JOB DESCRIPTION: Insurgent Democratic Primary campaign for experienced Democratic Socialist organizer in progressive Western Queens district is now hiring a COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR (CD) to oversee an insurgent campaign focused on community participation and resident storytelling.
The Communications Director will help design and begin immediate execution on a quick-ramp plan to communicate the need for progressive organizing to include legitimate community outreach, input and buy-in in progressive Western Queens district for a 25-year WoC community activist, Disability rights advocate and teacher who has been repeatedly sabotaged by political machines but has amassed decades of community legitimacy and support. (The budget for the CD position itself, and for all other staff roles, are already raised and earmarked. Assuming performance goals are met and the working relationship is mutually satisfactory, this position is secure and funded through Primary Day.) The CD will be responsible for quickly, powerfully and optimistically telling a narrative through multiple traditional and online media channels that focuses on the critical nature of inclusivity in community organizing and highlights past disenfranchisement to transcend it for the community’s future, in a highly-competitive Democratic Primary race, starting immediately and ending Primary Day 2026.
The CD will report directly to the Campaign Manager, with frequent interactions with the Candidate, interns, volunteers, endorsing organizations, community leaders, and any others as necessary.
The CD will be expected to:
Reverse-timeline, plan and execute a winning, numbers-based, district-wide Communications, Social Media and Traditional Media strategy, with targeted outreach to / on behalf of specific communities in the district being of paramount importance;
Recruit, train, and capture the stories of residents and community leaders in a way that forms a coherent and urgent narrative about the stakes of inclusion vs exclusion;
Prepare large amounts of content ahead of time and edit as situations change on the ground, in order to respond to current events while avoiding last-minute emergencies where content is lacking;
Oversee design, including writing, illustration, content capture, execution and branding consistency in flyers, mailers, Candidate website, emails, press releases, social media, OTT and other channels as needed;
Empower and energize staff, Candidate and volunteers, whipping and refining content, approvals and other decision-making and asset-generating processes as necessary to ensure consistent and well-planned / well-targeted output;
Liaise with, and help the Candidate liaise with, traditional-media outlets and social-media influencers;
Help target multiple overlapping outreach strategies;
Troubleshoot early and effectively, such that the narrative put out by the Campaign is refined every day until Primary Day; and
Ultimately help deliver the number of votes necessary to win a highly-competitive Primary on an ultra-short timetable.
REQUIREMENTS:
For this role, demonstrated success creating people-centered narratives, especially those involving both a candidate and members of their community, is a must (if not electoral success, demonstrable and clearly-outlined explanation of how your creativity, attitude, and technical skill proved decisive in the creation of a narrative that generated chatter and penetrated voters’ or other targets’ busy lives).
2-3 professional references are required that can speak to your passion for storytelling and to your ability to craft messages that resonate with constituents, subjects and staff.
Familiarity with tech tools required for photo, video and social media production is extremely important.
Excellent communications skills are required.
Because this is a full-time-plus position of great responsibility over a short timeframe, the ability to work with all different kinds of people and to keep a cool head under intense pressure is critical.
NOTE: We will be fighting several machines simultaneously. The ability to put work, candidate quality and the principles of democratic community involvement above in-group popularity is a requirement for a cultural match. Our job is to ensure the community is consulted and all parts are included in positive ideological shifts, including public housing residents, immigrants and other groups traditionally left out of Leftist organizing for reasons of inertia, bias and lack of creativity. You will be well-supported, well-trained, given the benefit of the doubt at all times and working with joyful and capable comrades, with a genuinely kind and empowering Candidate and Campaign Manager.** But this is not a cookie-cutter or front-runner race. We can and will win, but we will not be the cool kids in citywide politics at the start - though we are appreciated by, and getting a great reception from, the community itself! If this is not you - if you’re looking to simply learn and coast with a race already assumed to win - no hard feelings, but this will not be your ideal environment!** We are assembling a team that enjoys a challenge and risks being questioned in service of the ideals we believe in, because NYC still has machines and they must be dismantled so we don’t risk passing machine tendencies on to the next generation of NYC politics.
If this sounds like a fun and worthy challenge… we think so, too! Send us an email and let’s talk.
PREFERRED:
Familiarity with Queens’s basic demographics and political setup is extremely helpful.
Familiarity with NYC’s recent electoral history, with all its many complexities, will be important for best performance of this job.
Familiarity with blast email and text platforms, and the ability to both quickly deploy them under tight deadlines and pre-load them in advance, in order to avoid emergencies, is strongly preferred.
Familiarity with Bengali, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin and/or Cantonese is a plus, but is not required.
SALARY AND BENEFITS: Competitive, negotiable based on experience, campaign-culture fit and qualifications.