Content Specialist

Free Press and Free Press Action work to amplify the voices of people and communities in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what’s actually happening in their communities. We work at the intersection of media and technology to strengthen our democracy.

The content specialist manages the production of all outgoing email outreaches and sms messages. They are responsible for creating new action pages and email messages in our CRM using industry best practices. They regularly conduct and analyze testing to identify effective strategies, messaging and formatting of outreach communications.

The content specialist reports to the senior product director and works closely with the marketing and direct response manager.  This job requires flexibility in work schedule, generally aligning to U.S. East Coast business hours. Job duties may require evening and weekend work during peak campaign cycles or in the lead up to special events. Occasional local, regional and national domestic travel is required, including to events or meetings hosted by others.

Free Press is composed of two separate organizations, Free Press and Free Press Action Fund. Both entities share the same overall mission and employees will have time assigned to one or both entities. This job description refers collectively to the two organizations under the name “Free Press.”

Primary Responsibilities:

• Email-outreach production

  • Manage the production of all outgoing email outreaches and creation of new pages within our CRM using industry best practices.
  • Work with the senior product director to develop and drive email-list segmentation strategies to maximize engagement and list strength.
  • Stay up to date on newly added CRM features and test and implement those that are relevant. Ensure good email reputation and deliverability, and the strength of our overall email-list health

• SMS-outreach production

  • Manage the production of all outgoing sms outreaches
  • Work to optimize mobile-action taking

• Expand digital engagement to new platforms

  • Work with the marketing and communication team to develop plans to expand digital engagement beyond email

• Analytics and testing

  • Regularly conduct and analyze testing to identify effective strategies, messaging and formatting of outreach communications
  • Generate and share regular reports that show engagement and growth in online communities
  • Increase Free Press’ audience size and engagement metrics

• Cross-team collaboration

  • Work in collaboration across teams to ensure good communication and cohesion

• Advancing race equity

  • Clearly and consistently articulate an understanding of racial equity and structural racism and the centrality of this analysis to the work Free Press does and how we operate. Integrate that knowledge into work projects and interactions by addressing structural implications and disproportionate impacts of policies, activities and decisions on race, class, gender and other group identities within the context of job responsibilities and projects.
  • Integrates race equity and relevant structural implications and knowledge into digital/marketing content creation, projects and interactions

Desired skills and attributes:

• A commitment to racial equity and experience working with communities of color
• Value and respect differences of race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, ability and socioeconomic circumstance
• A creative self-starter, able to work independently and with limited oversight to accomplish agreed upon objectives and to evaluate results
• Able to work under tight deadlines, navigate competing priorities and effectively adjust work plans to respond to emergent challenges or opportunities
• Able to remain positive, tactful and composed under pressure
• A team player with a low-ego approach to collaboration with both internal and external colleagues
• Able to develop and maintain relationships with a wide range of external organizations
• Excellent interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills
• Spanish language fluency is a plus
• Dedication to Free Press’ mission of fighting for everyone’s rights to connect and communicate, in addition to the overall success of the organization

Experience and qualifications:

• No minimum education is required; a bachelor's degree may be an indicator of capacity for this position

• 3 or more years of directly relevant experience in a nonprofit public interest organization or similar setting is required

• Strong interest in media and technology issues and demonstrated experience working on those or similar issues

• Experience working with CRM technology, constructing and troubleshooting email templates and webpages, and QA’ing HTML emails

• Experience with ActionKit or other CRMs

• Fluency in HTML, CSS, SQL and JavaScript

• Experience diagnosing and troubleshooting problems in a rapid-response environment

• Experience with any of the following: Amazon Web Services, GitHub and/ or Cloudflare

• Experience working with APIs (RESTFUL or XML RPC)

• Understanding of Django

• Q/A testing experience

• Experience balancing competing priorities and needs

• Experience with digital-security practices and implementation

• Demonstrated capacity for full-charge “ownership” of program or administrative areas that are integral to day to day organizational functions

• Experience liaising with colleagues in allied organizations

• Attention to detail, flexibility and demonstrated capacity to operate in a fast-paced environment

• Must have ability to succeed in a predominately telework/remote office environment, including working with an off-site manager, adopting and maintaining strong digital security practices, and fostering connection and community with colleagues located throughout the U.S.

Covid - 19 Safety Vaccination:

All Free Press employees must be fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus or have an approved medical or religious/ethical/moral accommodation.

Compensation:

Free Press is committed to offering competitive pay and generous benefits, including

• Annual paid time off is a total of ten weeks, including vacation, health-care leave and holidays

• Group medical, dental and vision insurance

• Short- and long-term disability insurance

• Employer contribution to retirement plans (no matching required)

• Flexible health, commuter and dependent care spending accounts

• Paid family leave

• Stipends for business use of personal phones and for home office locations

• All employees receive computers and equipment necessary for the job

• A flexible, supportive work culture

This position is categorized as a “career level 2” position, in the context of five classifications at Free Press, ranging from coordinator to executive.

The starting salary at Free Press for a content specialist who meets the above qualifications is $65,000 - $72,000. Starting salary is based on the selected candidate’s qualifications and experience. To counter pay inequality and uphold internal parity, we use a nonnegotiable starting salary system, while benchmarking our pay to competitive markets in the nonprofit sector.

Free Press is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

We value excellence and diversity in our workforce. People of color, women, people with disabilities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, gender-nonconforming and formerly incarcerated individuals are strongly encouraged to apply.

If you meet some of the qualifications above, we encourage you to apply or to reach out for more information. We know groups subjected to systemic oppression– including people of color, women, people from working class backgrounds, and people who identify as LGBTQ – are less likely to apply unless and until they meet every requirement for a job. Therefore, we strongly encourage applications from people with these identities or who are members of other communities who are marginalized.

How to apply:

Complete our online application.  Fully answering the application questions is an important part of the application process; 4-5 sentences in response to each question will help us understand your thinking.

Our hiring process includes an initial 20-30 minute interview with one staff person, one or two hour-long interviews with 3-4 staff members, and reference checks after the final interview.

We provide reasonable accommodations for the application, interview, or any other aspect of the employee selection process to applicants with disabilities. Please email amartyn@freepress.net to request an accommodation.

Key dates:

Applications submitted by June 9, 2023 will be reviewed with priority; applications submitted after that date will be reviewed on a rolling basis.   This search will remain open until the position is filled. The ideal candidate will be available to begin work in  August 2023.