Post-Secondary Student Communications Strategist (Contract)

About Beyond 12

Beyond 12 is a technology-enabled service nonprofit whose mission is to increase the number of historically underrepresented students who graduate from our nation’s colleges and universities. Through a digital coaching platform that combines coaches who work with students virtually while they are in college, a campus-customized AI app, and a back-end predictive analytics engine, we help high schools and colleges provide their students with the academic, social, and emotional support they need to succeed in higher education.

By collecting and sharing longitudinal data that crosses the K-12 and higher education systems, Beyond 12 not only provides students with differentiated coaching that ensures they earn a college degree, but we also provide actionable feedback to high schools about their college preparatory efforts, inform the retention work of colleges and universities, and influence the national conversation about student success.

Working for Beyond 12 is both an exciting and rewarding experience. Our culture is open and transparent. Our goals are ambitious and shared. Our team is talented, entrepreneurial, results-oriented, diverse, thoughtful, and fun (yes, fun!).

For more information about our work, please visit: www.beyond12.org

About the Position

As the Post-Secondary Student Communications Strategist, you will lead content operations and proactive messaging across our coaching programs supporting first-generation and historically underserved college students.

You are a tech-savvy, data-informed, and impact-driven strategist with deep knowledge of higher education. You thrive at the intersection of education, technology, and student-centered design, and you are eager to create and deploy content that directly improves students’ experiences and outcomes.

You will collaborate closely with writers, data analysts, product and program teams, domain experts, and customer success leads to ensure Beyond 12’s communications strategy is coordinated, timely, and high-quality. You will also guide institutional partners through communications strategy development and execution.

Deliverables (include, but are not limited to):

• Design and Manage Content Strategy & Campaigns: Develop and deliver an annual student communications strategy across multiple platforms and segments. Design and oversee multi-channel campaigns—email, SMS, app-based messaging—with a focus on increasing engagement, retention, and persistence. Translate goals into editorial calendars, develop and test content, and iterate based on performance metrics.
• Guide Institutional Partnerships & Expert Collaborations: Apply post-secondary expertise to support institutional partners in developing and implementing campus-specific strategies. Engage domain experts to license or co-create content in areas outside of Beyond 12’s core coaching expertise.
• Optimize Technical Platform: Manage Beyond 12’s “Mainstay” campaign management and messaging platform, ensuring accurate audience segmentation, campaign setup, error filtering, and targeting. Oversee technical troubleshooting and quality assurance for campaign delivery.
• Document & Improve processes: Create documentation for workflows, campaign setup, segmentation logic, and platform best practices. Identify and implement improvements to streamline operations, reduce duplication, accelerate launch timelines, and ensure compliance with data privacy and messaging standards.
• Collaborate Across Teams: Partner with product, coaching, and customer success teams to align messaging strategies with student needs, partner goals, and organizational priorities. Communicate proactively with internal stakeholders to ensure quality and consistency.

Required Experience

• Bachelor's degree in communications, marketing, or a related field, and have 3-5 years of experience developing and executing multi-channel communications campaigns, ideally in college/university settings.
• Strong understanding of post-secondary education systems and student success; direct experience with colleges/universities preferred.
• Proficiency with content management, customer management, and messaging platforms (experience with Mainstay strongly preferred).
• Demonstrated success using personalization and segmentation to improve engagement metrics.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; ability to distill complex ideas clearly.
• Strong project management skills; proven ability to prioritize and meet deadlines in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment.