A Landforce Crew provides professional level construction, restoration and maintenance services for trails, vacant lots, invasive plants, trees, garden plots, and other habitat and restoration services as needed. Applications to join the 2022 Crew are closed, please check back in January for details on joining the 2023 Crew.
Landforce Employment Opportunities
"We nourish a culture of self-empowerment for people aspiring towards meaningful and stable employment, as we protect and improve the environment."
Landforce Background
Landforce is committed to building a just world, where everyone belongs, lives in a healthy environment, and surpasses their greatest dreams. We nourish a culture of self-empowerment for people aspiring towards meaningful and stable employment, as we protect and improve the environment... read more
At Landforce we believe it is imperative to nurture the talents of everyone who comes through our doors, especially people who have been left out of Pittsburgh's economy, whether this is because they are citizens returning from incarceration, as a result of educational barriers, as returning veterans, those in recovery from addiction or mental health, or because they are living in poverty and do not yet have a work history or received a leg up into Pittsburgh's employment sector. We also believe that everyone has the right to live near green spaces that are safe and beautiful.
Founded in November 2015 by a consortium of Pittsburgh, PA nonprofits, Landforce, an employment social enterprise, acts as a transitional employer. We use much needed environmental stewardship of our natural (and naturalized) areas to provide individualized career and supportive services and hard and soft skills training, while offering transitional employment that develops workplace skills and behaviors, establishes an employment record, and generates employer references.
Landforce serves people living in Pittsburgh and the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the city within Allegheny County. Crew demographics largely reflect underserved neighborhoods in our region: 86 percent of the people we serve are African American, 87 percent are male. Sixty-five percent have a criminal record, 50 percent have a mental health diagnosis, 31 percent have a history of addiction, and 27 percent have been homeless.
Landforce Accomplishments
Since 2016 nearly 600 people have applied to join Landforce as crew members. From those, 119 joined us as trainees, and in 2022, we hit our 100 mark for hired crew members. That means that 85 percent of our trainees finished training and were offered a crew member position...read more
Our crew members have participated in more than 14,000 hours of training and nearly 2,000 hours of case management, and together with our staff have contributed 45,000 hours of environmental stewardship to the Pittsburgh region, working on contracts worth over one million dollars in earned revenue. On average, 85 percent of our finishers go on to other employment within two weeks of completing our season. Ninety-one percent of respondents are still working 12 months after leaving Landforce. As an example of our long-term impact, 100 percent of our 2020 respondents were still employed 12 months out, and everyone had received raises in that first year. As a cohort, their average wage increased from $15.90/hour to $19.13/hour at their 12-month check-ins.
We recently released our 2022 to 2025 strategic plan, and are pursuing a path that will allow significant growth over the coming years. We welcome you to explore the plan and see how you might fit into our strategic expansions.
Working at Landforce
The work we do is often fun, always meaningful, and sometimes intense, which is why you will find that Landforce has created a culture of warmth, mutual support, team work, respect, and high expectation...read more
In a 2020 DEI survey conducted by an outside consultant, Landforce employees cited the organization's top values were teamwork, commitment to crew members, passion, integrity, and trust. The consultant concluded that there is a "uniquely high sense of trust in the organization," that employees also felt Landforce has strong leadership that reflects the goals and strategies and their everyday work, that the organization prioritizes a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and that their work was respected, fairly evaluated and that they felt like their ideas and suggestions were used to improve the culture and operations of the organization.
Landforce values diversity as a cornerstone to our success as an organization. We celebrate the differences and similarities that all employees bring to our team. We are committed to creating an atmosphere that fully utilizes the unique capabilities of each employee, and where all employees are treated with dignity and respect. Landforce is an Equal Opportunity Employer that does not discriminate on the basis of actual or perceived race, creed, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, disability, sex, gender identity, marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation, genetic information, arrest record, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.
Landforce currently has two open positions. Job descriptions and application instructions for each are included below each position title. We welcome your application, and strongly encourage candidates who identify with the people we serve to apply.