*Update: We’ve extended the deadline to make sure we reach candidates from a variety of backgrounds and expertise areas. Please apply ASAP, as we intend to have our program manager in place in time for orientation in February.*
Dallas Free Press is seeking a Program Manager to lead our local arm of the award-winning Documenters program, which trains and pays residents to produce information in the public interest. With a local media crisis in Dallas and across the country, resulting in a dwindling number of civic and community reporters, Documenters is reimagining how we access and share information about our communities.
We’re looking for an effective team manager with experience in community organizing, grassroots political campaigning, journalism or other fields that involve mobilizing people and information for the public good. Your role will be to cultivate partnerships that build an engaged audience around Documenters’ work in Dallas, to work closely with program participants to help them learn and become more civically engaged, and to take a creative, iterative approach to program design.
You will report to Dallas Free Press’ executive director, who will set strategy for the program and work closely with you to execute it. You also will work side-by-side with the Documenters Network, comprising seven newsrooms (and growing!) and led by Chicago’s City Bureau newsroom.
If you have a track record of cultivating deep community relationships and a passion for organizing people to address big problems from the ground up, this role is for you. Apply here.
What you’ll do
- Manage the Dallas-based Documenters program and oversee our local network of program participants
- Cultivate a network of local partners in media, community organizing, education, academia and government who are consistently using Documenters.org as part of their regular work and sharing feedback with Dallas Free Press and the Documenters Network
- Develop and manage special projects that engage Documenters to promote local knowledge of Dallas and its civic processes
- Work with Dallas Free Press’ marketing and editorial staff to tell the story of the Documenters program and make sure Documenters’ work reaches the people who can use it
- Apply an equity framework to programmatic decisions to ensure the Documenters program reflects the greatest need as it applies to race, gender and other demographics (see our Community Engagement Guidelines below)
Who you are
- You have at least three years experience in engagement journalism, community organizing, grassroots political campaigning or a related field.
- You have experience managing a team and/or leading projects where people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives and abilities feel they can do their best work.
- You have demonstrated commitment to equipping and organizing people toward collective action.
- You have impeccable and inclusive project planning and prioritization skills.
- You have strong verbal and written communication skills.
- You have the ability to rally stakeholders and solve problems creatively and collaboratively.
- You are adept at cultivating deep relationships, trust and solutions with a community (we know this can mean many things and want to hear how it manifests in your work).
- You live in, grew up in or identify with the culture and experiences of our home neighborhoods, South Dallas and West Dallas, whose residents are predominantly Black and Latino, and live with the impact of historical redlining and disinvestment.
Compensation and benefits
- $55,000-65,000 annual salary
- Health insurance or a health care stipend
- Annual professional development stipend
- Monthly technology stipend
- Five vacation days and five sick days per year, in addition to 10 paid holidays and 3+ weeks annually when our office closes (spring break, one week in July and the span between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day)
- Flexible work schedule; some night/weekend hours may be required
- Community-based office space and flexibility to work remotely
Application timeline
- We’ve extended the deadline indefinitely to make sure we reach candidates from a variety of backgrounds and expertise areas. Please apply ASAP, as we intend to have our program manager in place in time for orientation in February.
- Our initial application is brief answers to three questions, plus your résumé and work samples. All applicants will receive responses, whether you move forward or not.
- The next stage is a 20-minute virtual interview.
- Within five days, interviewees will be notified whether or not they have proceeded to the next stage—a case exercise—and will have three (3) days to complete the case exercise, for which all applicants will be paid regardless of final selection for this position. (Note: It shouldn’t take you three days! The exercise is fairly brief but will give us a better idea of how you would approach the role.)
- Within a week, applicants will be notified if they have proceeded the final interview stage.
- Final candidate begins orientation in February 2023.
About Dallas Free Press
Dallas Free Press launched in early 2020 to amplify voices in disinvested neighborhoods and explore solutions to our city’s systemic inequities. Executive director Keri Mitchell spent 15 years dedicated to community and civic journalism at Dallas’ Advocate magazines, and founded Dallas Free Press with the belief that all neighborhoods deserve reporting and storytelling that values their community and holds leaders accountable.
Dallas Free Press welcomes applicants from diverse backgrounds. We offer equal opportunity in employment for all qualified persons and prohibit discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), national origin, ancestry, age, veteran status, disability unrelated to job requirements, genetic information, military service or other protected status.
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