Description

United Today, Stronger Tomorrow 

Rural Listening Project 

1099-Eligible, Short-Term

Field Organizer Position

September 2025 to March 2026

AK, IA, UT, WY, SD, NE, CO, and MT

UTST is seeking to hire a short term Rural Listening Project (RLP) Field Organizer to support RLP 2.0.

UTST

UTST is a community power building hub and distributive organizing initiative that improves the lives of people living in rural and remote areas across the Upper Mid- and Mountain West and Alaska. We restore trust in democracy and mediating institutions by helping people understand their own agency in the decision making that impacts their lives and engaging them in strategic local, state, regional, and federal campaigns and programs that deliver concrete benefits. Simultaneously, we are building the next generation of rural and remote leaders, many of whom hail from conservative communities, to meet the current political moment and lay the foundation for long term power building over the next decade. 

RLP Field Organizer

This multi-state research initiative will investigate the attitudes and values of rural and remote Americans across eight states: Alaska, Iowa, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, and Montana. At a moment of national political transformation and technological disruption, this project seeks to identify the perspectives of rural residents in the states on a range of issues, including: energy and climate; artificial intelligence and emerging technology;  corporations and the economy;  trust in governing systems, like democracy, mediating institutions, civil society; and immigration. By centering the perspectives of rural residents—especially moderates, Republicans, and independents—on economic, political, and technological shifts, the project will produce actionable findings that will help UTST and the broader field develop effective messaging and strategic organizing in rural communities.

On a short-term, 1099-Eligible Contract, RLP Field Organizers will listen, learn, and hope to understand how rural, small town, and remote community members (mostly conservative and independent) see the current moment. They will help find and probe people in rural communities and participate in one or more aspects of our research, including surveys, focus groups, or one-on-one interviews. They will also be responsible for helping follow up with research participants, and identify individuals for further leadership development or participation in UTST or our partner groups’ campaign work. This will be a hybrid organizing project composed mostly of Zoom and virtual work, but will include opportunities for offline work and in-person engagement.

Field Organizers will be working with individual community members, grasstops leaders, and other stakeholders.

Responsibilities

Working with the Project Lead, and directly supervised by the Field Coordinator, this position will help identify and recruit rural community members in our targeted states to participate in our research — including surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one conversations. Field organizers will also be responsible for following up with research participants in one-on-one conversations, via Zoom, phone, or in person, to identify individuals for further participating in UTST’s work at the local, state, or federal level. The field coordinator will also work with the research team to help identify  key stakeholders, elected officials, public safety officers, business and industry leaders, faith leaders, and civic and educational institutions who would be good candidates for inclusion in this research project.

• Help recruit participants into focus groups in our target rural communities. These will each be about 2 hours in length, mostly conducted via Zoom, with some in-person opportunities. The entire project will include between 12-16 focus groups, each of which should have between 8-15 participants. 
• Conduct 25-30 one-on-one conversations each week with research participants (approximately 40-50 minutes in length) and/or shorter phone assessment conversations (approximately 80-100) depending on percentage of each activity. These conversations will be structured around a set of open-ended questions to help ID people who may be interested in future work with UTST and our campaigns. 
• Maintain effective tracking systems of people who you meet and assess potential for campaign engagement. This will include moving people into campaign work either with an existing UTST organizer or building a local campaign with support from the larger UTST team. 
• Depending on external factors such as potential crises and opportunities, move people you have met into campaigns and or actions. This project is intended to identify how people see our current politics and to identify who could be moved to action if opportunities to strengthen rural and small town communities arise. There is a chance Field Organizers could also move into more traditional organizing roles including staffing campaign committees and mobilization. 

Requirements

Qualities and Qualifications

The ideal candidate is someone who is curious about people; interested in understanding, learning, and activating personal networks; likes research; and is a good listener. They are able to hold a conversation that seeks to understand people where they are at, as opposed to trying to convince someone of something else. More specific qualities and skills include:

• Ability to be an active listener, to reflect back to people what they say, and to hold information. They must be willing to probe, discuss, and manage conversations about issues and perspectives that may not align with their own in a non-judgmental way. 
• Is comfortable with and wants to work with a wide array of stakeholders and people, including elected officials, business owners, faith leaders, law enforcement professionals, school officials, and others who are leaders in more conservative rural and small town communities. 
• Is organized and effective at tracking data, holding large numbers of relationships, and at assessing people’s view of the world and issues, their self-interest, and what would move them to action. 
• Is able to conduct large numbers of conversations and one-on-one meetings each week (approximately 80% of the job), track these conversations, and transfer relationships to the pertinent staff. 
• Able to and/or willing to learn how to move people into action through various campaign structures if the opportunity and/or need arises. 

The ideal candidate has a car and is willing to drive it; work flexible hours, including evenings and weekends if necessary; and has access to a reliable computer with strong internet. Spanish fluency is a bonus but not necessary.

Women, people of color, Native/indigenous people, and LGBTQ+ people are strongly encouraged to apply.

The Field Organizer position will work 40 hours per week and earn $35 to $40/hour based on experience. If interested, please send your resume to: [email protected] with “Field Organizer” and your state in the subject line.

Applications will be accepted until September 30, 2025.