Chief Programs Officer : Resolve Philly, Resolve Philly

Apply by 4th March 24

Resolve Philly, founded in 2018, is building a new kind of local newsroom, one that is a model for the future, designed for community impact and rooted in collaboration. We center our editorial work around news and information that is for and with those who have been long harmed by traditional media narratives. We are committed to deep community engagement, maximizing access to news and information for all, providing comprehensive coverage of critical issues through collaborative reporting, and understanding the information needs of communities across Philadelphia in order to produce relevant and impactful stories. Resolve is also home to Modifier, a professional development practice, through which we consult and provide training opportunities to those in journalism and other mission-driven fields. The Resolve team, currently 24 full time staff, is composed of a wealth of professional and educational backgrounds, experiences, and identities.

The Role
This role is an exciting opportunity to support the growth of one of the most innovative local journalism organizations in the country. Along with Resolve’s Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, the CPO is a member of the organization’s executive team and serves as lead editorial officer. This person is responsible for the strategic direction of our programmatic work, which combines editorial and community engagement. Resolve’s CPO has the honor of managing and serving as a trusted advisor and thought-partner to four of Resolve’s senior leadership team. The CPO plays a key leadership role—guiding decision-making and setting priorities for yearly planning cycles on the editorial level, as well as organization-wide. This year, the CPO will also be heavily involved in building Resolve’s next three-year strategic plan, a process currently underway among the board and staff.

Who You Are
You have a background in journalism, with experience in leadership and decision-making positions within a newsroom and/or a journalism support organization. You have a strong understanding of traditional newsroom structures, audience development, and revenue models—and you have a strong interest in working in an organization disrupting those models. You have a deep understanding of the importance of community-responsive journalism and have ideas for, and a skill set that lends itself to, the growth of that work. You have a passion for the editorial side, and you’re also looking forward to flexing other muscles in people-support, collaborative project management, strategic planning, and program development. You are a skilled manager who has a proven ability to lead small (or big) teams successfully.

You are the kind of person who can see both the forest and the trees. You are a flexible and strategic thinker who can quickly adapt to new situations. You are an empathetic communicator, orally and in writing, who is able to build genuine and trusting relationships with people. You are very comfortable asking questions when you’re unsure about something. You are proactive, you bring new ideas to the table, and you don’t shy away from offering insights and feedback based on your observations and experiences. You are excited to join an organization that has developed its structures and policies with great intention, and you’re looking forward to being on a team that uses these Operating Principles as an expression of how our values show up in the day-to-day work.

What You’ll Do

Leadership

• Be a key member of Resolve’s small executive leadership team, which practices a great deal of collaborative decision-making.
• Work with executive and senior leadership teams to advance mission, vision, values, set yearly goals in alignment with Resolve’s strategic plan, and advance the implementation of Resolve’s work through your support of senior leadership.
• Support and track progress towards strategic editorial goals.
• Support and manage directors in their ability to do the same for their teams.
• Support and thought-partner with senior leadership in designing and carrying out professional development strategies and opportunities.

Editorial & Impact

• Develop new and build on existing workflows that facilitate collaboration across our various editorial products and projects, and between our editorial and community engagement teams.
• Monitor, refine, and/or develop new editorial-related impact metrics.
• Steward progress towards programmatic goals and hitting key metrics.
• Keep abreast of developments across the national ecosystem of solutions and community-oriented journalism and journalism endeavors.
• Build and maintain an efficient and streamlined process for monthly reporting of Resolve’s programmatic work.
• Support editorial and engagement leaders in outlining program development, identifying unique opportunities, and creating project plans and milestones.
• Review activities, processes, and other information for intersectional correlations that might be of benefit to Resolve’s editorial or funding strategy.
• Support Resolve’s collaborative budgeting process.
• Be responsible for making sure we’re on track for the editorial and engagement milestones set forth in any restricted grants in our programmatic work.
• Promote and model clear communication and collaboration among our editorial and community engagement teams to ensure progress towards individual and departmental milestones.

External Relationships

• Build and steward external relationships, collaborations, and partnerships with other organizations, ensuring that the Executive Director or others in the organization are involved in relationships at the appropriate level.
• Support organizational fundraising activities through relationship-building, conference attendance, program presentations, events, and on occasion, participating in team grant-writing efforts.
• Amplify program, team, and individual wins across the organization and throughout Resolve’s networks, acting as a champion for Resolve’s people and our editorial product portfolio.
• Manage and prioritize relationships with key partner organizations, in Philadelphia and beyond.

This position is full-time and the annual salary for this role is $150,000. The successful candidate will reside in Philadelphia or be willing and eager to move here. Even before the pandemic, Resolve was a hybrid workplace. As long as it is safe to do so, local staff are asked to come into our Old City office 2 times per week; while everyone is welcome to work from the office daily, no one will ever be required to do so. Resolve offers medical, dental, vision, and short-term disability coverage, in addition to a 401k, unlimited paid time off, and life-insurance, wellness, and technology benefits.

If interested, please submit your resume and a letter describing why you are the best fit for this position to this application link by Monday, March 4th at 9am ET.

At Resolve Philly we are looking for people who are passionate about the work that we are doing and who are excited to bring their unique set of skills and experiences to the table. If you feel like you’d be a good fit but you’re worried that your experience might not be exactly aligned with what we’ve posted in this job description, please consider applying anyway. We strongly encourage women, BIPOC individuals, returning citizens, LGBTQ+ folks, immigrants, and people with disabilities to apply. Research shows people with experiences and identities that are underrepresented in leadership roles often discount their own qualifications. We won’t.