Project Manager, Solving Sacramento Collaborative

Solving Sacramento is a collaborative of non-profit and for-profit local newsrooms, education institutions, and community partners working together to produce and share solutions journalism stories on the issues that most impact the larger Sacramento metro region.

We believe the diversity of our metro is our strength. We are committed to engaging with members of every Sacramento community to identify solutions to the problems our thriving metropolis faces as we grow into the future.  

We launched in 2022 with two initiatives: solutions to affordable housing and solutions to rebooting the arts. 

Solving Sacramento seeks a project manager to build and strengthen the collaborative; to manage relationships between and among collaboration partners; and to support and coordinate projects, including hiring consultants, editors and fellows as necessary.

This is a contract position starting at 18 hours/week at a rate of $50/hour ($3,900/mo.). We are looking for a person who lives in and is connected to the Sacramento community and who is comfortable attending in-person events and meetings as necessary. Contingent upon longer-term funding and project assessment, the position may be extended and grow.

Timeline: Please apply by September 1. We hope to hire by September 30 for an October 1 start date. 

How To Apply: Please send a cover letter, resume or LinkedIn link, and three references to joellen@solvingsacramento.org by September 1, 2022.

Responsibilities:

Financial/Fundraising

• Key responsibility for identifying future funding for the collaborative.
  • Outreach to potential funders/sponsors/major donors
  • Set up regular individual donor campaigns
  • .Author project and funding proposals
  • Produce required grant and “impact” reports.
•  Manage the relationship with Local Media Foundation (administrative agent), including:
  • Support LMF to manage service provider relationships.
  • Monitor the project budget.
• Support collaborative members to submit invoices, reimbursement forms, etc with fiscal sponsor (editorial invoicing is managed by Project Editor).

 Program

• Support collaborative members to develop vision and strategic direction for the collaborative.
• Manage relationships between collaborative members, including:
  • Setting up and facilitating regular meetings of collaborative members.
  • Resolving conflicts among collaborative members.
• Identify and recruit new members to the collaborative.

• Onboard new collaborative members.

• Serve as the primary contact between collaborative and key stakeholders, including:
  • Solutions Journalism Network and other funders.
  • Fiscal sponsor/administrative agent (Local Media Foundation).
  • Community partners like SMUD and OPNA.

• Support collaborative in engaging deeply with community by:
  • Planning collaborative-organized community forums and town halls.
  • Supporting engagement events related to collaborative topic put on by collaborative members and community partners.
  • Developing tools for engagement such as a SMS or newsletter.
• Manage Project Editor and contractors hired by the collaborative.
• Ensure Project Editor maintains ongoing editorial calendar.
• Support Project Editor to develop truly collaborative stories.
• Ensure Project Editor identifies stories that may be shared.
• Ensure Project Editor shares out collaborative stories
• Support Project Editor in ensuring freelancer invoices are billed to and paid for by collaborative (via payments to outlets). 

Communications

• Maintain any internal collaborative communications tools such as Asana, Slack, etc.
• Supervise the building of any external communications such as a website, newsletters, social media accounts, etc.

• Either produce yourself or manage communications staff hired by collaborative to produce newsletters and social media
• Work with fiscal sponsor to update website as needed
• Build awareness about the collaborative with media organizations, journalists, university journalism programs, and community members.

Qualifications and capabilities:

• Fundraising skills.
• Experience with journalism projects and preferably with journalism collaboratives.
• Strong time-management and project-management skills.
• Strong analytical, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal and written communication skills.
• Understand how to build and maintain positive community relationships and manage effective communication.
• Comfort in working as lead of a virtual organization with little daily outside supervision.
• Basic knowledge of financial statements and financial projections.
• Passion for empowering people of all backgrounds to participate in sustainable living and community building.
  
  Preferred but not required:
• Multimedia and social media skills; knowledge of digital content management systems.
• Tech-savvy — ability to learn new technology and stay current with advances in digital journalism.