Join The War Horse as Audience Engagement Manager

The War Horse seeks a creative, energetic, and collaborative teammate to help us grow and diversify our newsroom’s audience. The audience engagement manager will be part of a versatile, data-driven team that works with journalists across the newsroom to build on this trajectory and will increase the reach and impact of The War Horse’s journalism. The right person for this role will have a passion for news and data, a flair for story packaging, and strong communication skills.

Simply put, your mission will be to distribute The War Horse’s world-changing reporting projects to the broadest audience possible and inspire civic engagement across the United States.

The War Horse team is particularly interested in candidates with experience and ideas that will help us diversify our audiences culturally and geographically and increase our reach among underserved communities in the United States. The ideal candidate will support our work to create journalism and build a readership that is representative of America and its military. This will be a core focus for the candidate and others on the team.

At The War Horse, we don’t just accept difference—we support and celebrate it. Our newsroom and our community thrive on it. We want, in turn, to ensure that a wide variety of voices are present and represented in all that we do. We welcome all applicants regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, income level, disability, gender identity, veteran status, or other personal characteristic.

Our History

Founded in 2015 out of concern over legacy media companies’ declining investment in high-quality reporting about military and veteran affairs, The War Horse has grown to become a national leader in the military and reporting communities. Our work has created international headlines, spurred changes to multiple military and federal laws, and has been featured in Vanity Fair, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and many others. During 2021, The War Horse partnered with WBUR’s On Point and PBS Newshour, and were awarded the prestigious Edward R. Murrow and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Awards. Our donors and supporters include Fortune 100 companies, Ivy League Universities, leading foundations, philanthropists, and everyday people from around the world.

Explore more about our impact and read the results of our 2019 Audience Survey.

Our Programs

NEWSROOM Our investigative and multimedia reporting has been recognized with prestigious journalism awards and has led to changes in military and federal law. The ideal candidate will be deeply committed to building a sustainable nonprofit newsroom that shines a light on abuses of power and betrayals of public trust—and sticks with those issues for as long as it takes to hold power to account.

WRITERS PROGRAM Since 2016, The War Horse has published more than 250 reflections, which form the cornerstone of our writers program and provide vital context for our reporting. Many of these stories come directly from our writing seminars—all-expenses-paid workshops centered around community-building and training the next generation of war writers. Our writing seminars ensure those most affected by war have a prominent voice in the national conversation. The ideal candidate will embrace mentorship opportunities with War Horse Fellows to help nurture them as writers during and after attending the writing seminar.

Primary Responsibilities

The Audience Engagement Manager will report to the Managing Editor and reporters to bolster our efforts to produce quality journalism that matters to our readers and community-at-large. Your work will allow us to continue building a membership program that is key to our sustainability.

The following responsibilities are a guide to the work you will initially be required to undertake. This section summarizes the main aspects of the job but does not cover all the duties that the job holder may have to perform. As your experience grows, you will be expected to broaden your tasks, suggest improvements, solve problems, and enhance the effectiveness of the role.

Analytics:

• Working with the leadership team, the audience engagement manager will assist with overall goal-setting for the organization, including the internal and external key performance indicators for traffic, loyalty, engagement, and membership.
• Assist the managing editor in creating an editorial plan reflective of audience feedback and interests.
• Responsible for evaluating and reporting internal editorial KPIs.

Newsletter:

• Responsible for evaluating and executing overall newsletter strategy and goals.
• Manage subscriber lists and automations to increase engagement.
• Work with the production team to design or adapt newsletter products to audience needs, improve media literacy, and foster a sense of community.
• Compile weekly/monthly newsletter(s) and appeals, and adapt headlines as needed.
• Set goals for newsletter list growth and execute tactics to support those goals, including site popup management and membership growth.

Social Media:

• Establish and manage a social media workflow that incorporates digital engagement best practices for the newsroom, including training, documentation, and celebrating newsroom accomplishments.
• Responsible for goal-setting and growth plans based on previous traffic, engagement, and 2022 editorial plans.
• Design and implement recommendations for paid marketing strategies and tactics.

Community Engagement:

• Maintain and alert a list of relevant contacts when TWH publishes a story.
• Engage online with reflections writers, journalists, subject matter experts, sources, and/or VIPs who may share and amplify The War Horse’s reporting.
• Responsible for developing, launching, and administering a quarterly engagement event.

Qualifications

This is an extraordinary opportunity for an individual with social media, marketing, or engagement experience that is eager to meaningfully support the military journalism community. We seek someone with:

Required:

• 2-3 years experience in marketing and engagement.
• Deep familiarity with Mailchimp, Google Analytics, Salesforce, and design tools such as Adobe or Canva.
• Ability to design and execute a coordinated engagement campaign across multiple platforms effectively.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to use data to inform decision-making.
• Knowledge of emergent platforms and trends in digital media and a desire to test and experiment.
• Active on social media and embedded in internet culture.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ease working within teams remotely or on-site.

Desired:

• Marketing and engagement experience, ideally with a nonprofit or digital news organization that has demonstrated audience and supporter growth.
• Knowledge of search engine optimization trends, particularly for news.
• Graphic design experience.
• Fluency with military lingo and lifestyle is an added bonus!

Salary & Benefits

This is a part-time (5 hours a day, 4 days a week) position based remotely. Compensation is $26 an hour along with a monthly connectivity reimbursement, digital privacy services, PTO accrual, and access to a 401k vehicle with matching. To have a direct impact on the veterans and military families we serve, submit your cover letter, resume, and 3 examples of thoughtful and innovative audience engagement to jobs@thewarhorse.org. This listing is posted May 31, 2023, and will remain open until we find the best candidate for this role.

The War Horse