Rural Routes to Climate Solutions (RR2CS) shines a spotlight on the climate solutions that Alberta’s farmers, ranchers and rural communities can benefit from. RR2CS is happy to announce that we are seeking a Project Manager for our flagship initiative—the Regenerative Agriculture Lab or RAL—and join our great team of community organizers, facilitators and communications specialists.The Project Manager will be responsible for the following activities:

• Communications, organizing, and logistics for RAL
• Managing, supporting and assisting the RAL team in design and delivery of workshops, webinars and other participant interactions within the Lab.
• Networking and maintaining great partnerships with outside organizations
• Budgeting and analytics of RAL and its participants
• Securing the resources and providing the support participants require to be engaged members of the Lab.
• Supporting the overall ‘health’ of the Lab (i.e. make sure RAL is a well-oiled machine)

The Project Manager will contribute to and support the rest of the RR2CS team with the following activities:

• blog, podcast, video production
• social media channels and the website
• webinars, workshops, field days and other social innovation labs
• grant writing and sponsorship development
• meetings with stakeholders
• attending fairs, expos and events on behalf of RR2CS

Who you areYou’re awesome. Some might say you’re a wizard at the three C’s: communication, coordinating, and comfortability. You make people feel welcomed and wanted. The past few years have been hard, but you’ve taken the changes in stride, and can thrive when working remotely and independently. You understand the challenges of managing a team that works independently too, so you strive to stay connected and positive. We’re not the type to hover over your shoulder, asking “Whatcha doing? Whatcha doing?”, which you’re relieved to hear. At the same time, the rest of the RR2CS team is there to help during times of uncertainty or when clarification is needed, which you greatly appreciate.

You see mistakes as an opportunity for growth. You know how and when to pivot, and when to ask for help. We’re all in this together, after all, and a high tide raises all boats.

You’re a delight to speak with, thoughtful, flexible, and passionate about agriculture and empowering rural communities. Honestly, you’re almost too excited for the future of regenerative agriculture in Alberta (we love that!). You believe in people and their ability to bring about positive change.

If this describes you, we’d love to hear from you!

What is a Project Manager?Full transparency: this may be the strangest project management role you’ve ever come across. It also might be one of the more exciting ones you’ve seen recently, so there’s that too.

Part of the role is very much what you would expect from a Project Manager role: scheduling, communicating, follow-up, logistics, supporting design and delivery of workshops and guiding, managing and delegating tasks to the RAL team. In addition to this, the Project Manager manages RAL’s budget and reporting requirements and builds the strategic partnerships that are so crucial to increasing the Lab’s impact in Alberta and across the Prairies.

What makes the Project Manager role a tad bit unusual is the Project Manager doesn’t technically lead RAL. RAL is a participant-driven project, so the participants ‘lead’ the Lab by determining its direction and what RAL works on. The Project Manager works alongside RAL’s facilitators and Community Animators—the RAL team—who invite, inform, and connect with RAL participants (participants are committed agricultural producers and agri-food value chain leaders). Working with these three groups, the Project Manager builds out and maintains a bigger picture of the Regenerative Agriculture Lab at all times.

The Project Manager is effectively the Rural Routes’ point person for RAL. The Project Manager has to stay up to date on key issues, ‘who is who’ in the regenerative agriculture space and have a good sense of what is happening within the Lab. Anticipating the next steps for RAL will also be important in ensuring the Lab has the resources it needs as it evolves.

Experience in facilitating and hosting groups is a plus; flexibility, strong listening skills, planning and project management are required and; thinking outside of the box is helpful. Afterall, Rural Routes is in the solutions business.

What is the Regenerative Agriculture Lab?The “Lab” part of the Regenerative Agriculture Lab may evoke images of scientists in white coats in a research facility. A “participant-driven project” may sound like some sort of Lord of the Flies-esque management nightmare. Rest assured, the Regenerative Agriculture Lab is neither.

RAL is a social innovation lab where participants work together through a series of engagements and interactions (e.g. workshops, webinars, collaborative initiatives) to respond to a very timely question:

As regenerative agriculture is an evolving system on the cusp of taking off, how do we ensure growing adoption doesn’t jeopardize its integrity or dilute its potential?

