Chief Communications & Marketing Officer (CCMO) (Volunteer)

Chief Communications & Marketing Officer (CCMO) (Volunteer)

PromiseVoice | Communications, Marketing, Media, Editorial & Audience Engagement

Organization: Mentor A Promise (MAP)

Division: PromiseVoice

Location: Fully Remote — United States, with NYC-based collaboration as needed

Type: Volunteer Executive Leadership

Commitment: Approximately 5–10 hours per week

Minimum Commitment: 6 months

Reports To: Chief Executive Officer

Leads: PromiseVoice

Works Closely With: PromisePublic, PromiseBridge, PromiseGiving, PromiseBrands, PromiseStudios, PromisePrograms, PromiseRise, PromiseMeasure, PromiseTrust, and Executive Leadership

About Mentor A Promise

Mentor A Promise (MAP) is a New York City–based nonprofit serving children and youth ages 5–18 experiencing housing instability through mentorship, education, literacy, social-emotional learning, creative expression, career development, advocacy, and community-centered opportunity.

MAP believes communication is more than promotion. It shapes how people understand our mission, how communities experience our organization, how supporters discover our work, and how trust is built over time.

Our goal is not simply to be seen.

It is to be understood, trusted, and worth engaging with.

About PromiseVoice

PromiseVoice is MAP's integrated communications, marketing, media, editorial, and audience-engagement division.

The division brings together:

• Communications strategy
• Marketing
• Social media
• Blogs
• Newsletters
• Magazines
• News and organizational updates
• Editorial content
• Media and press relations
• Internal communications
• External communications
• Executive communications
• Public relations
• Content strategy
• Audience development
• Organizational storytelling
• Reputation and issues communications

PromiseVoice ensures MAP communicates as one organization while giving its many programs, initiatives, and people meaningful ways to tell their stories.

Role Overview

The Chief Communications & Marketing Officer is MAP's senior executive responsible for the organization's complete communications and marketing ecosystem.

Reporting directly to the CEO, the CCMO leads organizational communications, marketing strategy, media relations, social media, editorial platforms, audience development, internal and external communications, reputation, and organizational narrative.

The Chief connects:

Mission → Audience → Insight → Message → Story → Channel → Engagement → Action → Measurement → Learning

The central question is:

How do we help the right people understand MAP, care about its mission, engage meaningfully with its work, and trust the organization behind the message?

This is not simply a communications position.

The CCMO builds the system through which MAP finds its voice, reaches its audiences, tells its stories, protects its reputation, and strengthens relationships with the communities surrounding its mission.

Enterprise Communications Strategy

Develop and lead MAP's organization-wide communications strategy.

Establish how MAP communicates across audiences, platforms, programs, campaigns, and organizational moments.

Create clear priorities across internal and external communications while ensuring messaging remains consistent with MAP's mission and values.

Every communication should have a reason to exist.

Before asking what MAP should publish, ask:

What does someone need to understand?

Marketing & Audience Strategy

Lead MAP's integrated marketing strategy.

Develop approaches for reaching and engaging audiences including volunteers, mentors, families, educators, donors, partners, professionals, universities, community organizations, creatives, employers, and supporters.

Guide campaigns through:

Objective → Audience → Insight → Message → Offer → Channel → Creative → Launch → Engagement → Measurement → Learning

Marketing should begin with a clear objective—not with deciding what to post.

Follower growth alone is not a marketing strategy.

Social Media & Digital Engagement

Provide executive leadership for MAP's social media ecosystem.

Oversee strategy across relevant platforms, including content planning, publishing, community engagement, campaigns, audience development, analytics, experimentation, and emerging channels.

Ensure social media is used to build relationships rather than simply distribute content.

Every post should have a purpose.

MAP does not need to be everywhere.

It needs to be intentional wherever it chooses to show up.

Editorial, Blogs & Publications

Lead the strategy connecting MAP's editorial platforms.

Provide executive oversight for:

• Blogs
• The Beacon and other newsletters
• Magazines
• Articles and features
• Interviews
• Organizational news
• Educational content
• Long-form storytelling
• Recurring editorial publications

Guide editorial development through:

Purpose → Audience → Story → Evidence → Draft → Review → Approval → Publication → Engagement → Learning

Every article should answer:

Why should this exist?

The goal is not to publish more words.

It is to publish words worth reading.

News, Media & Press Relations

Build MAP's media and press function.

Develop relationships with journalists, editors, producers, community media, publications, and relevant outlets.

Oversee:

• Media outreach
• Press releases
• Media inquiries
• Interview preparation
• Organizational announcements
• News development
• Executive talking points
• Media monitoring
• Spokesperson preparation

Media attention is not automatically organizational impact.

