Documenter Program Coordinator

inewsource, a nonprofit news organization, is hiring a Program Coordinator for its newly launched Documenters Program. This highly collaborative effort engages the public in civic life and recruits and pays residents to attend local government meetings and watchdog public officials. We believe it takes a community to empower community. 

The Program Coordinator will manage communications and oversee workflows of notes and editing. Our ideal candidate is bilingual in English and Spanish.

San Diego Documenters stands on the idea that local public meetings are workshops for democracy, where residents of a community can witness, learn about, and act on the systems that impact their lives. Many urgent, local issues are aired and decided at public meetings, often without oversight by the local media, which has been shrinking for years. San Diego Documenters is a powerful opportunity to strengthen the infrastructure of civic life. The program facilitates paid opportunities for residents, by equipping them with knowledge and skills to make sense of local government and create a new public record. We believe that you don’t need a degree to credibly inform fellow citizens.

Documenters are witnesses and note-takers at public meetings. They can be anyone – from high school students to senior citizens – who cares about their community and how it functions. Since January of 2024 alone, we have trained more than 100 Documenters and published over 40 notes from meetings, revealed two violations of the state’s open meeting law, and partnered with over 33 community leaders and organizations. 

With so many notes being processed now, we need someone to help coordinate the note editors and disseminate the information from these notes to the general public via social media, newsletters, and other forms of communication.

If you are someone who likes to juggle multiple tasks, loves to write/edit, and is good at summarizing and communicating complex issues, then you are the perfect candidate for this position. You will be working for a news organization but you don’t have to have experience as a journalist. It’s a plus if you do. But you do have to be curious and interested in issues that matter to people living in different communities. You’ll be working closely with the Documenters Program Manager, editors, reporters, and community members so it’s important that you like to collaborate. Documenters is a fast-paced program, so flexibility and juggling are necessary.

Although the skills are essential, we value lived experience and community connections. Tell us about your professional experience but also how and where you volunteer. Passion for making lives better is part of our mission statement.

About the Documenters:

The San Diego Documenters makes local government more accountable and transparent by training and paying community members to attend meetings and publish the results via news products, social media, and the custom web app, Documenters.org, hosted by the Documenters Network. The Network was founded by City Bureau in Chicago and has expanded to cities, including Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Atlanta. inewsource launched the San Diego Documenters as part of this collective effort. We are focused on the South Bay region of San Diego County but are planning to expand to the rest of the county and Imperial County.

Job Summary:

The Documenters Program Coordinator will support the Documenters Program Manager in administering the program in San Diego County. You would manage and create communicative content for the program, coordinate Documenter editors who edit notes taken by the Documenters, and help train community members to become Documenters. 

The Documenters Program Coordinator will work closely with the Program Manager, and a range of external partners, including City Bureau, local community organizations, educational institutions, libraries, and other media, as well as inewsource staff internally.

You will report to the Program Manager of the Documenters Program at inewsource.

Here is the nitty-gritty of the job:

• Notes Editing and Coordination [30%]  - Coordinate Editors to edit Documenter notes
• Outreach and assign editors to submitted notes
• Provide editors with all necessary materials to edit notes
• Track editor efforts, follow up, and ensure timely completion
• Assist note editors with questions, inquiries, and other areas of support
• Edit Documenter's notes when there are no editors available
• Review the editor’s work before forwarding it to the Program Manager
• Program Communications [30%] - Create and maintain Documenter Communications
• Create monthly communication plans in collaboration with the Program Manager and implement them
• Create content twice a week for all of our social media platforms. This may increase in frequency depending on the need at the time
• Respond to social media interactions in real time
• Send out weekly Documenter Dispatch newsletters, curating brief summaries, Documenter notes, and other highlights each given week
• Support content creation for our fundraising, websites, and other media spaces
• Programmatic Support [30%] 
• Support the Program Manager in finding volunteers to give trainings and become a Documenter trainer
• Support/think-tank programmatic building and other projects as it relates to the Documenters program
• Create and maintain Documenter swag
• Program Editing [10%] - Edit and proofread messaging
• In collaboration with the Program Manager, support the creation of public messaging on any given issue
• Edit, proofread, and when need be, support the Program Manager in the messaging of emails and other forms of communication

Specific goals will be identified jointly within two weeks of employment start.

Required Skills:

• Bilingual in English and Spanish.
• Copy/editing experience.
• Communications/social media creation, implementation, and management.
• Contractor/Volunteer coordination experience.
• Time management and attention to detail.
• Cultural sensitivity and compassion-centered values.

Key  responsibilities:

• Coordinating notes editing, including but not limited to, maintaining and creating relationships with editors, coordinating the work of editors (acting as a line of defense/notifying system for the Documenters Director), and ensuring note quality before final approval by the Program Manager.
• Managing and coordinating our monthly communications schedule in conjunction with our Documenter team and the inewsource Audience Engagement and Revenue teams.
• Creating content for our social media pages (at least twice a week), swag, and other communications such as newsletters (weekly), briefs, and public statements.
• Edit/proofread messaging created by the Program Manager and support in the release of said messaging.
• Convening the Notes Editing and Promotion Working Groups, including but not limited to, convening meetings, maintaining agendas/communications, and creating new partnerships for the working groups. 

What we’ll give you:

We pay a wage that’s commensurate with your experience and competitive with other similar job descriptions. We’ve targeted this salary at $60,000. We have a range of benefits, including health, dental, vision and life insurance for you and dependents, matching 401K, vacation, sick leave, holidays, professional development stipend and more.

Our goal is to serve our community and meet our mission everyday and that means helping you do your best work in a place that makes you feel welcome and valued.

Posting Date: May 14, 2024

Deadline to apply: June 14, 2024– but applications are being reviewed on a rolling basis. We recommend you apply early.

Location: San Diego, CA 

This position is full-time and based in San Diego. We have a hybrid workplace; This role will be a combination of “in the field” work, WFH, and in-office collaboration at our downtown location.

Start Date: Aimed for mid-June

Starting Salary: $60,000/year (paid hourly as $28.84/hr, non-exempt)

TO APPLY: Please submit an application through this link. If you have any questions, please contact jobs@inewsource.org.

inewsource is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions at inewsource are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, age, religion or belief, family or parental status, or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in California. inewsource will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics.

We have a range of benefits, including health, dental, vision and life insurance for you and dependents, matching 401K, vacation, sick leave, holidays, professional development stipend and more.