area of focus. Through the Space Hub we work to build shared ownership of the SHIFT collaboration space on campus, while the new Research and Advocacy Hub is focused on stewarding impactful advancement of the systems change work our partners are doing.
By engaging at the level of strategic programming decisions, hubs play a critical role of ensuring that the broader organizational orientations are turned into action and impact in ways that are aligned with SHIFT’s mission, vision and values.
Fund Disbursement Hub
The Fund Disbursement Hub ensures that SHIFT’s funding opportunities act as efficient mechanisms to identify potential partnerships with promising initiatives. Members contribute their expertise and perspectives to increase accessibility and transparency of SHIFT’s funding processes, evaluate the funding programs' effectiveness, and support fundraising-related learnings for our partners.
Currently recruiting three positions. The priorities for recruitment are:
- Concordia staff or faculty
- SHIFT Funded Partner team members
- Individual with experience in grant-making or philanthropy
- Experienced grant writers or fundraisers
In alignment with SHIFT’s organizational priorities and resource constraints, the Fund Disbursement Hub is tasked with ensuring that the funding opportunities offered by SHIFT support the realization of the following objectives:
- Identify existing and emerging multi-stakeholder projects that are working to make Montreal more just, equitable and sustainable
- Support socially transformative work by providing partners with funding, coaching, training and other resources to project teams as needed.
- Invest in high-potential projects that are connected to Concordia and aligned with SHIFT’s values and ways of working and to support them in reaching their next level of impact.
In the coming year, the Fund Disbursement Hub will also be focusing on supporting our partners to build capacity and knowledge around fundraising and grant writing.
All SHIFT Hub members bring the following qualities to their participation in their hub:
- The ability to “think from the centre”: the willingness to use their position to contribute to SHIFT’s mission, as opposed to furthering their own interests
- An understanding of social transformation that is grounded in the harm caused by systems of injustice, inequity and unsustainability
All Fund Disbursement Hub members bring the following qualities to their participation in their hub:
- Understand the instrumental role that funding plays at SHIFT — as a catalyst and support for social transformation, not as philanthropic endeavour
- Value the process of experimentation and documentation as an important contribution that SHIFT can make to collective learning about funding disbursement grounded in efforts to bring about greater justice, equity and sustainability
- Recognize the structural barriers that marginalized communities face when accessing funding
- Have an understanding of the mechanisms and barriers to gaining funding, from the perspective of organizations or that of grant-makers
Prospective Fund Disbursement Hub members are encouraged to identify in their applications which of the following areas of interest, competencies, enthusiasm or experiences they could contribute to the hub:
- Funding disbursement (through application-based, relationship-based or other funding disbursement mechanisms)
- Identification and selection of socially transformative projects
- Best practices for funding and supporting systemic change
- Evaluating the impact of funding programs/relationships
- Participatory, inclusive, democratic decision-making processes
- Understanding of accessibility and structural barriers to accessing funding for marginalized communities
Currently recruiting three positions. The priorities for recruitment are:
- Concordia staff or faculty
- SHIFT Funded Partner team members
- Individual with experience in grant-making or philanthropy
- Experienced grant writers and fundraisers
- Time commitment: approximately 30 hours/year (meetings, reading between meetings and annual half-day retreat).
- Meetings are every 4-8 weeks, scheduled based on members’ availability (currently held during business hours)
- Term length: 12 months (November 2024 - November 2025)
- Compensation: $1,500 annual honorarium issued to all members (with the exception of Concordia full time staff and faculty members)
Governance Hub
Governance Hub members are passionate about how healthy organizational processes and decision-making structures can contribute positively to social change. Their work is focused on ensuring that SHIFT’s governance model is of greatest possible benefit to our mission, and on sharing what we’re learning at SHIFT with others interested in the transformative power of alternative governance systems.
Currently recruiting up to 3 positions. Priority areas are:
- Concordia graduate or undergraduate students with experience and interest in dynamic, collaborative, and/or non-hierarchical organizations
Members of SHIFT Funded Partner teams with experience and interest in dynamic, collaborative, and/or non-hierarchical organizations
In alignment with SHIFT’s organizational priorities and resource constraints, the governance hub is tasked with ensuring that SHIFT’s evolving governance structure supports the realization of the following goals:
- Ensure that SHIFT’s decision-making processes are grounded in accountability to our community and informed by a diversity of perspectives
- Grow the community of people committed to realising SHIFT’s mission and vision by creating welcoming and inclusive decision-making structures that build a strong sense of co-ownership and engagement
- Leverage the opportunity to experiment with alternative governance models to contribute to collective learning about the socially transformative potential of collaboration and power sharing.
