About Avaaz

Avaaz is one of the world’s largest online campaigning movements, with nearly 70 million people from every country in the world. 

Our movement launched in 2007 with an ambitious but simple mission: organise citizens of all countries to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.

Our model enables people to channel their individual voices and resources into a powerful collective force at tipping point moments to impact the pressing global challenges of our time, from climate and ecological crises to human rights abuses and the dismantling of democracy. The organisation is deeply mission focused, and has achieved a broad range of victories over the last 15 years that you can read about here. 

At this pivotal point in human history, Avaaz is delivering an ambitious 2030 strategic plan to seize key victories in the crucial next decade – to secure ecological survival, defend democracy and human rights, and build healthy and resilient cultures.

The Avaaz team of around 100 staff are spread across 6 continents, campaign in 21 languages, and is 100% funded through small donations from individual Avaaz members, with an annual revenue of $25-30m. 

Legal Officer Position Overview

This position is an exciting opportunity at the heart of Avaaz. 

As a Legal Officer at Avaaz, you will research, investigate, and advise Legal staff on how to use the law offensively to achieve social change, and assist with mitigating legal risks when boldly campaigning for social change. You will also support the team in managing the organisation’s legal risk, ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations around the world. 

This role reports to the Legal Directors.  

Responsibilities 

• Legal Campaigning: Monitor world events and identify opportunities for strong (legal) campaigns; assist the Campaigns team in organising campaign actions and logistics; draft campaign emails and other communications as needed.
• Research and Drafting: Legal research; develop oral and written briefings for legal and non-legal audiences; stay abreast of developments in the law around the world on issues relevant to your assignments and responsibilities. 
• Innovative Legal Strategies: Support the development and implementation of dynamic legal strategies in collaboration with senior staff, external counsel and experts, navigating intricate challenges across multiple jurisdictions. 
• Global Compliance: Provide support for Avaaz’s in-house compliance operations, including human resources, tax and regulatory compliance, corporate governance, intellectual property, contracts, data privacy and internet law; provide support to ensure organisational compliance with international, national, and local laws across various jurisdictions.
• Operational Support and Team Empowerment: Manage requests addressed to the Legal team; manage record-keeping; provide support on recruitment, team building, team management, and special projects.

Qualifications 

The following list of qualifications is what we believe gives you the experience required to work in our environment and deliver on the responsibilities listed above. You should apply for this role if you believe you have the necessary experience, even if you don't meet all the requirements below:

• Law degree and/or equivalent professional qualification to practise law (required).
• At minimum 2 years of legal campaigning experience and/or compliance and risk management experience, preferably in the non-profit sector and international contexts.
• Creative problem-solving skills for rapid, solution-oriented legal and strategic guidance.
• Strong teamwork skills, comfortable in a highly collaborative team culture and a hierarchical team structure.
• Adaptability in a dynamic team environment.
• A growth orientation and a desire to challenge yourself.
• High professionalism, self-motivation, efficiency and results-oriented delivery on short timelines.
• Passion for and commitment to global justice, citizen empowerment, and social change.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English; high proficiency in additional languages, particularly Portuguese or Spanish, is strongly preferred.
• Proficiency in Google Suite and online communication platforms (Slack, Zoom, etc.).

Location

Avaaz is a virtual organisation, with most of our work done online. Our staff are based all over the world. For this position, the candidate would ideally be based in the Americas time zone. 

The position may require some travel to or within the US and further travels abroad a few times a year.

Compensation and Benefits

Salary varies with location and experience, and is highly competitive with leading international nongovernmental organisations.The full-package annual salary for this position ranges from 65,000 - 97,000 USD equivalent. An accurate range in local currency will be provided to candidates in the final interview round, if requested.

The development of our employees is paramount. To support this, we include these benefits:

• 5 weeks paid vacation per year
• 10 paid holidays per year
• 3,000 USD for training and development per year
• 1,500 USD for language development per year
• Out-of-Home Workspace Rental

Application Timeline

We are reviewing applications on a rolling basis, and encourage all candidates to submit applications as soon as possible. 

Avaaz’s Commitment to Equity and Inclusion 

As a global organisation with millions of members around the world, it’s important to us that our team reflects the diversity needed to lead a movement of people from across the planet, rising to meet some of the most complex challenges humanity has ever faced. We believe we can only succeed by building a diverse team full of fresh perspectives and original ideas, and we are committed to creating a working environment in which everyone has an equitable opportunity to fulfil their potential.

Our team includes speakers of English as a first or second language, the self-taught and university educated, people with all sorts of professional backgrounds. If doing the job you just read about would make you excited to come to work every day, if you’re talented, hard-working and committed to making a difference - we want you to apply. 

Avaaz does not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, colour, ancestry, language and accent, national origin, citizenship, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, family/parental or marital status, religion, socioeconomic class, caste, disability or any other characteristic protected by law

We are committed to ongoing learning, so if you have suggestions for us on how to better put these values into practice in our hiring process, we’d value your input. Please write to us at recruitment@avaaz.org with the subject line ‘Hiring Feedback’.

We’ll provide reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants with disabilities or special needs to participate in the application process, so please let us know if you have such a request when you apply.

Please do not send your application via email. Only applications received via the form online will be considered. Thank you!