Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) Design and Engagement Coordinator

Founded in 1936, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) is now one of America's largest and most trusted grassroots conservation organizations with 53 state/territorial affiliates and more than six million members and supporters. The mission of the National Wildlife Federation is to unite all Americans to ensure wildlife thrive in our rapidly changing world. The organization's programs focus on conserving wildlife, restoring habitat and waterways, expanding outdoor opportunities, connecting children with nature, and addressing the causes and consequences of climate change. To advance our mission, we are seeking a Design and Engagement Coordinator to join our staff, working out of the Rocky Mountain Regional Center in Denver, Colorado. 

We envision a world where every young child experiences nature daily. Our team has been working with communities for years to transform and activate their daily spaces as sources of nearby nature. By improving outdoor spaces through thoughtful landscape design and training early childhood professionals on the benefits of nature play, ECHO employs a nature-based health equity strategy that improves access to the benefits of nature for children and their caregivers that have the greatest barriers to high-quality outdoor spaces. To ensure our work continues its reach and impact, a Design and Engagement Coordinator is needed to collaborate with our multi-disciplinary design, education, and engagement team to implement the program’s overarching initiatives.

The Design and Engagement Coordinator will report to the ECHO Design Manager. This is a full-time position.

The Design and Engagement Coordinator will collaborate with the team to develop landscape designs, supplemental materials and graphics, and support other programmatic needs. Design will focus on outdoor spaces where young children and families spend time on a daily basis: primarily child care centers, but also including schools, libraries, parks, museums, community centers, hospitals, neighborhoods. The position will be expected to apply evidence-based, best practice design principles to a variety of site contexts and create developmentally-appropriate, custom design solutions driven by the programmatic needs of the clients and site users. The candidate should be able to communicate design concepts and ideas through hand sketching, graphics, and rendering skills, have a strong attention to detail, have excellent organizational skills, be flexible, and have strong technical skills (grading, construction knowledge).

In this role you will:

• Support design work including preparation of base maps, schematic designs, planting plans for sites including child care programs, schools, parks and other spaces used by young children and families.
• Collaborate with the team to develop content for and deliver community presentations, training and professional development offerings for educators, and various community engagement workshops and activities.
• Develop opinion of probable cost calculations and phasing recommendations.
• Communicate with clients including setting up meetings for site visits, design reviews, and design delivery presentations.
• Support coordination of site visits, perform site analysis, conduct site measurements and photo documentation. This will include locating and verifying available site data from multiple sources, evaluating existing conditions, and conducting detailed photographic mapping.
• Support facilitation of participatory design workshops and the annual Summit.
• Plan, procure materials for, and assist with volunteer workdays.
• Provide ongoing construction technical assistance to site representatives (on call support).
• Support project management and collaborate to ensure progress towards design delivery timelines and goals.
• Prepare supplemental material for grant reports, including charts, diagrams, and booklets.
• Maintain archival systems for photographs and other design components and refine systems as needed to ensure efficiency.
• Develop content for and create flyers, posters, printed resources, online marketing and presentations.

 Qualifications:

• Strong knowledge of Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Bridge).  
• Proven ability to learn quickly and independently manage tasks.
• Strong work ethic and organizational skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills, including public speaking experience, and the ability to effectively communicate ideas both verbally, written, and graphically.
• Demonstrated ability to create effective design solutions at a variety of scales and contexts.
• Demonstrated interest in or past experience designing landscapes for young children and/or families.
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively in a team environment.
• Capable of engaging and bolstering marginalized voices in your work.
• Ability to listen and respond with empathy to others’ lived experiences that may be very different than your own.
• Bachelors or a masters degree (MS) in landscape architecture, landscape design, horticultural science, environmental design, architecture, urban planning, or related field.

Preferred qualifications:

• ArcGIS and SketchUp knowledge are a plus.
• Knowledge of landscape plants and materials is a plus.
• Photography and graphic design skills are a plus.
• Bilingual Spanish abilities are a plus.

Travel:

Due to COVID-19 NWF offices are currently closed. This position will be located in the Denver Office once offices re-open. As safe travel starts to resume, monthly travel and site visits (mostly day trips) will be required.

Compensation and Benefits:

The salary for this position is $45,000.

The National Wildlife Federation values work-life balance and a family-friendly atmosphere.  Our paid time-off includes 3 weeks of vacation leave, open wellbeing leave, 10 paid holidays, 3 floating holidays, a week-long winter break, and additional leave options, per year.  In addition, our benefits package includes medical, dental, and vision insurance, company paid life insurance, AD&D, short- and long-term disability, 16 weeks of paid FMLA leave, 403b retirement plan with employer matching and annual contribution, adoption benefits, and flexible work options including telecommuting, non-traditional work hours, and compressed work weeks.  Applicants are invited to learn more about National Wildlife Federation’s benefits package at https://www.nwf.org/About-Us/Careers.

Application:

Applications will be accepted through August 5, 2021.

We strive to increase equity and justice in all elements of our work and with our partners to support the interdependent needs of wildlife and people in a rapidly changing world.  We recruit, employ, train, compensate, and promote regardless of race, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender individual), age, physical or mental disability, citizenship, genetic information, past, current, or prospective service in the uniformed services, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local law. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.  Applicants are invited to learn more about National Wildlife Federation’s commitment to equity and justice at nwf.org/equity.

If you have a disability and require an accommodation or assistance with our online application process, please tell us how we can help by calling us at 703-438-6244.

The requirements listed in our job descriptions are guidelines, not hard and fast rules, and if you have 75% of the qualifications listed we encourage you to apply.  Your experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work, which helps build the competencies, knowledge, and skills that translates directly to our openings.  Applying gives you the opportunity to be considered.

Candidates should submit a cover letter and resume.  Candidates advanced to phone screen will be required to submit a portfolio.

If selected for this position, a background check will be conducted.

www.nwf.org