State Policy Analyst - School Nutrition Association

Position Description

The position reports to the Vice President (VP), Government Affairs & Media Relations (GAMR) and provides support on state legislative and regulatory advocacy initiatives. Responsibilities include synthesizing key messages and outcomes for SNA leadership and for use in advocacy campaigns; monitoring and analyzing state legislative/regulatory initiatives and proposals; developing and cultivating key contact networks and implementation of state grassroots advocacy initiatives.

Position Responsibilities

• Recommends, executes, and monitors implementation of the state government relations legislative strategy under the guidance of the VP.
• Develops and maintains strategic relationships with regional U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) representatives, state legislators in key states, state regulators, and Capitol Hill staff.
• Advocates, within targeted states, policy positions that benefit and protect SNA members.
• Establishes and maintains effective relationships with other nutrition, hunger, education and health and wellness associations, trade, and coalition groups operating in relevant states and serves as a liaison to those organizations at the direction of the VP and CEO.
• In alignment with strategic initiatives, supports the VP in building and/or maintaining coalitions and high-impact campaigns to support state lobbying aligned to SNA policy positions.
• Actively monitors, tracks, and analyzes legislation in key states.
• Recommends and develops prudent courses of action based on analysis of the industry impacts of state legislative proposals.
• Cultivates a state grassroots coalition of school nutrition and allied professionals.
• Develops briefing, background materials, and presentations for SNA leadership, members, and staff.
• With the guidance of the VP, creates state-focused legislative and policy communication content for Association members, such as newsletters, email campaigns, news stories and web content.
• Provides support to the Director of Media Relations with identification of state spokespersons, creation of press materials, and document drafting.
• Serves as point of contact for information on state legislative/regulatory issues.
• Serves as liaison to the SNA PAC Board.

Position Relationships

• Works with SNA staff, SNA leadership and members.
• Communicates with state legislative staff members
• Serves as liaison to a variety of state allied organizations.

Supervision

Receives general supervision and direction from position’s supervisor. Exercises independent judgment and discretion.

Education

Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field or high school diploma with certification and training and/or professional work experience.

Qualifications

• Four or more years of progressive responsibility in a non-profit organization, on Capitol Hill, or in another advocacy-centered role working on legislative issues.
• Knowledge of state legislative and regulatory processes.
• Demonstrated experience tracking, reviewing, and analyzing complex legislation and regulations and summarizing for a variety of audiences.
• Demonstrated experience cultivating networks to facilitate advocacy goals.
• Demonstrated experience presenting and articulating advocacy goals and legislative priorities to various stakeholder groups.
• Demonstrated ability to translate legislative issues into reports, newsletters, briefing materials, web content and other materials.
• Demonstrated ability to successfully work independently and as part of a team with the ability to draw connections between day-to-day job responsibilities and the goals of the organization.
• Highly developed communications skills, including professional writing and editing and verbal skills for a variety of internal and external audiences.
• Ability to write final drafts with minimal editing support.
• Strong detail-oriented, organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple tasks with different timelines in a fast-paced environment with fluctuating workloads and changing priorities.
• Excellent verbal and interpersonal communication skills.
• Demonstrated experience using grassroots advocacy and legislative tracking software.
• Demonstrated experience using a database to access customer or member information, using the internet to conduct research, and expertise in Microsoft tools such as Teams, SharePoint, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, as well as virtual meeting platforms such as Zoom.