Fair-Trade Marketing Maven

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Center for Amazonian Community Ecology (CACE)

The Center for Amazon Community Ecology is a non-profit organization that helps traditional peoples in the Amazon to develop and market innovative handicrafts to create sustainable livelihoods for their families, promote forest conservation and support local community development. CACE is a member of the Fair Trade Federation that works with 15 native and campesino communities in the northern Peruvian Amazon. We host skill-sharing workshops where artisans learn to make unique handicrafts, strengthen their organizations, and better manage the plants they use to make crafts. CACE buys their crafts in Peru to help them earn a living without damaging the forest. We then market their crafts in the US and use part of the sales to support health, education, and conservation needs in our partner communities. Our social rebates have been used to build a community health clinic, buy supplies for schools, and reforest chambira palm trees. Read more about CACE.

Marketing Amazon Handicrafts Online and Beyond

We are seeking one or two committed people to help CACE sell our partners’ crafts through online, fair-trade stores, and other wholesale and retail outlets. These efforts will help improve the lives of hundreds of traditional artisans, strengthen their communities and support forest conservation. Our helpers will gain valuable experience marketing fair-trade handicrafts, earn some money and maybe join us in the Peruvian Amazon.

Our Fair-trade Marketing Maven (FMM) will help us sell our partners’ crafts through three main channels.

1. Support online sales: 1) Help prepare and upload product listings, photos, and related stories on our online Amazon Forest Store and other online platforms, 2) Help prepare text, photo, and video posts to promote our crafts through social media including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube, 3) Help classify and tag our crafts and update our inventory database, and 4) Help fulfill online craft purchases.
2. Support sales to fair trade stores and other wholesale customers: 1) Help prepare a product catalog and other promotional materials for wholesale customers, 2) Identify wholesale customers to receive promotional materials, 3) Organize visits to wholesale customers in the mid-Atlantic region. These visits could include doing a presentation and/or special Amazon craft sale in their store.
3. Support sales at festivals: 1) Help prepare crafts and display materials, 2) Help recruit volunteers and arrange their schedules, 3) Encourage musicians to promote the Amazon guitar strap, 4) Secure company sponsors for the roadshow, 5) Help load/unload the vehicle and trailer with supplies, and 6) Edit and post festival photos and videos.

We are also seeking an Amazon Roadshow Ambassador to support our craft sales at seven music festivals this summer. One person could do both of these jobs during the summer. See full ARA position description.

Position Qualifications

Our FMM should be passionate about our mission with a strong desire to create and share compelling images and stories about our fair-trade products and the people who make them. They should have experience in sales, marketing, and/or social media. The FMM should have strong communication skills including an ability to write well, speak well, edit photos (and if possible videos) and competent with Word, Excel, photo and ideally video editing programs. They should be highly organized, responsible, very attentive to details. While fluency in English is essential, an FMM with strong Spanish language skills could help us do a lot more.

Terms and Benefits of the Positions

Fair-trade Marketing Maven. The preferred full period for this position will be early May through early September with negotiable starting and ending dates which may be extended through December. The FMM will be expected to devote an average of 15 hours per week to their assigned tasks. The FMM should ideally live in central Pennsylvania with the means to travel to the CACE office in Camp Hill, PA to help with certain tasks when needed. Some tasks could be done on a computer with internet access from the FMM’s home. If our top candidate wishes to move to the area for the summer for this position, we would help them seek low-cost housing.

This position is also structured as a fellowship where the FMM will learn multiple aspects of fair-trade marketing through intensive orientation and on-the-job training. We would welcome applications from potential volunteers, but we will, however, offer our top candidate a maximum stipend of $1,400 depending on the time they devote to their tasks. They could also be invited to apply part of their stipend to spend up to one month in Peru as an Amazon Field Volunteer with CACE. See details of this option below. A successful FMM will receive a detailed letter of recommendation, support to document any internship or community service requirements, opportunities to sell CACE fair-trade crafts in other venues, and consideration for other positions with CACE in the US or Peru.

Amazon Field Volunteer (AFV). These special CACE volunteers directly support our work with our native and campesino partners in the northern Peruvian Amazon. Every AFV project is customized to fit the volunteer’s skills and interests with the needs of CACE’s partners and programs. They might document or support our artisan empowerment workshops or projects that support health, education or reforestation in their communities. The AFV could also help prepare profiles about our artisan partners, their communities or the plants used to make crafts and essential oils. They could share a special skill with our community partners such as drawing, photography, or teaching English. An AFV needs to be in good health, ready to serve, enthusiastic about adventure and willing to accept the risks of travel in third-world conditions. They should already be conversant in Spanish or learn enough before their trip to function well on their own. If one person does both the ARA and FMM positions and qualifies for the AFV program, CACE could apply $1600 of their combined stipend to cover their airfare and other expenses in Peru. If a person does just the ARA or FMM position for the whole summer, CACE could apply $800 of their stipend to cover their AFV related trip expenses. This AFV position would probably last 3 to 4 weeks, but the period could be extended for exceptional volunteers able to finance the remainder of their stay. See full AFV program description.

Application process

If you are excited about joining the CACE team, please email your resume, unofficial transcript (if recent student), and a letter describing your relevant experience and interest in this position and/or Amazon Roadshow Ambassador to Dr. Campbell Plowden, CACE Executive Director at cplowden@amazonecology.org. Please also tell us if you’d like to join us in Peru as an Amazon Field Volunteer. Applications will be reviewed upon receipt until positions are filled. Strong candidates will be invited to interview with Dr. Plowden, provide references, and agree to a background check.

About the CACE Founder and Supervisor

Dr. Campbell Plowden spent the first part of his career working as an investigator, policy analyst and campaign coordinator with non-profit organizations including Greenpeace, the Humane Society of the U.S., Amazon Watch and the Environmental Investigation Agency. He has been promoting tropical forest conservation and supporting forest peoples since 1985. Dr. Plowden studied non-timber forest products with the Tembé Indians in the Brazilian Amazon for three years and received a PhD in Ecology from Penn State University in 2001. He founded the Center for Amazon Community Ecology in 2006 to create positive alternatives to deforestation and directs the Center’s programs to develop and market innovative fair-trade handicrafts and essential oils with CACE partners in the Peruvian Amazon. Apart from his work with CACE, Dr. Plowden is an active Quaker with Harrisburg Friends Meeting and lead facilitator with the Alternatives to Violence Project. He has mentored many interns, assistants, and volunteers and looks forward to training and working with the Fair-Trade Marketing Maven and Amazon Roadshow Ambassador this summer.