Senior Vice President, Growth Investments

The American Journalism Project (AJP) is seeking a dynamic and experienced Senior Vice President (SVP), Growth Investments to oversee and evolve our Success Partner program and lead our portfolio development strategy. In this role, you will provide:

Strategic leadership & team management: Manage and coach a team of experienced leaders (Vice Presidents, Growth Investments, internally referred to as Success Partners) who act as strategic partners for AJP’s nonprofit news grantees. Success Partners work directly with grantee leaders to scale their operations, maximize their organizational assets, and overcome challenges to growth. They leverage the knowledge and skills of our staff, consultants, and other organizations in our portfolio to provide excellent support for our grantees in one-on-one and group settings, virtually or in person – ultimately stewarding the financial investment of AJP to the level of growth expected.

Portfolio support: Shape and execute strategies to help grantees achieve ambitious growth and sustainability goals, leveraging resources, expertise, and collaboration across AJP’s ecosystem. As a leader on the Growth Investments team, you will lead and coach the current team of three Success Partners while also growing and evolving the program as AJP’s support functions grow. Acting as both a player and a coach of the team, you will serve as the Success Partner for a portfolio of organizations yourself as well.

Portfolio development: Lead the identification, engagement, and onboarding of new grantee organizations through a rigorous and innovative grantmaking process. You will directly be responsible for engaging potential grantee organizations and leading a one-of-a-kind grantmaking process that is designed to build a strong plan for an organization’s growth, diligence the feasibility of that plan, and engage our staff and board to ensure we make strong investments in organizations that will meet our growth and impact expectations. You will be responsible for executing this current grantmaking model while continuing to evolve it over time.

Who we are

We’re an entrepreneurial team that’s passionate about journalism, civic engagement, and how local news plays a unique role in shaping our democracy. We help build and grow sustainable local news organizations all over the country — through financial investment, venture support, and movement building — that are governed by, sustained by, and look like the public they serve. Since 2019, the AJP has committed more than $63M of investment in over 40 nonprofit news organizations across the United States. Learn about our grantees.

This is a unique opportunity to join a growing, national movement to rebuild local news in communities across the country in a way that allows these organizations to better serve the public, while being sustainable and independent. AJP has raised over $175 million for the cause so far, and aims to catalyze enough investment in nonprofit local news to create a more than $2 billion sector by 2040, full of thriving, equitable, public service-oriented newsrooms that increase civic engagement and make communities work better for their residents.

Our team is deeply connected to our mission and supportive of each other’s goals and overall well-being. We aim to be an organization where everyone feels heard, respected, and valued. We are an entirely remote, distributed team and strive to maintain a healthy, fun, and productive workplace, working alongside smart, energetic colleagues who enjoy one another and the work. Meet our full team.

Our values

Local First: We know that local journalism must serve and be led by local communities. We make a practice of listening to, and making decisions with – not for – those communities, and connecting them to find strength in each other.
Bold Leadership: We understand the severe economic challenge facing local news and thus democracy, and we embrace a sense of possibility with courage, urgency, and perseverance.
Constant Learning: We recognize the unknown in front of us. Therefore, we operate with humility and a commitment to continuous improvement and collaboration.
Commitment to Equity: We commit to creating a better, more diverse, and more inclusive news media that advances human and civil rights. We actively fight against injustice and racism, and that starts with doing the work ourselves.
Integrity: We accept the responsibility of earning trust every day. We operate with honesty, transparency, dignity, and respect, and without allegiance to party, ideology, profit, or power.

Your team

The SVP of Growth Investments will report to the Head of Growth Investments and serve on the leadership team of Growth Investments alongside the Head of Specialized Support and the VP of Portfolio Learning. Collectively these leaders of the Growth Investments team are charged with developing our portfolio of grantees; providing excellent coaching, expert support, and leadership development to leaders in our portfolio of grantees; and ensuring we are building community, insights, and resources from across our grantee portfolio. Our goal is to set all our grantees on a path to become best-in-class media organizations and nonprofit institutions with the sustainable resources to more adequately meet the information needs of their communities.

The position

The SVP, Growth Investments will set the vision and direction of this team charged with assisting in the selection of grantees; providing excellent coaching, support, and leadership development; and ensuring we are building insights and resources from across our grantee portfolio. You will ensure that our Success Partners have the resources, systems and support they need to effectively steward our grantees to ambitious and sustainable growth. In addition to leading the team, you will also work directly with a set of grantees and will be accountable for ensuring their success. Specific responsibilities include but are not limited to:

Strategic leadership & team management

Execute and refine AJP’s overarching strategy for our coaching and support of the portfolio, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and values.
Lead the execution and evolution of our investment strategy by leading our efforts to bring new organizations into our portfolio.
Provide leadership, mentorship, and direction to Success Partners and the Growth Investments team, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and excellence.
Build team capacity to support grantees effectively, including professional development and operational enhancements.
Ensure team alignment with AJP’s purpose, mission and core values.

