Senior Manager, Narrative & Storytelling

About this role

Senior Manager, Narrative & Storytelling

Who we are

Campus Compact is a national coalition of colleges and universities committed to the public purposes of higher education. As the largest national higher education association dedicated solely to higher education civic and community engagement, Campus Compact enables higher education institutions to develop students’ citizenship skills and forge effective community partnerships. Our resources support senior administrators, faculty, staff, and students as they pursue community-based teaching, scholarship, and action in the service of positive change.

Today, we stand at a defining moment: we are ready to scale our impact when the stakes for our work have never been higher. We know that higher education has a critical role to play in fostering democratic principles and culture by addressing polarization, strengthening civic participation, and ensuring students are prepared to navigate and shape our democracy. Thanks to the investment of philanthropic partners, Campus Compact is preparing for a period of significant growth and expansion, particularly in the areas of innovation, scaling, and coalition building.

About the role

The Senior Manager, Narrative & Storytelling will contribute to Campus Compact communications strategy and serve as our chief storyteller with the goal of inspiring action, lifting up member voices, and sharing stories of success.

The Senior manager will be a vital part of Campus Compact’s communications and events team, and will oversee a growing body of storytelling and narrative change work focused on building increased public awareness of and support for Campus Compact’s mission and the public purposes of higher education. Reporting directly to the senior director of communications & events, this new role will contribute to developing our narrative change strategy, create key deliverables to support this strategy, help build our public relations and media capacity, and supervise the digital communications coordinator.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic content creation

• Develop & execute strategies that support key narrative change goals, shaping messaging and driving tactics. Write blog posts, develop email campaigns, oversee video development, and contribute to social media.

• Produce our monthly Common Cause newsletter; solicit content from staff and partners to create an informative and engaging experience for readers and meet our communications goals

• Oversee our social media strategy. Help to mature our social media strategy to create a comprehensive approach that engages our members and partners, and balances storytelling, marketing, and organizational goals

PR & media relations

• Lead our PR/media relations efforts; help to solicit earned and unearned media placements featuring Campus Compact or supporting our mission. Write op-eds, build relationships with journalists and media outlets

• Keep up-to-date with happenings at Campus Compact and in the field to find opportunities for media placements.

• Support leadership team members in speaking to the media.

Team management & internal coordination

• Supervise the digital communications coordinator; serve as a thought partner for them in their work. Provide coaching and professional development opportunities.

• Be a key voice in Campus Compact’s overarching communications strategy, serving as a steward for our brand both internally and externally

• Collaborate with other members of the communications team to manage our communications calendar; ensure our audiences receive varied and appropriate messages through our communications channels

• Foster a team culture grounded in collaboration, shared responsibility, learning, and care, with attention to sustainable workload management and clear communication.

• Provide support, training, and backup coverage as needed to ensure our work products are high-quality, consistent, and aligned with overarching organizational strategy.

Take on other responsibilities as needed and appropriate

Qualifications:

• Education level: has a relevant undergraduate degree

• 3+ years of experience in a communications role focused on storytelling

• 3+ years of experience in a Manager-level or similar capacity role, that has managed someone

• Experience working with journalists and media outlets to solicit earned and unearned media placements

• Demonstrated excellence in crafting compelling written content for a wide variety of communications channels. Has excellent proofreading skills.

• Experience conducting interviews and research to source content for storytelling products

Expectations:

• Visionary & goal-oriented - sees the big picture and is able to develop strategies and create deliverables that support larger organizational goals. Uses storytelling to simultaneously entertain and inform.

• Strong time & priority management - is a strong project manager who is consistent, highly organized, and can easily manage competing priorities. We’ll rely on the Senior Manager to set and meet deadlines, plan and assign tasks, and deliver consistently high-quality work.

• Collaborative - is a team player who lives out our core values of accountability and transparency in their collaboration with colleagues and partners. Applies customer service principles internally, ensuring our communications work proactively supports our colleagues’ goals.

• Flexible and adaptable - is iterative and flexible in their approach. Is comfortable exploring new approaches, navigating change, and reacting to the unexpected. Can successfully and graciously incorporate feedback into their work to arrive at the best possible final product.

• A deep personal and professional commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience writing for higher education-focused audiences, ideally with a basic knowledge of civic and community engagement work

• Experience with video content creation (either working wit

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