Account Director – Nonprofit Public Relations & Advocacy

Account Director – Nonprofit Public Relations & Advocacy

Requirements

• At least 6 years of experience working in strategic communications and media relations in relevant spaces (nonprofit, social impact or CSR; advocacy, politics or government.) Agency experience a plus.
• Strong storytelling skills and demonstrated ability to create news moments, with the ability to provide examples that clearly demonstrate these capabilities.
• Savviness and creativity in media relations and pitching, social media content ideation and influencer engagement with the knowledge to identify new targets and thoughtful angles until the story lands.
• Understanding of New York City and State politics and media preferred.
• Experience with thought leadership and executive profile raising a plus.
• Experience and familiarity with any of the following a plus: arts and culture, food, women & family and media that speaks to diverse audiences; demonstrated ability to place human interest and feature stories in national media.
• Experience in designing media and marketing programs to reach donor audiences a plus.
• Experience engaging and maintaining strong relationships with relevant reporters and handling rapid response and long lead stories.
• At least 2 years of experience managing teams.
• Ability to confidently communicate clearly and effectively both verbally and in writing, with varying levels of staff, clients and the media and is comfortable thinking on their feet.
• Organized and used to a fast-paced environment with the capability to handle multiple assignments at once, work quickly and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
• Proven ability to become a savvy and nimble student of the “news” and quickly identify new media opportunities and narratives to insert our clients’ voices into the news cycle.

Responsibilities

• Lead development of integrated communications strategies including earned media and social media to meet clients’ objectives.
• Drive high-touch, daily client communications with the same client leads: brainstorming, flagging concerns and problem-solving.
• Manage a team of junior staff on each account you lead, strategically influencing deliverables’ quality and staff development by delegating, modeling smart practices and providing feedback.
• Coordinate across internal and external teams to deploy integrated services (media relations, digital advertising, research) to meet your clients’ goals.
• Drive new story angles and other media opportunities for clients, conceptualizing creative feature stories even when there is no news to announce and identifying new targets across print, broadcast, radio and podcasts and trying new approaches until the story lands.
• Lead thought leadership programs for executives, drafting persuasive and compelling pitches and op-eds on behalf of a client; identify new opportunities to raise an executive’s visibility through awards or conferences.
• Work closely with senior team leaders on capacity planning to ensure that the team is running efficiently.
• Contribute to business development and growth efforts.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with thought leadership and executive profile raising a plus.
• Experience and familiarity with any of the following a plus: arts and culture, food, women & family and media that speaks to diverse audiences; demonstrated ability to place human interest and feature stories in national media.
• Experience in designing media and marketing programs to reach donor audiences a plus.