The Opportunity

ReThink Media seeks a talented, visionary, and accomplished media strategist to assume the leadership of our Inclusive Democracy team. With a pivotal election on the horizon in 2024 and active ongoing efforts to change key elections and voting laws in around the United States, the ideal candidate will be an experienced leader who is ready to seize this historic moment and work alongside groups campaigning to strengthen American democracy and voting rights, both nationally and on a state-by-state basis.

Organizational Description

ReThink Media is a unique, nonprofit organization that strengthens movements through building the collaborative media and communications capacity of state and national advocacy groups; increasing the voiceshare of their spokespeople, experts, and allies; and providing in-depth media, messaging, and opinion research to inform movement strategy. Working with our funding partners, we focus on long-term engagement with the groups we work with and the issues we take on—all driven by a belief that the stronger the groups are across an issue sector and the tighter their collaboration, the more likely they are to win real and lasting policy victories. At present, ReThink works in three distinct, yet interconnected, issue areas: the protection of human and civil rights, strengthening our democracy, and for a more constructive U.S. foreign and national security policy.

ReThink’s Inclusive Democracy team works with leading state and national organizations across the country to build a more inclusive, representative, and reflective democracy. We provide money-in-politics,  voting rights, and fair courts groups and their campaigns with ongoing training and capacity-building in critical media skills, direct rapid response and media relations support (Including op-ed and editorial campaigns), strategic messaging guidance, assistance with digital and social media campaigns, as well as the latest in public opinion and media analysis. Our democracy collaborative is uniquely positioned as a partner and a connector in informing movement strategy through its work with leading local, state, and national researchers, journalists, and advocacy groups across the country.

Position Overview

The Inclusive Democracy Program Director serves as the organizational lead for all of our work within this sector, directly  supervising the Democracy team staff (currently five professionals) and works with ReThink’s larger team, including the organization’s Co-Founders and our unique Research & Analysis team. The Inclusive Democracy Program Director is supervised by ReThink’s Director of Programs and works in coordination with the Director of Strategy, Executive Director, and other management team members on cross-organizational management initiatives and engagement with key funders, partners, and allies.

The Democracy Program Director also works with partner organizations to coordinate joint rapid response campaigns informed by extensive news coverage monitoring and utilizing tailored press lists. They help facilitate social media campaign work, monitoring and analyzing online metrics, providing groups with training in the use of social media tools, and the crafting and disseminating of content in support of existing initiatives.

Working alongside our funding partners and nearly 100 state and national groups, our goal is to help move our country toward an inclusive, just democratic system where all citizens are equally engaged and where both discriminatory practices and economic barriers to participation have been eliminated. This currently involves three primary threads of work:

1. 1. Challenging the corrosive influence of campaign money on our electoral system, which  currently gives disproportionate power to wealthy interests while systematically excluding poor, working-class, and middle-class citizens as well as communities of color and religious minorities.
   2. Working to expand voter participation through better access to the ballot, strengthening voting rights, and challenging the suppression of voting rights in communities of color.
   3. Strengthening the independence of the judiciary, by both raising public awareness of the growing corporate influence on the courts and by increasing public understanding of the courts role in advancing and defending civil and constitutional rights.

Cutting across these three threads of work is ReThink’s efforts to amplify the diversity of voices working  to create a safer, more just, and more reflective democracy. This includes leading efforts to develop new training programs, media engagement strategies, and digital communications resources to uplift and empower Spanish-speaking community advocates working on voting rights, fair courts, and election integrity issues across the US.

Our experience has proven that by providing shared resources, eliminating duplication of efforts among organizations, developing agreed-upon overarching messages, and providing consistent high-quality consulting advice and staff support, we can successfully impact media discourse and move issues forward. While we value and affirm the importance of differentiation amongst advocacy organizations, we work to reduce competition for media attention because it often detracts from a sector achieving its maximum potential.

Principal Duties

The ideal candidate will be a highly ambitious and motivated communications strategist with seven or more years of experience working in the field of advocacy, political or campaign communications, and/or public relations and will have a strong understanding of the workings of the nonprofit research and advocacy community. They will have direct experience and/or demonstrated commitment to the issues of the collaborative and an understanding of the organizations working in this field. They will have a proven track record of project management and a demonstrated pattern of innovation and creativity. Strong personnel and work plan management is critical.

Specific goals will be set quarterly, corresponding to the following duties:

• • Play a leading role in guiding ReThink’s Democracy team—including managing team meetings and staff check-ins.

• • Recruit, train, supervise, and review staff with the support of the management team.

• • Craft communications strategies—including rapid response to breaking news—to meet the needs of democracy and voting rights partner organizations; build the communications capacity of the field as a whole, as well as within individual organizations; and identify communications priorities that will have the greatest positive impact across the sector.