MAP should seek attention when it has something meaningful and responsible to contribute.

Internal Communications

Strengthen how MAP communicates with its own people.

Develop systems supporting leadership communications, organizational announcements, important updates, division communications, major initiatives, and information employees and volunteers need to fulfill their responsibilities.

Partner closely with the Chief of Staff, PromisePeople, and PromiseOperations.

Important information should not depend on someone happening to see the right message.

External Communications

Lead MAP's communications with volunteers, partners, supporters, donors, institutions, communities, and the broader public.

Ensure communications across email, websites, publications, social platforms, media, campaigns, and other channels present a coherent organizational voice.

Different audiences may require different messages.

They should still recognize the same organization behind them.

Organizational Narrative & Storytelling

Develop and protect MAP's organizational narrative.

Help audiences understand not only what MAP does, but why the work matters and what the organization believes about children, opportunity, mentorship, dignity, and community.

MAP should sound like one organization without requiring every person to sound exactly the same.

Ethical Storytelling

Establish strong standards for stories involving children, youth, families, and communities.

Housing instability should never become content.

A person's hardship should never become the price of creating a stronger story.

Ensure appropriate consent, safeguarding, privacy, context, dignity, and organizational review.

Young people are people before they are stories.

No communication objective justifies compromising someone's dignity or trust.

Communications & Evidence

Partner with PromiseMeasure and subject-matter leaders to ensure public claims are accurate and defensible.

Maintain clear distinctions among:

Fact → Data → Interpretation → Story → Organizational Claim

MAP should never make a claim stronger than the evidence supporting it.

Data becomes useful when it changes a decision.

Credibility becomes valuable when people know they can trust what MAP says.

Reputation, Issues & Crisis Communications

Protect MAP's institutional reputation through preparation, judgment, and coordinated response.

Develop systems for:

Issue → Verification → Risk Assessment → Leadership Notification → Specialized Review → Message → Approval → Communication → Monitoring → Follow-Up

Coordinate with the CEO, PromisePublic, PromiseTrust, PromiseShield, and other appropriate leaders during sensitive situations.

The fastest response is not always the strongest response.

PromiseVoice & PromisePublic

Maintain clear ownership between MAP's communications and public-affairs functions.

PromisePublic owns policy, advocacy, government affairs, disability justice and accessibility, external affairs, and public/institutional relations strategy.

PromiseVoice owns the communications and marketing systems through which approved organizational messages reach audiences.

PromisePublic determines the substance of MAP's public-affairs strategy.

PromiseVoice ensures that strategy is communicated clearly and responsibly.

PromiseVoice & PromiseBrands

Partner closely with PromiseBrands while maintaining distinct responsibilities.

PromiseBrands owns MAP's brand strategy, identity, creative brand expression, products, and brand experiences.

PromiseVoice owns communications, marketing, audience strategy, editorial platforms, media, and distribution.

PromiseBrands helps determine how MAP is expressed creatively.

PromiseVoice helps determine how MAP communicates and reaches people.

PromiseVoice & PromiseStudios

Partner with PromiseStudios on multimedia storytelling and creative production.

PromiseStudios develops and produces major film, animation, photography, music, audio, and multimedia work.

PromiseVoice develops communications strategy, audiences, messaging, campaigns, editorial context, and distribution planning around appropriate work.

Creative production and communications should strengthen one another without becoming the same function.

Team Leadership

Build PromiseVoice as a multidisciplinary communications and marketing organization.

Develop leadership and teams across areas such as:

• Communications
• Marketing
• Social Media
• Editorial
• Blogs
• Newsletters
• Magazines
• News & Media Relations
• Internal Communications
• External Communications
• Content Strategy
• Audience Engagement

Recruit, mentor, develop, and retain capable leaders and volunteers.

The CCMO should not become MAP's only exceptional communicator.

The Chief should build an organization capable of communicating exceptionally.

Communications Governance

Establish clear workflows for organizational communications:

Need → Owner → Draft → Subject-Matter Review → Communications Review → Specialized Review When Required → Approval → Publication → Engagement → Measurement → Archive

Clarify who may speak on behalf of MAP, who owns different channels, when executive approval is required, and when legal, policy, safeguarding, privacy, or other specialized review is necessary.

Good communications governance should make responsible communication easier—not create unnecessary bureaucracy.

Executive Leadership Expectations

As a MAP Chief, the CCMO will:

• Participate consistently in weekly Chiefs meetings.
• Maintain regular communication with the CEO.
• Establish quarterly PromiseVoice priorities and measurable commitments.
• Provide communications and marketing counsel to executive leadership.
• Maintain regular communication with PromiseVoice directors and leaders.
• Identify communications and reputational risks early.
• Recruit, develop, and retain capable team members.
• Coordinate campaigns and communications across divisions.
• Follow through on commitments.
• Model judgment, creativity, empathy, accountability, discretion, and integrity.