Over the course of their term, the Governance Hub will focus on the following dossiers:
- Act as a resource for emergent issues related to SHIFT’s governance, working towards developing organization-wide conflict resolution systems.
- Continue to implement recommendations for improving SHIFT’s governance model, based on the results of our governance evaluation.
- Contribute to opportunities to share what SHIFT is learning about shared power and alternative governance structures.
All SHIFT Hub members bring the following qualities to their participation in their hub:
- The ability to “think from the centre”: the willingness to use their position to contribute to SHIFT’s mission, as opposed to furthering their own interests
- An understanding of social transformation that is grounded in the harm caused by systems of injustice, inequity and unsustainability
All Governance Hub members bring the following qualities to their participation in their hub:
- Believe in the potential for participatory decision-making structures to contribute to systemic social change
- Value the process of experimentation and documentation as an important contribution that SHIFT can make to collective learning about social transformation
Each Governance Hub member contributes experience, expertise and/or enthusiasm relevant to SHIFT’s governance related to at least one of the following:
- Participatory and alternative governance structures
- Collaborative decision making strategies
- Participatory approaches to restorative conflict mediation
The SHIFT Governance Hub is open to reviewing applications from anyone, but at this time we are prioritizing:
- Concordia graduate or undergraduate students with experience and interest in dynamic, collaborative, and/or non-hierarchical organizations
- Members of SHIFT Funded Partner teams with experience and interest in dynamic, collaborative, and/or non-hierarchical organizations
- Time commitment: approximately 30 hours/year (meetings, reading between meetings and annual half-day retreat).
- Meetings are held monthly, scheduled based on members’ availability (currently held during business hours)
- Term length: 12 months (November 2024 - November 2025)
- Compensation: $1,500 annual honorarium issued to all members (with the exception of Concordia full time staff and faculty members)
Space Hub
SHIFT’s Space Hub engages in strategic visioning and decision making to ensure that our collaboration space on campus becomes a valuable resource for the SHIFT community and wider social transformation ecosystem. They work to ensure that our space is co-owned with the SHIFT community, develop norms and processes for maintaining a welcoming environment, and leverage overarching events and programming to provide an entry-point for new partners into SHIFT's ecosystem.
The Space Hub is not recruiting for 2024-2025.
Research and Advocacy Hub
The Research and Advocacy Hub works to ensure that SHIFT’s supports for community-university research and advocacy collaborations develop in alignment with SHIFT’s values, mission, and vision while being driven by the priorities of our partners and nourished by best practices from the field.
Currently recruiting three positions. Priorities for recruitment are:
- Concordia students
- SHIFT Funded Partner team members
- Individuals with experience in public sector policy
In alignment with SHIFT’s values, mission and resource constraints, the Research & Advocacy Hub is tasked with ensuring that the program advances the following objectives:
- Develop and deliver five partner-driven research projects
- Support participating partners to set and execute evidence-based advocacy strategies
- Evaluate the program’s initial impact and responsively evolve design
- Grow awareness of the program within and without Concordia University
- Develop strategies to support the program’s ongoing sustainability
Over the course of their term, hub members will focus on:
- Setting mission-aligned program objectives
- Consulting on foundational structures of our program (e.g. partner collaboration agreements, research ethics framework)
- Advising on partner-driven research project development
- Accompanying developmental evaluation and engaging with findings to evolve program design
- Strategizing around program promotion and fundraising efforts
All SHIFT Hub members bring the following qualities to their participation in their hub:
- The ability to “think from the centre”: the willingness to use their position to contribute to SHIFT’s mission, as opposed to furthering their own interests
- An understanding of social transformation that is grounded in the harm caused by systems of injustice, inequity and unsustainability
All members of the Research & Advocacy Hub bring the following qualities and interests to their participation in their hub:
- Excitement for learning about and developing best practices linked to the potential for university research to support communities in advancing systemic change
- Commitment to learning from what exists and has come before while retaining openness to emergence
- Comfort with and appetite for the ambiguity and challenge inherent to building something new
This Hub is recruiting three positions, specifically looking for:
- Concordia student with background and interest in research and advocacy driven by community priorities
- Members of SHIFT project teams with experience/ interest in the power of research to support systems change
- Individuals with experience effecting public sector policy change from within or without the system
Time commitment: approximately 30 hours/year (meetings, reading between meetings and annual half-day retreat).
Meetings are held monthly, scheduled based on members’ availability (currently held during business hours)
Term length: 18 months, October 2024 – April 2026
Compensation: $1,500 annual honorarium issued to all members (with the exception of Concordia full time staff and faculty members)