The RAL aims to respond to this question by:

• Hosting a forum for innovation and collaboration for a network of committed regenerative agriculture ‘actors’ in Alberta.
• Celebrating, learning from, and widely sharing the stories of Albertans who have been putting regenerative agriculture practices into action on farms and ranches.
• Working on collaborative initiatives that enable regenerative agriculture to accelerate its awareness and impact across Alberta and the Prairies.
• Co-creating a shared vision of a regenerative agriculture system that the future requires of us.
• Generating strategic initiatives—different forms of collaborative work or projects that participants can undertake together to accelerate adoption of regenerative agriculture.

Despite the challenges of the pandemic and one of the worst droughts in memory, we successfully completed Phase 1 of RAL in 2021. Phase 1 participants were mainly agricultural producers. Phase 2 is currently underway working with agricultural producers and other stakeholders like extension groups, colleges and research institutes, agricultural inputs companies, government and food and beverage companies.

Wages: $30.00-$33.00/hour (depending on the level of experience). You will be working as a contractor and are responsible for ensuring that necessary payments for income tax / CPP have been made.

Hours: 30-35 hours/week (depending on the level of experience). A typical work week with Rural Routes is Monday to Thursday.

Duration: May 1, 2023 – March 31, 2024. Rural Routes is currently fundraising to extend this role beyond March 31, 2024. There is the possibility of a contract extension if we are successful in our fundraising efforts.

Location: Alberta.

Qualifications:

• Strong planning and interpersonal communication skills
• Previous project management experience
• Knowledge of agriculture and/or rural Alberta’s social, economic and environmental issues
• Understanding of climate change mitigation and adaptation including agricultural and/or nature-based climate solutions, especially regenerative agriculture
• Experience in developing and stewarding relationships with potential and current partners
• Strong team-communications skills, especially when working with the facilitation team (external consultants), participants, RR2CS team and partners
• Experience and comfort in using online tools (e.g. Google G-Suite, Trello, Slack, Asana) and working virtually, as this is a remote position

Assets:

• Ability to communicate clearly and confidently
• An inclusive and supportive management style
• Experience in fundraising, especially completing grant applications
• Awareness of social innovation labs and related approaches
• A willingness to problem solve to overcome the challenges and evolution the Lab may face
• Related to the above, an ability to ask for help when needing clarity or support
• Natural ability to take charge, speak up, and make sure others are heard
• Experience or understanding relevant to one or more of the RAL strategic initiatives: supply chain distribution; data compilation; land ownership models; biodiversity and; agricultural extension services.
• A sense of humor. Listen to our podcast episodes The Coordinators, What We Do and 50 More to better understand our sense of humor.

Requirements and Expectations:

• Report to the Director
• Participate in 2 weekly team meetings: one with the RR2CS team and one with the RAL team
• Overnight travel. Typically, RAL has four 2-day in-person events per year. In addition to this, Rural Routes has two 2-3 day team building meetings per year. Your mileage and accommodation will be covered by Rural Routes and if child care is a barrier to participation, we’ll work with you to try and address it. Most of our team has kids so we get it.
• Using online tools like WordPress, Google G-Suite, Zoom, Trello, Asana and Slack
• Keep track of and manage your own hours, invoices and expense claims

Interested applicants should submit a cover letter and resume as a PDF and email it to adminrr2cs@stettlerlearning.com by Monday, March 6th, 2023. Please include “Project Manager Application” in the subject line of your email. Only considered candidates will be contacted for interviews.

In the event a successful candidate is not found, the application process will be reopened in late March or early April.

Rural Routes to Climate Solutions (a Stettler Learning Centre initiative) was established in 2017 to assist Alberta’s agricultural producers and rural communities to become aware of, engage in and implement climate solutions. Rural Routes achieves this through educational and capacity building activities and innovative projects like RAL or our Siksikaitsitapi Agriculture Project.

The vision of Rural Routes is for all rural Albertans to benefit from the climate solutions that make sense for where they live, work and play.

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