Climate Displacement Working Group Strategic Planning Consultant

Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) is a Washington, DC-based membership association of 41
national nonprofits that serve and advocate for refugees and other forcibly displaced persons.
Our mission is to mobilize expertise, ideas, and influence to protect the rights of forcibly
displaced people and build more welcoming societies. We envision a just world in which people
forced to flee their homes have agency, access to safety, and opportunity to thrive. RCUSA
serves its members by providing a platform for coordinating advocacy, communications, and
resettlement operations.

RCUSA is seeking a part-time Strategic Planning Consultant to conduct a strategic planning
exercise to guide the work of RCUSA’s Climate Displacement Working Group (CDWG). The
CDWG is a member-led platform for information-sharing and coordination of advocacy efforts,
open to all participants from all RCUSA member organizations with an interest in climate
displacement.

Under the direction of RCUSA’s Executive Director, and in close consultation with CDWG’s
Chair or co-Chair, the Consultant will carry out a landscape analysis and draft a strategic plan.
This work will include:

  • Phase 1 (November-December 2024): Drafting a landscape analysis, including:
    • stock-taking of RCUSA’s climate displacement work to date through the CDWG (including review of its foundational documents and meeting notes and through interviews with CDWG members);
    • inventory of within-coalition assets and external partners;
    • inventory of top one-to-three federal policy advocacy priorities and goals (relevant to climate displacement) of each organization active in the CDWG;
    • influence mapping; and
    • an initial sketch of the post-election context (opportunities, constraints) for advocacy, research, messaging, and programmatic work on climate displacement.
  • Phase 2 (January-February 2025): Presenting the landscape analysis to the CDWG, finalize it, and starting work on a strategic plan, which will include:
    • SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, a set of strategic goals for 2025 through 2028, an outline of the strategies to be used to pursue those goals, planned outputs, and desired outcomes;
    • analysis of the value-add for the CDWG respective to the capacities and interests of RCUSA member organizations;
    • analysis of how the CDWG relates to other US and international coalitions, identifying areas of overlap, duplication, or gaps in the advocacy, research, and policy space pertaining to climate displacement;
    • identification of other potential civil society collaboration opportunities, and of potential new members for the CDWG (and the RCUSA coalition); and
    • recommendations for increasing the capacity of the CDWG, including RCUSA staff capacity, to manage the working group and advance its goals.
  • Phase 3 (March-April 2025): Presenting the draft strategic plan to the CDWG and finalizing it based on their feedback.

The ideal candidate will have strong familiarity with key policy areas at the intersection of
climate change and forced displacement, experience with similar landscaping and strategic
planning projects, and a thorough understanding of the US federal government’s policymaking
processes and relevant regional and international policy arenas. This position will be open until
filled; the Consultant will ideally start as early as possible in November 2024, with work to be
completed by April 30, 2025.

The Consultant will receive $120 per hour, for approximately 15 hours per month and up to 105
hours of work between November 2024 and April 2025 ($12,600 total). RCUSA will reimburse
the Consultant for the cost of travel (including one round trip economy class airfare or train fare,
and hotel costs) between Consultant’s home and Washington DC for one in-person meeting
with the CDWG to discuss the draft strategic plan.

Interested candidates should contact John Slocum, Executive Director of RCUSA
(jslocum@rcusa.org).