Development Lead, Specialized Support Team

The American Journalism Project (AJP) is seeking a Development Lead, Specialized Support Team, to join our Knight Resiliency Lab to support our portfolio of nonprofit local news organizations to build a robust, diverse philanthropic funding base. In this role, you will spend your time helping our AJP newsrooms build the champions they need to grow, meet the needs of their communities and become resilient — through resource development, 1:1 support, in person and remote trainings and other modes of engagement.

This is a unique opportunity to join a growing, national movement to rebuild local news in communities across the country in a way that allows these organizations to better serve the public, while being sustainable and independent.

Who we are

We’re a small but entrepreneurial team working to re-shape the future of local news in our country. We’re passionate about journalism, civic engagement, and how local news plays a unique role in shaping our democracy. We help build and grow sustainable local news organizations all over the country — through financial investment, venture support, and movement building — that are governed by, sustained by, and look like the public they serve. Learn about our grantees.

AJP has raised over $225 million for the cause so far, and aims to catalyze enough investment in nonprofit local news to create thriving, equitable, public service-oriented newsrooms that increase civic engagement and make communities work better for their residents.

Our team is deeply connected to our mission and supportive of each others’ goals and overall well-being. We aim to be an organization where everyone feels heard, respected, and valued. We are an entirely remote, distributed team and strive to maintain a healthy, fun, and productive workplace, working alongside smart, energetic colleagues who enjoy one another and the work. Meet our full team.

Our values

• Local First: We know that local journalism must serve and be led by local communities. We make a practice of listening to, and making decisions with – not for – those communities, and connecting them to find strength in each other.
• Bold Leadership: We understand the severe economic challenge facing local news and thus democracy, and we embrace a sense of possibility with courage, urgency, and perseverance.
• Constant Learning: We recognize the unknown in front of us. Therefore, we operate with humility and a commitment to continuous improvement and collaboration.
• Commitment to Equity: We commit to creating a better, more diverse, and more inclusive news media that advances human and civil rights. We actively fight against injustice and racism, and that starts with doing the work ourselves.
• Integrity: We accept the responsibility of earning trust every day. We operate with honesty, transparency, dignity, and respect, and without allegiance to party, ideology, profit, or power.

Your team

The Growth Investments team is committed to strengthening the nonprofit news sector across the country. We continuously search for excellent nonprofit news organizations that have the potential to grow in scale and impact in their communities, invest capital in those organizations targeted at supporting their growth, and coach and support those grantees to maximize their revenue potential. Our goal is to set all the organizations in our portfolio on a path to become best-in-class local nonprofit institutions with the sustainable resources to more adequately meet the information needs of their communities. This role will report to the Senior Vice President, Specialized Support.

The position

The Development Lead, Specialized Support Team will serve as our coach and thought leader on how to grow philanthropic revenue for nonprofit news organizations. You will lead the charge on helping our organizational leaders understand what it takes to build champions for their work, steward those relationships and secure and retain that support, while designing an impact framework to measure the results of this work. You will also be charged with helping our portfolio organizations push beyond what they have been able to achieve in the past and in doing so, develop new insights for the nonprofit news sector.

Specific responsibilities include but are not limited to:

Serve as specialist coach to development leaders in portfolio organizations:

• Through working with AJP supported newsrooms, develop models of excellence in nonprofit local news fundraising – including becoming an expert in making the case for local news
• Assess portfolio organizations’ fundraising capacities and identify the most effective and scalable solutions to growing philanthropic revenue
• Advise across the full spectrum of development activities from team design, collateral creation, donor cultivation strategies, CRM systems, and pipeline management, amongst other key skills
• Roll up your sleeves and support directly on major grantee development initiatives, where relevant, serving as an expert thought partner and sounding board
• Collaborate with our team of Success Partners (an internal term for our team members who act as strategic thought partners and primary contacts for AJP’s nonprofit news grantees) and leaders from our Specialized Support and Portfolio Learning teams to support overall grantee success
• Develop strong insights around philanthropic revenue generation that can be leveraged by news organizations and our staff more broadly

Build and execute learning experiences and communities:

• Build a community of Development leaders across the portfolio that collaborate with one another, share insights and experiment together
• Partner with VP, Portfolio Learning, to develop and lead virtual or in-person accelerators or workshops aimed at building the knowledge, skills and mindsets of those across our portfolio
• Craft or source resources, such as templates, toolkits, slide decks, case studies, and guides, that empower Success Partners and grantees to build robust development operations and support systems with a focus on helping our organizations find the right tools for them. .
• Lead experimentation within the portfolio to test new approaches to nonprofit fundraising, particularly for local media organizations.

Cultivate relationships & partnerships in the philanthropy and fundraising space

• Leverage the national scale of AJP to develop partnerships that generate new resources or reduced costs for our portfolio of news organization’s development teams.
• Collaborate with AJP’s Advancement team on developing partnerships that will bring additional financial resources to the portfolio.
• Actively network in the local journalism ecosystem, building external relationships to ensure AJP is learning from across the industry.

Background & skills

We know not all strong candidates will have all the skills we list. That’s OK. Research shows that women and people of color are less likely to apply for a position if they don’t meet every skill listed. At the American Journalism Project we are committed to creating a better, more diverse, and more inclusive news ecosystem, and that starts with doing the work ourselves. So if your past experience doesn’t align perfectly, but you know this is the role for you – please tell us!

An ideal candidate will have…

• An expert understanding of relationship-based development with a clear track-record of leading an organization to secure seven-figure contributions from diverse sources
• Experience as a high-achieving head of development in local nonprofit news or a related field
• Experience coaching senior nonprofit leadership, with the ability to inspire and motivate stakeholders at all levels
• A strong understanding of strategies and tactics for developing strong institutional and major gifts programs
• Experience diagnosing assets and challenges within a fundraising team and helping that team improve their success
• Fluency in building value propositions and strategies that compel donors to support journalism
• Experience building templates, tools and knowledge that can be used to help others learn development knowledge or skills
• Management experience in the context of either a news organization or a nonprofit organization is preferred
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to synthesize large amounts of information and clearly communicate key insights, with a strong grasp of business concepts and numbers; must be a persuasive communicator
• An understanding of the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion in workplaces, newsrooms, and coverage; willingness to learn and coach others through operationalizing equity and inclusion
• Meticulous attention to detail and accuracy in documentation

This role is a fit if you are…

• Excited about advancing the revenue generation of the leading local nonprofit newsrooms in the US today
• A passionate relationship builder and advocate for local journalism
• Enthusiastic about tackling challenges in a fast-paced startup environment and continuously experimenting and seeing projects to completion that help news organizations succeed
• Willing to think outside the box to solve problems for which there are not always blueprints for solutions
• Highly empathetic; you have an affinity for collaborative work, love of mentoring and inspiring others, and doing whatever it takes to get them to successful outcomes
• Accustomed to working in environments where feedback is liberally given and taken
• Intellectually curious, a strategic thinker and an innovative problem-solver, including a proven ability to create and manage organizational change
• A person with strong personal responsibility and accountability, results-oriented, adaptable, skilled at situational management (including being able to manage up, laterally, and down)
• Ready to travel as needed but also excited to work for a remote organization (we are a fully virtual team; however, we estimate this person would need to travel approximately 6-10 times a year)
• A person with passion for making the country a better, more equitable and just place for its residents by helping to build a new local news ecosystem across the U.S.