Portfolio support

Maintain high-level relationships with grantee organizations, supporting their leadership and growth through coaching and capacity-building.
Oversee the development of best-in-class support plans and tools for grantees, leveraging AJP’s internal expertise and external partnerships.
Effectively design strong support plans that leverage AJP staff (including yourself), consultants, peer organizations, and others to provide best in class support for grantees in one to one or group settings, virtually or in person

Portfolio development

Network in the local journalism ecosystem, building external relationships and a pipeline of future grantees, and pursuing strategic opportunities for new Growth Investments
Lead our grantmaking process designed to outline strategic growth and impact and assess the feasibility of that growth in local markets.

Background & skills

We know not all strong candidates will have all the skills we list. That’s OK. Research shows that women and people of color are less likely to apply for a position if they don’t meet every skill listed. At AJP we are committed to creating a better, more diverse, and more inclusive news ecosystem, and that starts with doing the work ourselves. So if your past experience doesn’t align perfectly, but you know this is the role for you – please tell us!

An ideal candidate will have…

Management experience in the context of either a news organization or a nonprofit organization is required.
Experience diagnosing assets and challenges to organizational growth and creating plans to maximize growth potential.
Experience working in or with nonprofit news organizations and a track record of finding and delivering sustained financial resources for those organizations.
An understanding and fluency in donor relationships from both sides of the donor/recipient relationship is preferable, but not required.
Experience in growth planning and/ or strategic grantmaking.
Experience coaching others on how to diagnose organizational barriers and how to design and implement efficient and effective solutions.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to synthesize large amounts of information and clearly communicate key insights, with a strong grasp of business concepts and numbers; must be a persuasive communicator.
An understanding of the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion in workplaces, newsrooms, and coverage; willingness to learn and coach others through operationalizing equity and inclusion.
Meticulous attention to detail and accuracy in documentation.

This role is a fit if you are…

Enjoy the act of coaching leaders to achieve ambitious scale targets.
A strong player-coach who can both execute directly while also leading your team to their outcomes.
Enthusiastic about tackling challenges in a fast-paced startup environment, continuously experimenting, and seeing projects to completion that help news organizations succeed.
Willing to think outside the box to solve problems for which there are not always blueprints for solutions.
Highly empathetic; you have an affinity for collaborative work, love for mentoring and inspiring others, and doing whatever it takes to get them to successful outcomes.
Accustomed to working in environments where feedback is liberally given and taken.
Intellectually curious, a strategic thinker, and an innovative problem-solver, including a proven ability to create and manage organizational change.
A person with strong personal responsibility and accountability, results-oriented, adaptable, and skilled at situational management (including being able to manage up, laterally, and down).
A person with passion for making the country a better, more equitable and just place for its residents by helping to build a new local news ecosystem across the U.S.

Compensation & benefits

Our total compensation package is competitive in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, and we are committed to supporting our team with what they need to show up every day, ready to bolster the local press our democracy deserves.

We benchmark our salaries against similar organizations, and use a scale that considers job complexity and magnitude of responsibility to determine role levels and corresponding base salaries, as well as offer regular opportunities for salary increases. The salary range for this position is $185,008 – 203,508. Read about our benefits here.

What to expect in the hiring process

Our approach to hiring is to create a consistent and transparent process for all candidates. We hope to fill this role as soon as possible, though the hiring process can typically take from a few weeks to several months. We will do our best to communicate with you about timing expectations throughout the process.

Candidates who advance to later rounds of this process can expect multiple interviews with members of our hiring committee. Semi-finalists will be asked to complete a hiring exercise designed to help us understand your thinking and approach to the role, and you will be offered an optional prep session to ask any questions that will help you put your best foot forward in this process. We aim to truly get to know you, to help you fully understand the role you’re applying for, and to get to know your prospective team.

Please submit an application through our portal. Download the full job description here. If you have any questions please feel free to email careers@theajp.org with “SVP, Growth Investments” in the subject line.

Note: In 2023, we hosted a live session on Zoom to share information about a previously posted Vice President, Growth Investments position. We encourage you to view the video as it will provide helpful background on the Growth Investments team broadly and the Vice President, Growth Investment leaders you will manage and coach. View a recording of that session below.

The American Journalism Project is dedicated to equal employment opportunities for all applicants and employees. AJP encourages people of all races, colors, national origins, ancestries, creeds, religions, genders, ages, disabilities, veteran status, sexual orientations, and marital statuses to apply.