Community service is central to the Tulsa Local News Initiative's mission and vision. The community journalism director will lead the initiative’s efforts to build lasting partnerships with trusted community organizations in Tulsa, expand touchpoints with residents, and recruit residents to become Tulsa Documenters.

Reporting to the executive editor, the community journalism director will develop and execute a strategy to mobilize people and information for the public good. You will help make connections between the Tulsa Local News Initiative’s community partnerships and engagement work and its newsroom and reporters with the initiative’s other work. 

Importantly, you will also work closely with newsroom leadership to connect the Documenters’ coverage to the news operation and to specific beats, with the aim of increasing community influence on TLNI’s coverage and  maximizing the impact and exposure of Documenter reporting. This will entail involvement at the assignment stage — coordinating with the newsroom on needs and opportunities — and afterward, to help news reporters take advantage of Documenters’ reporting and, wherever possible, to amplify and build on that reporting in their own work. 

Leveraging knowledge from the American Journalism Project and City Bureau’s award-winning Documenters Network, you will design a program that may include hosting virtual and in-person community gatherings in different neighborhoods; helping the initiative better incorporate community voices in reporting; and other ways the initiative can deliver on its promise to communities. Most importantly, you’ll be an advocate for community voices in all of our programs.

This role is an opportunity to think outside the box and get creative in both elevating community perspectives in journalism coverage, and getting quality, independent local journalism out to more people who need it. If you have a track record of cultivating deep community relationships, you enjoy taking creative, iterative approaches to program design, and have a passion for organizing people to address big problems from the ground up, this role is for you.

The Tulsa Local News Initiative is a yet-to-be named startup nonprofit organization that has raised nearly $14 million so far in service of a vision to give everyone in Tulsa the local news they need. The newsroom will produce high-quality accountability journalism while working directly with residents to produce and distribute community reporting, employing an innovative model for local journalism that is directly responsive to local information needs. In addition to a team of editors and beat reporters, the Tulsa newsroom will have best-in-class community engagement expertise, multimedia production, dedicated capacity for service journalism and research, and Tulsa Documenters.

At TLNI, we value learning, curiosity and diverse perspectives. We are dedicated to equitable hiring and follow best practices to create an inclusive hiring process.

• Help build community partnerships, and identify opportunities for mutual sponsorships and support
• Oversee special engagement projects, including community convenings, focus groups, speaker series, tabling events, or reporting projects that can benefit from input from community partners
• Lead the initiative’s outreach to community organizations, schools, and other non-media partners, cultivate and maintain relationships with like-minded organizations, and expand our network of residents to participate in our community journalism programs
• Help the initiative recruit 100-200 participants for the Tulsa Documenters program in its first year
• Work with newsroom leadership to ensure the work of Tulsa Documenters is being used effectively to create content for the initiative and its partners
• Work with colleagues to identify opportunities for Tulsa Documenters to contribute to news gathering, engagement and distribution
• Develop a plan for the initiative to convene community members in our network, and for staff to host office hours in public spaces, with the aim of increasing our touchpoints with more residents

• Experience in engagement journalism, community organizing, grassroots political campaigning or a related field
• Experience managing a team and/or leading projects where people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives and abilities feel they can do their best work
• A demonstrated commitment to equipping and organizing people toward collective action
• Impeccable and inclusive project planning and prioritization skills
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to rally stakeholders and solve problems creatively and collaboratively
• Experience cultivating deep relationships, trust and solutions with a community (we know this can mean many things and want to hear how it manifests in your work)

Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience. The salary range for this role is $60,000-70,000 with a generous benefits package.