Communications Director

NAKASEC Communications Director

Full-Time Position

Location: Chicago, IL or Washington DC area

Founded by local community-based organizations in 1994, NAKASEC’s mission is to organize Korean

and Asian Americans to achieve social, racial and economic justice.  NAKASEC is a network of affiliates and partners.  Through political education, community organizing, direct action, public policy advocacy and civic participation, the NAKASEC network ensures that our most marginalized community members can impact progressive change, rooted in our values.

NAKASEC is a leading Asian American organization advocating for systemic change at the

local, state and federal levels.  We see communications as critical component of organizing, and are seeking a Communications Director who can build a more robust communications infrastructure that will ultimately expand our reach and base, and deepen our community’s understanding of issues of importance to them. We need a staff member who can amplify our organizing, policy and communications capacity nationally. We are on the search for a clever innovator, strategic thinker, efficient researcher and strong, creative writer to join our team. The ideal candidate for this position is one who trusts and believes that the power to make change lies within communities and is ready to push our work to the next level. The Communications Director will report to NAKASEC’s Executive Director.

Key Responsibilities:

Communications Strategy, Vision and Leadership

• Developing and implementing an annual Communications Plan with the goal of growing
• NAKASEC’s base through listservs, social media followings and other communication platforms.
• Leading Rapid Response Communications. Proactively monitoring, strategizing and implementing responses to current news events through NAKASEC’s social, racial and economic justice lens.
• Developing, coordinating and implementing creative communications strategies that
• accompany NAKASEC’s organizing and advocacy campaigns. This includes overseeing and supporting the production of communications materials for NAKASEC campaigns including fliers, talking points, fact sheets, social media toolkits and other relevant materials.
• Participating and being a leader in relevant coalition formations.

Communications Operations

• Leading the generation of online content that engages stakeholders and leads to measurable action.
• Providing speaker trainings for community leaders to prepare them for press interviews and speaking at meetings and events.
• Building relationships with mainstream and ethnic media outlets and media monitoring and reporting.
• Manage development, distribution and maintenance of all print and electronic content including but not limited to monthly e-newsletters, brochures, annual report, and NAKASEC’s website.
• Track and measure the level of engagement from communications strategies over time.

Team Development & Management

• Hiring and managing staff to support communications strategies.
• Growing a communications team and manage staff.

Other duties as assigned

Experience & Skills Needed:

• Strong vision of community empowerment and deep commitment to change the world with marginalized communities.
• 5+ years experience in a communications role.
• Experience managing and executing across several communications media.
• Strong writing skills.
• Strong understanding of issues facing the Asian American community and other marginalized communities including people of color, women, and LGBTQ community members.
• Willingness to be a bold, out-of-the-box and creative thinker.
• Able to execute day-to-day tasks and work independently.
• Experience managing staff.
• Enjoys both listening to and sharing ideas and opinions.
• Ready to resist racism, patriarchy, homophobia, classism and ableism.
• Believes that collective groups can be more powerful than individuals.
• Ability to work well in and build a team and is committed to modeling the world we want to see inside the organization and its campaigns and programs.
• Ability to work well in and build coalitions.
• Ability to travel.
• Ability to work some evenings and weekends.
• Bilingual in English and an Asian language preferred.
• Experience with Wordpress and/or HTML preferred.

Salary will be commensurate with experience.

Health care and other benefits are included.

NAKASEC is an equal opportunity employer.

Women and people of color are encouraged to apply.