Director of Policy

About the Role: America’s family forest owners are essential to the health and resilience of our forests and rural communities. Their voluntary actions can deliver meaningful conservation outcomes, from healthier forests and reduced wildfire risk to cleaner water, wildlife habitat, sustainable wood supplies, and climate benefits. Yet family forest owner contributions can be overlooked or undervalued. AFF works to change that. We partner with landowners, policymakers, conservation organizations, businesses, and other stakeholders to create the policy, funding, and market conditions that help family forest owners keep their forests as forests and take actions that benefit both their land and the public. The Director of Policy will be a senior member of AFF’s Policy Team, helping shape and advance a pragmatic, bipartisan policy agenda that turns AFF’s conservation goals into durable public policy. This role combines policy development, government affairs, coalition building, program strategy, and execution. The Director will identify high-impact opportunities, build support across diverse constituencies, and help move policy ideas from concept to adoption and implementation.

Responsibilities: Policy strategy and development. Help shape AFF’s federal and state policy agenda; identify legislative, regulatory, administrative, and funding opportunities; and translate organizational priorities into clear, actionable policy solutions. Government affairs and advocacy. Build and maintain trusted relationships with policymakers, agency leaders, and staff; represent AFF in meetings and policy forums; and directly advance AFF priorities in a credible, solutions-oriented way. Legislative and administrative execution. Develop strategies to advance priority policies through Congress, federal agencies, and relevant state venues, including authorizing legislation, appropriations, program implementation, rulemaking, and other administrative pathways. Coalition and partner leadership. Build and mobilize coalitions of landowners, conservation organizations, industry partners, state and local leaders, and other stakeholders around shared policy goals. Identify where AFF can lead, where we should partner, and where targeted engagement can unlock progress. Landowner-centered policy. Ensure policy positions reflect the realities facing family forest owners, including the economic, operational, and capacity barriers that influence whether they can participate in conservation programs, markets, and forest management activities. Cross-functional collaboration. Work closely with AFF program, science, communications, development, and market teams to ensure policy strategies are informed by evidence, implementation experience, landowner needs, and organizational goals. Policy communications. Translate complex policy issues into clear, compelling materials for policymakers, partners, landowners, funders, and other audiences, including briefs, talking points, testimony, comments, presentations, and advocacy materials. Campaign management and results. Build workplans, manage multiple policy priorities, coordinate consultants and external partners as needed, track progress, and adapt strategy based on political conditions, evidence, and learning. Candidate Requirements Experienced policy professional who is strategic, politically savvy, collaborative, and motivated by results. Strong candidates will bring most of the following Required / Core Experience At least 10 years of progressively responsible experience in public policy, government affairs, advocacy, legislative or executive branch work. Demonstrated ability to develop policy solutions and build a strategy to move them toward adoption, funding, or implementation. Experience working with Congress, federal agencies, state government, or a combination of these; strong understanding of legislative and executive branch processes. A record of building productive relationships across political, geographic, and organizational differences and working effectively in bipartisan settings. Experience building coalitions and aligning diverse stakeholders around shared policy objectives. Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to make complex policy issues clear, concise, and persuasive for different audiences. Excellent judgment, initiative, organization, and project management skills; ability to manage multiple priorities and adapt quickly as circumstances change. Ability to work both independently and collaboratively in a fast-moving, mission-driven environment. Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience. Ability and willingness to travel as needed. Especially Helpful Experience with forestry, conservation, agriculture, natural resources, climate, rural development, or private-lands policy. Knowledge of USDA and its forestry and conservation agencies and programs, including experience with the U.S. Forest Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Farm Service Agency, or related programs. Experience with the Farm Bill, federal appropriations, regulatory or administrative policy, or implementation of federally funded programs. Existing relationships with policymakers, agency officials, conservation organizations, landowner groups, or other stakeholders relevant to AFF’s work. Experience managing consultants, contracts, direct reports or policy-related budgets. The Director may work across a range of issues affecting family forests, including Federal conservation, forestry, and private-lands programs, including USDA authorities and funding; Farm Bill, appropriations, and other federal legislative vehicles affecting family forest owners; Forest health, wildfire resilience, reforestation, and disaster recovery; Climate policy and high-integrity forest climate solutions; Markets, finance, and incentives that help make active forest stewardship economically viable; Policies that support working forests, rural economies, and long-term forest retention.

Core Competencies: Agility. Thriving in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments by anticipating and responding to changes with swift, focused and flexible actions. Collaborating with Others. Working together with others in a cooperative and supportive manner to achieve shared goals. Ensuring Accountability. Holding yourself and others to high standards of accountability, creating an infrastructure and transparent organization culture that supports and measures personal and organizational responsibility and accountability. Problem Solving. Identifying problems and the solutions to them. Your contributions and leadership will be appreciated. Our staff is passionate, dedicated and good at what they do, and will be deeply grateful for your efforts to create and preserve an environment that is both fun and fair. Thinking Strategically. Seeing and synthesizing different sides of an issue, examining the full range of options and outcomes, and building intellectual frameworks to guide analysis and action. Leading Change. Recognizing the need for change, being open to new ideas and methods, and championing transformational change with the organization and beyond. Demonstrated ability to strategically translate organizational strategy and policy priorities into tangible actions. Decision Making. Using critical thinking, good business sense and organizational values to make decisions involving varying levels or risk and ambiguity. Diversity and Inclusion. Working effectively with individuals of diverse backgrounds in a variety of work contexts. Policy and Standards Design and Development (5).Designing and developing effective and transparent policies that are aligned with the strategic direction and operation of the organization. Career Development and Coaching (4).Fostering employee development by providing resources, tools, and information. Continuous Learning (5).Identifying and addressing learning and developmental needs to enhance own performance. Information Gathering and Processing (4).Locating and collecting data from appropriate sources and using it to prepare meaningful concise reports that summarize the information. What Success Looks Like in the First YearYou have built strong working relationships across AFF and a trusted external network with policymakers, agency staff, partners, and family forest stakeholders. You understand AFF’s strategy, programs, evidence base, and landowner model well enough to translate organizational priorities into credible policy opportunities. You have helped sharpen and operationalize a focused policy agenda with clear objectives, decision points, partners, and pathways to impact. You are leading or materially advancing priority policy initiatives and can demonstrate concrete progress toward legislative, administrative, funding, or implementation outcomes. You have strengthened AFF’s ability to mobilize partners and landowner voices in support of shared policy goals. You are known internally as a collaborative, strategic colleague who can move comfortably between long-term strategy and day-to-day execution. You have hired two direct reports What it's like to work at AFF AFF is a collaborative, learning-oriented organization tackling complex conservation challenges. We value shared purpose, measurable results, curiosity, practical problem-solving, and the willingness to adapt as we learn. The Policy Team works across the organization and with partners who bring different perspectives, interests, and political viewpoints. Success requires both conviction about the outcomes we are trying to achieve and flexibility about how we get there. A mission-driven team focused on measurable conservation impact; Meaningful opportunities to shape policy and build new approaches; A flexible work environment that respects life outside of work; Competitive compensation commensurate with experience; and A comprehensive benefits package.

Location: Washington, DCTerms: Full Time

Reports to: Executive Vice-President, PolicyWe are committed to creating a diverse work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status or any other basis protected by law.