The CCMO must sometimes be willing to tell leadership:

We are not ready to say this yet.

Decision Authority

Within approved organizational strategy and delegated authority, the CCMO may establish PromiseVoice priorities, communications and marketing strategies, editorial standards, channel strategies, campaign frameworks, communications workflows, and team responsibilities.

The Chief may advise leadership on messaging, reputation, marketing, audience engagement, and communications risk.

The Chief does not independently establish organizational policy positions, disclose confidential information, make legal determinations, or authorize sensitive communications beyond delegated authority.

First-Year Priorities

The CCMO should help MAP:

• Establish an integrated PromiseVoice strategy.
• Define MAP's organizational narrative and communications architecture.
• Develop an organization-wide marketing strategy.
• Strengthen social media and digital engagement.
• Create an integrated editorial calendar.
• Strengthen blogs, newsletters, magazines, and organizational news.
• Build media and press relations.
• Improve internal and external communications.
• Strengthen ethical storytelling standards.
• Establish communications governance and approval pathways.
• Develop audience and campaign measurement.
• Strengthen crisis and issues communications.
• Clarify relationships among PromiseVoice, PromisePublic, PromiseBrands, and PromiseStudios.
• Build and develop PromiseVoice leadership and teams.

Qualifications

Strong candidates may bring senior experience in strategic communications, marketing, media, public relations, journalism, digital communications, social media, editorial leadership, corporate communications, nonprofit communications, or related fields.

Candidates should demonstrate:

• Significant communications and/or marketing leadership experience.
• Experience developing integrated communications strategies.
• Strong understanding of marketing and audience development.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication.
• Strong editorial judgment.
• Experience with digital and social media strategy.
• Understanding of media and press relations.
• Experience managing campaigns across multiple channels.
• Ability to advise senior executives.
• Experience building or leading multidisciplinary teams.
• Ability to translate complex subjects into accessible communications.
• Understanding of analytics and performance measurement.
• Strong professional judgment and discretion.
• Commitment to ethical, dignity-centered storytelling.
• Alignment with MAP's mission and values.
• Residence in the United States.

Experience spanning multiple communications, marketing, editorial, media, or digital disciplines is strongly valued.

What Success Looks Like

MAP communicates with a clear and recognizable voice.

People understand what MAP does and why it matters.

Marketing has defined audiences, objectives, and measurable outcomes.

Social media creates meaningful engagement rather than simply activity.

Blogs, newsletters, magazines, and news operate within a coherent editorial strategy.

Internal communications help people understand what they need to know.

External communications strengthen relationships and trust.

Media engagement becomes intentional rather than reactive.

MAP's claims are supported by evidence.

Stories preserve the dignity of the people behind them.

PromiseVoice develops capable leaders across its disciplines.

And MAP earns attention not by communicating the loudest, but by consistently communicating something worth hearing.

Why This Role Matters

Every organization has a voice whether it designs one or not.

It appears in a social post, a newsletter, an email to a volunteer, an interview with a journalist, a message from the CEO, a story about a young person, and the words MAP chooses when circumstances become difficult.

Those moments accumulate.

They become understanding.

They become reputation.

They become trust.

The Chief Communications & Marketing Officer helps ensure those moments belong to the same organization—and that the organization behind them remains worthy of the attention it receives.

The goal is not simply to make MAP known.

It is to make MAP understood, trusted, and remembered for the right reasons.

Volunteer Commitment

This is an unpaid executive volunteer position requiring approximately 5–10 hours per week with a minimum six-month commitment.

Consistent executive participation, regular communication with the CEO and PromiseVoice leadership, cross-divisional collaboration, and reliable follow-through are essential.

Volunteers should provide at least two weeks' notice when ending their service whenever possible.

How to Apply

Please apply through Idealist only and submit:

• A current résumé
• A cover letter explaining your interest in Mentor A Promise and communications and marketing leadership

Please highlight relevant experience in strategic communications, marketing, media, social media, journalism, editorial leadership, public relations, internal or external communications, audience development, or executive communications.

At this time, MAP volunteer opportunities are limited to individuals based in the United States due to legal, safeguarding, data-privacy, compliance, and programmatic requirements.

Know the audience. Understand the moment. Find the story worth telling. Build the strategy behind it. Protect the people within it. Measure what happens next. Earn attention rather than demand it. And build a voice capable of carrying Mentor A Promise's mission into the world.