Community Impact & Partnerships Manager

The Community Impact & Partnerships Manager builds and leads a community-powered growth engine for KPRC 2. This role sits at the intersection of community listening and editorial strategy — helping fuel audience growth by ensuring our journalism reflects real community needs and strengthens our connection to the people we serve.

Through a network of relationships with local organizations, nonprofits, civic leaders, and community groups, this role captures real community needs and turns them into ongoing story development, audience engagement, and measurable impact.

This is not a traditional partnerships or outreach role. This role creates systems and initiatives that make our journalism more relevant, more useful, and more essential to people’s daily lives.

Working in collaboration with News, Marketing, and Sales leadership, this role identifies where community insight, journalism, and aligned business opportunity intersect — creating opportunities that fuel audience growth.

Key Responsibilities

Build the Community Listening Engine

• Develop a structured, ongoing system for gathering insight from community partners and audiences
• Identifies emerging issues, gaps, and needs before they surface in traditional coverage
• Create clear pathways for community input to inform newsroom decision-making

Drive Editorial Impact

• Translate community insight into actionable story opportunities and coverage priorities
• Partner with newsroom leadership to shape follow-ups, solutions reporting, and accountability efforts (including ENOUGH)
• Ensure community-driven stories are not one-offs, but part of sustained coverage

Create New Audience Growth Channels

• Build initiatives that connect directly with audiences outside the traditional newscast (events, programs, partnerships, direct engagement)
• Develop repeatable formats that drive participation, trust, and habit
• Strengthen direct audience relationships (tips, submissions, newsletters, engagement touchpoints)

Develop Scalable Partnership Initiatives

• Move beyond one-off partnerships to create ongoing, high-impact initiatives tied to audience priorities (e.g., cost of living, safety, workforce, community solutions)
• Ensure each initiative connects community needs, editorial coverage, and audience engagement
• Identify opportunities for aligned sponsorship without compromising editorial integrity

Lead Community Presence with Purpose

• Guide the station’s presence in the community to ensure it is strategic, relevant, and impactful
• Align talent appearances, events, and outreach with audience priorities and editorial focus
• Eliminate low-value or transactional engagements

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Work across News, Marketing, and Sales to align community efforts with station strategy
• Ensure partnerships contribute to both audience growth and long-term business opportunity
• Act as a central connector between external community insight and internal execution

Measure What Matters

• Define and track success across:
• Audience growth and participation
• Story pipeline and editorial impact
• Community trust and engagement signals
• Provide regular insights that inform coverage decisions and strategic priorities

Qualifications

• 5 years in community engagement, journalism, audience development, partnerships, or related field
• Strong understanding of Houston communities and civic landscape
• Proven ability to build trust and meaningful relationships across diverse groups
• Experience influencing content, storytelling, or editorial strategy
• Strategic thinker with the ability to turn insight into action
• Strong organizational and project management skills
• Passion for audience-first journalism and community impact
• Experience in media or digital audience growth environments a plus