LION is hiring a Community Manager

Status: Full-time exempt (not eligible for overtime), with 90-day introductory period (see details below)

Reports to: Director of Membership

Location: Remote within USA

Compensation: $65,000 – $70,000, eligible for benefits (see details below)

Job Summary

If you have a passion for helping like-minded individuals connect with each other, developing relationships with mission-driven community leaders and strengthening equitable access to news and information, apply to become LION Publishers’ Community Manager. 

LION is looking for a Community Manager to foster an engaged community among LION’s members and those interested in news entrepreneurship. 

LION’s Community Manager will succeed in their role by listening to and articulating our members’ needs and designing engagement processes that strengthen their relationships with one another, with LION and, ultimately, help strengthen the independent news industry.

The Community Manager will work closely with colleagues across departments to help LION achieve its strategic goals focused on membership growth, retention and overall success becoming sustainable news businesses. To maximize our social impact, we’re particularly focused on serving publishers who serve BIPOC, low-wealth, LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities, publishers who identify as being of these communities and publishers who are based in and serving either urban metro areas or rural communities.

Our team believes that relevant, accurate and culturally competent local news and information helps people fully engage in civic life, make more informed decisions and better understand the world around them. If you’re interested in helping us make this vision a reality and working in a space of optimism and growth, learn more about the job and how to apply below.

Key Responsibilities

• Community Management:
  • Execute and contribute to the design of LION’s community engagement and management strategies to achieve our strategic goals. 
  • Serve as the primary connector between members and support the development of LION community ambassadors. 
  • Coordinate with LION’s staff, members and partners to share and adapt training, peer-learning and connection opportunities.
  • Project manage LION’s annual Local Journalism Awards.
• Member Support: 
  • Serve as the primary liaison between LION and its existing and prospective members by providing them with the customer service, support and resources they need. 
  • Implement systems to collect actionable community feedback that allows LION to continuously iterate upon its membership offerings and strengthen our educational programming.
  • Ensure LION members feel heard by advocating internally for how LION as an organization can best serve them and externally for how the industry can best support them. 
  • Effectively communicate the benefits of LION’s membership program and training opportunities. 
  • Evaluate new and renewing member applications

LION is an Equal Opportunity Employer

LION is committed to creating an equitable, diverse and inclusive workplace and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We strongly encourage applications from women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, people of different levels of physical ability and anyone with relevant skills and qualifications.

We know there are great candidates who might not check all the boxes listed below or who possess important skills we haven’t thought of. If that’s you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself. 

Skills and Qualifications for The Role

• Community Management: Uses empathetic listening, relationship development and community-building strategies to cultivate a network of individuals that can support one another. 
• Customer Support: Builds and maintains responsive systems to collect actionable feedback from customers to help better meet their needs and ensure they feel valued. 
• Project Management: Independently designs and leads collaborative projects that work toward strategic long-term goals.  
• Resource Curation: Puts themselves in the shoes of a LION member/news entrepreneur and thinks about the resources, tools, workshops and advice they might need and how to deliver that to them.

Skills and Expectations for Teamwork at LION

• Work in a way that upholds and reflects our organizational values: Being data-informed, equitable and inclusive, people-centered, systems thinkers, transparent and iterative
• Use digital tools and platforms to stay organized, communicate transparently, and collaborate with team members remotely 
• Collaborate strategically with others, clearly defining processes for decision making
• Give and receive constructive feedback to help the team produce its best work
• Celebrate our wins and learning moments
• Take on an experimental mindset and demonstrate flexibility to iterate on our work, systems, and processes 
• Be willing and able to ask for help when needed, and demonstrate an ability to learn and grow in the role

About LION

Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit professional journalism association for independent news publishers. While most of our 400+ members across the U.S. and Canada run local news businesses, we also have members who serve larger regions and specific identity-based communities across geographies. LION provides teaching, resources and community to independent news entrepreneurs as they build and develop sustainable businesses. One of our core values is being people-centered, and here are some ways we build that culture for our staff. 

90 Day Introductory Period

The first 90 days of employment is an introductory period, during which the new hire has clear goals, criteria for successful work product and regular feedback from their manager. As a result of the new hire’s 90 day self-reflection and manager’s assessment, the two will discuss whether the new hire will stay on with LION and whether it will be in the role as originally scoped.

Benefits

• Medical PPO, Vision & Dental fully paid by employer; 50% paid for dependents
• Short-term disability, long-term disability, life and worker’s compensation insurance paid by employer
• Paid Time Off (including sick days) is 20 days per year 
• Paid holidays (including Christmas Eve through New Years Day) is 14 days in 2022
• Up to 12 weeks fully paid family/caregiver leave
• 401K with employer match up to 3.5%
• Flexible working hours
• No-meeting Fridays
• Annual professional development budget
• Monthly work-from-home stipend
• For new hires: Health insurance stipend until eligible for employer medical coverage to begin
• Eligible for year-end, surplus-dependent bonus

Application Materials

The deadline for submitting an application has passed. 

• Your resume
• Any online links that show your work (a Twitter profile, a portfolio page, etc.)
• Answers to the following questions: 
  • Why do you believe it’s important to diversify LION’s membership with news entrepreneurs who identify as coming from an underserved community, including publishers who identify as Black, Indigenous or as a person of color; LGBTQ+; or coming from a rural or low-income community? Tell us how your professional and/or personal lived experience would inform how you work with these publishers to ensure LION is a welcoming and encouraging space for them to grow their business.
  • Tell us about a past experience that demonstrates your ability to build community through deepening relationships and connecting people with one another. What went well? What challenges did you face, and how did you learn from it? How might that experience inform your approach to strengthening community engagement among LION’s members?
  • Tell us about a time that you relied on stakeholder feedback to advocate for changing how that community was being supported (either with a product, service or other offering)? How did you listen to the community? How did you design a solution? How did you build buy-in for making a change?

If you have questions about this role, please reach out to Stephanie Snyder, LION’s Director of Membership, at [email protected] to learn more.