About Malikah
Malikah is a women-led anti-violence organization building safety, healing, economic power, and collective care within Muslim women and immigrant communities. Through self-defense, healing justice, organizing, economic empowerment, and community programming, Malikah creates spaces where women and girls can build power, connection, and safety.
Our Malikah Safety Center in Astoria serves as a physical home for this work and a hub for community programming, services, organizing, and connection.
About the Role
The Community Engagement & Programs Manager is responsible for strengthening Malikah’s relationship with the community and ensuring that our programs, events, and Safety Center remain deeply connected to the people we serve.
This person will serve as a key bridge between Malikah and our members, volunteers, program participants, community partners, and local organizations. They will be highly visible in the community and at the Safety Center, building relationships, increasing participation, recruiting and retaining members and volunteers, and ensuring that Malikah’s major events and community programs are well-executed.
The ideal candidate is a strong relationship-builder who is equally comfortable talking to a longtime Malikah member, organizing volunteers, coordinating a community event, troubleshooting a day-of logistics issue, and looking at engagement data to understand what the community needs.
This is a hands-on role for someone who is deeply community-oriented, organized, proactive, and excited to help make Malikah’s physical space and programs feel alive.
Core ResponsibilitiesCommunity Engagement & Membership
- Lead efforts to grow, engage, and retain Malikah’s membership base, with a focus on building long-term relationships rather than one-time participation.
- Develop strategies to increase participation in Malikah’s monthly membership meetings and create meaningful opportunities for members to shape Malikah’s work.
- Build and maintain relationships with community members, volunteers, local leaders, businesses, schools, organizations, and other community-based partners.
- Serve as a welcoming and consistent point of contact for community members engaging with Malikah.
- Develop systems for following up with new participants and converting event and program participants into more deeply engaged Malikah members.
- Identify opportunities to deepen engagement among existing members through volunteering, programs, events, leadership opportunities, and organizing.
Volunteer Development
- Develop and maintain a strong volunteer pipeline to support Malikah’s programs, events, distributions, and community initiatives.
- Recruit, onboard, coordinate, and retain volunteers.
- Create clear volunteer roles and opportunities that allow community members to contribute their skills and build leadership.
- Maintain regular communication with volunteers and identify opportunities for increased responsibility and leadership.
Events & Community Programming
- Lead the planning and execution of Malikah’s major community events, ensuring they are executed on time, within budget, and in alignment with Malikah’s values and brand.
- Events may include:
- Two annual Open Streets activations
- Two Steinway Street festivals
- Sham El Neseem
- Eid dinner
- Ramadan dinner
- National Muslim Women’s Summit
- Monthly membership meetings (?)
- Additional community events as needed
- Coordinate event timelines, logistics, vendors, volunteers, community partners, supplies, outreach, setup, and day-of execution.
- Work with Malikah’s communications and program teams to ensure events are effectively promoted and connected to broader engagement goals.
- Establish and track participation and recruitment goals for major events and programs.
Malikah Safety Center
- Help ensure the Malikah Safety Center is a welcoming, organized, active, and community-centered space.
- Oversee the day-to-day readiness of the space for programs, meetings, distributions, and community use.
- Coordinate space calendars, setup, supplies, organization, and basic operational needs in partnership with the Operations team.
- Identify opportunities to increase use of the Safety Center by members, partners, and community organizations.
- Ensure that community members who enter the Safety Center feel welcomed, informed, and connected to Malikah’s broader work.
Food Distribution & Community Resources
- Coordinate the operational logistics of Malikah’s Monday and Sunday food distributions.
- Recruit and coordinate volunteers for food distribution days.
- Ensure distributions are organized, consistent, welcoming, and responsive to community needs.
- Ensure the Astoria Halal Fridge is consistently stocked, organized, and accessible to community members.
- Build relationships with local businesses, restaurants, food providers, and community partners to strengthen Malikah’s food access infrastructure.
Program Support
- Support the successful implementation of Malikah’s immigrant women's programs and other community-based programming.
- Work closely with program staff to ensure programs meet participation goals and respond to community needs.
- Help identify barriers to participation and develop strategies to make Malikah’s programs more accessible and welcoming.
Community Feedback & Learning
- Develop consistent systems for listening to Malikah members and community participants.
- Gather feedback through conversations, surveys, membership meetings, events, and programs.
- Identify emerging community needs, concerns, and opportunities and bring those insights back to the broader Malikah team.
- Help ensure community feedback meaningfully informs program development and organizational strategy.
Data, Tracking & Reporting
- Develop and maintain systems for tracking:
- Membership growth and retention
- Monthly membership meeting participation
- Volunteer recruitment and retention
- Event attendance
- Program recruitment and participation
- Community partnerships
- Safety Center usage
- Food distribution participation
- Provide monthly and quarterly community engagement reports to the Executive Director and relevant staff.
- Use engagement data and community feedback to identify trends, gaps, and opportunities.
- Establish clear goals and benchmarks for community engagement and regularly assess progress against them.
Key Performance Indicators
Success in this role will be measured by the ability to:
- Grow and retain Malikah’s membership.
- Increase consistent participation in monthly membership meetings.
- Build and maintain a reliable volunteer pipeline.
- Develop meaningful relationships with local community organizations and businesses.
- Meet or exceed participation and recruitment goals for Malikah programs and events.
- Successfully execute major events on time and within approved budgets.
- Maintain consistent, welcoming, and reliable operations at the Malikah Safety Center.
- Ensure food distributions and the Astoria Halal Fridge operate reliably.
- Establish effective systems for collecting and incorporating community feedback.
- Provide accurate and useful monthly and quarterly engagement reporting.
- Demonstrate increased community participation, ownership, and leadership within Malikah.
Qualifications
We are looking for someone who is deeply relationship-oriented, community-minded, and highly organized.
Strong candidates will have:
- 3–5+ years of experience in community engagement, organizing, nonprofit programming, events, membership, or a related field.
- Experience building relationships with community members and grassroots organizations.
- Experience recruiting, coordinating, and supporting volunteers.
- Strong event planning and project management skills.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
- Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously.
- Experience tracking participation, engagement, or other program data.
- Comfort working in a fast-paced, community-based environment where priorities can shift.
- A commitment to Malikah’s mission and to building safety, power, and community among Muslim women and immigrant communities.
Preferred:
- Experience working with Muslim, immigrant, Arab/MENA, or other historically underserved communities.
- Familiarity with Queens and/or NYC community organizations and local institutions.
- Arabic or another relevant community language.
- Experience working in a grassroots or community-based organization.
- Experience with membership databases, spreadsheets, CRM systems, or other engagement tracking tools.
What Success Looks Like
Within the first year, the Community Engagement & Programs Manager should help Malikah move from event-based engagement to sustained community engagement. We want someone who can walk into the Safety Center and know the community members in the room, know which volunteers we can call, know which organizations we should partner with, know how many members are actively engaged, and know what the community is telling us. Ultimately, this role is about making sure Malikah is not only serving the community, but building with the community.
Pay: Up to $70,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person