• • Draw upon the extensive expertise of our partner organizations and the key reporters and outlets covering democracy and voting rights issues in order to: assist and train groups in building and maintaining tailored press lists; supervise the updating of ReThink’s press lists; and quickly connect reporters and spokespeople during breaking news opportunities.

• • Liaise with funding partners in support of the Director of Programs, Director of Strategy, and/or the Executive Director. Help ensure that all grant applications and reporting deadlines are met.

• • Oversee the drafting of timely and effective strategic communications guidance, talking points, messaging advice, commentaries, or media statements at rapid-response moments or ahead of known media opportunities.

• • Support the individual media work of aligned groups. This often includes assisting groups in developing a strategic communications plan, implementing media strategies, building press lists, assisting in the editing and development of media content, assisting with pitching and placement, providing media training, and conducting audits of coverage.

• • Collaborate with the Research & Analysis Team on longer-term research projects such as media and public opinion audits and coverage analysis of specific issues, frames, and outlets, message-testing, and the development of media accountability campaigns.

• • Provide expert training to member organizations and spokespeople in media skills such as conducting effective broadcast interviews, writing op-eds, engaging editorial boards, and driving social media strategies, among others.

Essential Skills and Qualifications

• • A commitment to social and racial justice and equity.

• • 6–9 years of experience working in communications strategy, community or political organizing, advocacy and public engagement campaigns, or all of the above.

• • Demonstrated knowledge and background in the major democracy issues identified above with excellent news sense and political savvy.

• • Ability to communicate clearly and promptly, both verbally and in writing, with varying levels of organization staff, partners, contractors, foundations, and the media.

• • Strong training, mentoring, and/or supervisory skills with the demonstrated ability to meet deadlines and move work forward effectively with concrete workplans.

• • Superior writing, editing, communications, and public presentation skills.

• • Experience monitoring and analyzing news coverage, writing press materials, developing media strategies, and pitching stories.

• • A creative and strategic ability to frame ideas, develop stories, and synthesize complex policy issues in a way that appeals to the news media and a wide variety of audiences across an array of channels, including digital and social media.

Desired But Not Required

• • Fluency in Spanish or another second language.

• • Demonstrated experience in communications strategy and campaign management, with a strong preference for experience in advocacy/political public relations and state level organizing.

• • Experience with Muck Rack (or Cision), MailChimp, CRMs, Canva, Social Media monitoring tools (such as Torch or Sprout Social), and/or Zoom.

Location & Salary

This is a remote, full-time position. The position will require occasional travel to staff and planning meetings, and to presentations and trainings. ReThink aims to recruit the best people for every position, and we have recently moved to an all-remote staffing model. Applicants are welcome from across the country but in all cases, ReThink requires employees to live within 90 minutes of a major airport to facilitate occasional travel. The salary range listed below pertains to employees in Washington, DC and may potentially be adjusted for candidates in locations with significantly lower costs of living.

ReThink Media is committed to pay equity and transparency in our salary, raise, and benefits structure. All staff receive an annual 360º performance review and ReThink is strongly committed to internal and external professional development. We aim to attract, develop, and retain diverse, talented, and growth-minded staff.

This is a mid-level position that comes with generous benefits, vacation, health savings, sabbatical, and a retirement package. Salary is commensurate with experience and the starting salary range for a Program Director is $97,500–108,000 a year.

To apply, please follow the application link and upload your resume as a PDF attachment with your name in the title of the attachment (e.g. Your Name-Resume.pdf). Please include in the provided textbox a cover letter stating the reason for your interest in the position and providing a summary of your professional experience including management and supervision. Qualified applicants will be asked to complete a brief questionnaire prior to the scheduling of interviews.

Diversity Statement

ReThink is committed to a just and equitable society wherein all people are treated equally, opportunity is justly distributed, and all voices are heard. We affirm and seek diversity in gender, race, color, ethnicity & national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity and sexual orientation), class, religion, ability, life experiences, and background as both a positive contribution to our organizational environment and a critical asset for informing and enabling our work. With this in mind, we are committed to maintaining a work environment that recognizes, understands, respects, and encourages the unique contributions of each member and we approach every hiring decision with a commitment to workplace diversity.

Equal Opportunity Employer

ReThink Media is an equal opportunity employer. We strongly encourage and seek applications from women, people of color, including bilingual and bicultural individuals, as well as members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. We embrace applicants of any race, religion, sex, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, color, marital status, medical condition (cancer-related) or conditions Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and AIDS-related conditions (ARC), and other protected characteristics under local, state and federal laws and regulations. Reasonable accommodation will be made so that qualified disabled applicants may participate in the application process. Please advise in writing of special needs at the time of application.