The American Journalism Project (AJP) is seeking a Vice President of Portfolio Learning to join our Growth Investments team to build and scale our approach to learning across our grantee portfolio. You will lead a team charged with collecting quantitative and qualitative data, turning that data into actionable insights for our grantees and building the peer and portfolio learning experiences that will enable the spread of those insights. Additionally you will serve as a key advisor for our future investment and support strategy and curate information that will help support building the larger movement for nonprofit local journalism.

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 an entrepreneurial team that’s 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. AJP has raised over $150 million for the cause so far, and aims to catalyze enough investment in nonprofit local news to create a $2 billion sector by 2040, full of 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 other’s 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.

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 sits on our broader Program Team (which is led by our Chief Investment Officer) and is committed to strengthening the nonprofit news sector across the country. The Growth Investments team searches for excellent nonprofit news organizations across the United States that have the potential to grow in scale and impact in their communities. We invest capital in those organizations targeted at supporting their revenue growth, and coach and support those grantees to maximize their revenue potential. Our team consists of Vice Presidents of Growth Investments that work as direct coaches to our grantees as well as the team within a team this role will lead which designs and leads our broader support strategy beyond coaching. In this role, you will report to our Head of Growth Investments and oversee our learning team, which currently consists of two team members. Our goal is to set all our grantees 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.

The position

The Vice President, Portfolio Learning will serve as a key leader on this team charged with ensuring that we are building a world-class learning ecosystem that enables our full portfolio to be internalizing the practices that will enable them to grow and sustain themselves as solidly thriving organizations. You will lead your team to build the systems, processes, and culture that is needed to enable this learning.

Specific responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Thought leadership on how to best measure and evaluate the strengths and impact of nonprofit local news organizations.
• Advancing our data collection, validation, and sharing infrastructure such that reliable data can be accessed by team members across AJP and used on demand.
• Building a robust analysis strategy designed to illuminate best practices across our portfolio, in areas such as revenue generation, audience building, organizational development, and inclusive practices.
• Building a vibrant community of peer learning – enabling grantees to connect with one another and collaborate effectively.
• Ensuring our grantees have access to strong, useful resources and insights on demand and are regularly using them.
• Developing a series of high-impact learning experiences both virtually and in-person that will drive learning and leadership development across our grantee community.
• Working collaboratively across AJP to develop insights and materials needed to advance our work externally or provide insights for future strategies.
• Leading a “team within a team” by building a strong culture and effectively managing two staff members.

Background & skills

We know not all 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…

• Experience understanding and building strong systems for quantitative and qualitative data capture and validation across distinct, independent organizations.
• Experience running data analysis inclusive of understanding what data is needed to understand a question and in producing clear data-backed recommendations.
• Experience building in-person or virtual learning experiences that have enabled significant skill building as well as mindset shifts.
• A strong orientation to enabling peer to peer learning and collaboration
• Fluency in the nonprofit news sector and an understanding of how to inform effective decision-making for individual organizations as well as for a portfolio or network.
• 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 implementing best practices of equity and inclusion in their own organizations.
• Meticulous attention to detail and accuracy in documentation.
• Management experience in the context of either a news organization or a nonprofit organization is preferred; management coaching experience is preferable.

This role is a fit if you are…

• Excited about gaining experience growing sustainable news organizations, while putting your unique analysis and learning design skills to impactful use.
• Enjoy leading and managing a team – including building a vision, purpose and culture of a team within a team.
• Curious and 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 for 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).
• 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.

Compensation & benefits

Our total compensation package is competitive in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, and we are committed to supporting our team with what they need to show up every day, ready to bolster the local press our democracy deserves.

We benchmark our salaries against similar organizations, and use a scale that considers job complexity and magnitude of responsibility to determine role levels and corresponding base salaries, as well as offer regular opportunities for salary increases. The salary range for this position is $153,095 – $168,405.

What to expect in the hiring process

Our approach to hiring is to create a consistent and transparent process for all candidates. We hope to fill this role as soon as possible, though the hiring process can typically take from a few weeks to several months. We will do our best to communicate with you about timing expectations throughout the process.

Candidates who advance to later rounds of this process can expect multiple interviews with members of our hiring committee. Semi-finalists will be asked to complete a hiring exercise designed to help us understand your thinking and approach to the role. We aim to truly get to know you, to help you fully understand the role you’re applying for, and to get to know your prospective team.

If you have any questions please feel free to email careers@theajp.org with “Vice President, Portfolio Learning” in the subject line.

Information session

The American Journalism Project will hold a live information session for candidates who are interested in learning more about the role and hearing from our team members directly. The information session will be held via webinar on March 21, 2024 at 6 p.m. ET. Please click here to register for the session. We will also record the session and post it on our website.

AJP is dedicated to equal employment opportunities for all applicants and employees. AJP encourages people of all races, colors, national origins, ancestries, creeds, religions, genders, ages, disabilities, veteran status, sexual orientations, and marital statuses to apply.