Description

United Today, Stronger Tomorrow 

Rural Listening Project 

1099 Eligible, Short-Term

Research 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) Research 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 Research 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 Research 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 probe how we got here, and identify how people are thinking about the future of the United States. 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.

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

Responsibilities

Working with the Project Lead and Field Coordinator, this position will research and 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 addition, Research Organizers will also follow up with digital survey takers in one-on-ones, phone calls, and Zoom meetings to help recruit for focus groups and other research activities. Finally, Research Organizers will identify people who could be involved in future campaign work at the local, state, and federal level.

• Work with the Project Lead to help conduct 6-8 focus groups of 8 to 15 people from our target rural communities. These will each be about 2 hours in length, mostly conducted via Zoom, with some in-person opportunities. 
• Conduct approximately 10-15 interviews each week with grasstops leaders in rural communities (approximately 30-40 minutes in length). These conversations will be structured around a set of open-ended questions developed by the research team to help ID people to be interviewed for the research project and to ID people who are potential participants in campaigns. 
• Help Analyze Findings. Research Organizers will be responsible for providing top line notes from each conversation and focus group to help prepare for the overall findings to be included in the final report.

Requirements

Qualities and Qualifications

The ideal candidate is someone with a background in community organizing, and qualitative research methods. Candidates should be curious about people; interested in understanding, learning, and activating personal networks; like research; and be a good listener. Researchers should be 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:

• Familiarity with survey design, including issue-based identification, persuasion testing, and message testing.
• Familiarity with qualitative research, including an understanding of best practices related to effective focus groups and interviews.  
• 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, 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 Research Organizer position will work 40 hours per week and earn $35 to $40/hour based on experience.

Applications will be accepted until September 30, 2025.

If interested, please send your resume to: [email protected] with “Research Organizer” and your state in the subject line.