Volunteer Opportunities

Sustainable Waterloo Region currently has the following openings:

• Web Coding Guru
• Member Support Coordinator
• Financial Operations Coordinator
• Administrative Coordinator
• Web and IT Manager

If interested in a particular position, please send an email with a current resume and cover letter (optional) to Sarah Edmonds, with the job title clearly marked in the subject line.

Web Coding Guru

Job Purpose:  Do you have a passion for solving web issues?  Are you interested in developing your web expertise within an innovative sustainability network?  The SWR Coding Guru will be our go-to for things coding-related!  This position will help the rest of the web team with troubleshooting, coding support, and project support as needed.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Act as a resource for debugging web-related issues
• Monitor and maintain SWR’s website hosting
• Turn ideas into reality by helping the web team with coding of custom php pages
• Support web team members on larger projects as necessary

Skills Required:

• Thorough knowledge of PHP and PHPbb
• Excellent database management knowledge with MySQL
• Working knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Strong communications skills
• A passion for linking your web expertise to improving local sustainability

Time commitment:  Approximately 5 hours per week, including bi-weekly team meeting.

Member Support Coordinator

Job Purpose:

Member Support Coordinators are responsible for engaging RCI members on their path to reducing their GHG emissions. They work with members on a one-on-one level, monitoring their progress towards RCI Milestones, facilitating the use of relevant RCI resources and tools, and ensuring members have clear and actionable next steps.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Ensuring members move-up through the Milestone Guide and meet RCI obligations (i.e. Surveys) through emails and 1 on 1 meetings
• Working with and fostering the growth and efficiency of member ‘green teams’
• Ensuring members have clear and actionable next steps
• Share lessons learned  with the Program Manager,  other Member Support Coordinators, and our Living Documents (our best-practices directories)
• Staying up-to-date on members in the news
• Directing members to use relevant RCI resources, tools, opportunities (attend events, are aware of incentives, speaking opportunities, etc.)

Key Skills Required:

• Project & relationship management
• Positive and problem-solving attitude
• Excellent Communication – oral & written
• Interest in environment & business
• Attention to detail
• Strong organizational skills

Time commitment: Approximately 5 hrs per week, plus weekly team meeting and a monthly meeting with Member Support Coordinator team. Volunteers are asked to make a 12 month commitment. Flexibility between 8-5 during weekdays is necessary to meet with members in person.

Financial Operations Coordinator

Job Purpose:

The Financial Operations Coordinator is primarily responsible for helping to maintain Sustainable Waterloo Region’s financial records on a diligent and timely basis. The Financial Operations Coordinator position serves to enable compliant and accurate presentation of Sustainable Waterloo Region’s financial reporting while helping to ensure that the operational duties of the Finance team are fulfilled.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Support in maintaining accurate financial records in Quickbooks, following appropriate accounting principles
• Addition of monthly and quarterly accruals and other accounting best practices
• Invoicing of external project revenue
• Maintenance of processes and policies within the Finance functional area.
• Record meeting minutes for each of the finance meetings throughout each month
• Supporting financial components of funding applications & proposals (as needed)

Skills need to be successful in this role:

• Interested in the accounting functions of a NPO
• General experience with financial book keeping, experience with QuickBooks would be an asset
• Detail oriented with adept organizational skills
• Ability to work independently & remain self motivated, while working as part of a team
• Passion for environmental sustainability

Time commitment: Approximately 4-6 hours per week, including weekly team meeting and monthly Finance team meetings.

Administrative Coordinator

Purpose:

The Administrative Coordinator provides administrative support for the Sustainable Waterloo Region team.

Duties and responsibilities:

• Set up meetings (with staff, volunteers, business development meetings and presentations) and manage the Executive Director’s calendar
• Coordinate weekly Team Meeting updates, schedules, and breakouts among functional area leads.
• Remind SWR functional leads to update the team meeting schedule
• Organize all administration prior quarterly SWR Board meetings

Skills needed to be successful in this role:

• Excellent organizational skills
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Word and Excel
• Familiarity with Google Calendars
• Strong interpersonal skills
• Thoroughness, conscientiousness, and attention to detail
• Passion for sustainability

Time Commitment:

Approximately 4 to 5 hours per week, with some additional hours prior to quarterly Board meetings.

Web and IT Manager

Job Purpose: The Web and IT Manager is responsible for ensuring the Sustainable Waterloo Region team is effectively employing web & IT solutions; focuses of the role include overseeing the web & IT strategy, and managing the web team.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Oversee implementation of overall Web & IT strategy
• Lead the ongoing streamlining of processes & procedures
• Management of the web team, including:
  • Ensuring web team volunteers are engaged and enjoying their experience
  • Prioritizing web team projects
  • Assigning people to projects to meet overarching strategy
  • Leading team communication
• Fill gaps in responsibilities where required
• Ongoing communication with Executive Director & other functional area leads to align web strategy & priorities with that of the organization

Skills required to be successful in this role:

• Strong interest in working with and managing volunteers
• Superior knowledge of web programming, with a strong understanding of HTML, PHP, MySQL, Javascript, CSS
• General IT background and knowledge. Some experience in helpdesk environments is preferred.
• Some experience in user administration, especially using cPanel is preferred.

Time commitment: Approximately 5 hrs per week, plus weekly team meeting