The American Journalism Project (AJP) is seeking a Finance Lead, Specialized Support Team, to join our Knight Resiliency Lab. This role will support our portfolio of nonprofit local news organizations to establish robust financial foundations that support long-term success and resilience. In this role, you will spend your time helping our portfolio newsrooms build the planning and management systems they need to grow and meet the needs of their communities in a sustainable way — through resource development, 1:1 support, in-person and remote training, and other modes of engagement.

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.

Who we are

We’re a small but entrepreneurial team working to re-shape the future of local news in our country. We’re 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. Learn about our portfolio.

AJP has raised over $225 million for the cause so far, and aims to catalyze enough investment in nonprofit local news to create 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 others’ 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 Growth Investments team is committed to strengthening the nonprofit news sector across the country. We continuously search for excellent nonprofit news organizations that have the potential to grow in scale and impact in their communities, invest capital in those organizations targeted at supporting their growth, and coach and support those grantees to maximize their revenue potential. Our goal is to set all the organizations in our portfolio on a path to become best-in-class local nonprofit institutions with the sustainable resources to more adequately meet the information needs of their communities. This role will report to the Senior Vice President of Specialized Support.

The position

The Finance Lead, Specialized Support will be responsible for ensuring that every organization in AJP’s portfolio meets best-in-class standards of strategic financial planning and budget and cash management across all lines of organizational revenue including contributions as well as advertising. This role is designed for a nonprofit finance professional with deep operational knowledge, strong professional achievement in the field, and a passion for equipping mission-driven leaders with the tools they need to manage and grow sustainable organizations.

You will serve as a trusted partner to local newsroom leadership and finance and operations teams, helping them build strong financial foundations that support long-term planning, strategic fundraising, business development, and funder and board confidence. You’ll also design and deliver scalable support resources to ensure all grantees are equipped to meet core financial management expectations — and can exceed them as they grow.

Specific responsibilities include but are not limited to:

Serve as specialist coach to finance and administration leaders in portfolio organizations

• Through working with AJP-supported newsrooms, develop models of excellence in financial management – becoming an expert in best practices in finance within local nonprofit news organizations
• Assess portfolio organizations’ financial management capacities and identify the most effective and scalable solutions to enhance financial practices across our portfolio, with a special attention to long-term financial modeling, bookkeeping, cash flow management, board reporting, grant budgeting, building cash reserves, and internal controls
• Support portfolio organizations in building and improving core financial tools, including budgets, forecasts, dashboards, and scenario-planning models
• Roll up your sleeves and support directly where relevant, serving as an expert thought partner and sounding board
• Collaborate with our team of Success Partners (an internal term for our team members who are the primary contacts for AJP’s nonprofit news grantees) and leaders from our Specialized Support and Portfolio Learning teams to support overall grantee success
• Develop strong insights around nonprofit local news financial management that can be leveraged by news organizations and our staff more broadly

Build and execute learning experiences and communities

• Build a community of finance leaders across the portfolio that collaborate with one another, share insights, and experiment together
• Partner with our Vice President of Portfolio Learning to develop and lead virtual or in-person accelerators or workshops aimed at building the knowledge, skills and mindsets of those across our portfolio
• Craft or source development of resources, such as templates, toolkits, slide decks, case studies, and guides, that empower Success Partners and grantees to build robust finance operations and support systems with a focus on helping our organizations find the right tools for them
• Lead experimentation within the portfolio to test new approaches to nonprofit financial management, particularly for local media organizations

Cultivate relationships & partnerships in the nonprofit local news and financial management space

• Leverage the national scale of AJP to develop partnerships that generate new resources or reduced costs for our portfolio of news organization’s finance and operations teams
• Actively network in the local journalism ecosystem, building external relationships to ensure AJP is learning from across the industry

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 the American Journalism Project, 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…

• Demonstrated ability to build financial strategies and sustainability plans that align with mission and attract philanthropic investment
• Deep expertise in nonprofit financial management, with a track record of supporting organizations in securing and managing seven-figure, multi-year grants and contributions from diverse funders
• Experience as a senior financial leader with managerial responsibilities (e.g., CFO, VP of Finance & Administration) in local nonprofit news or a mission-driven organization with comparable complexity and scale
• Experience coaching senior nonprofit leadership, with the ability to inspire and motivate stakeholders at all levels
• Strong understanding of how financial strategy, reporting, and planning intersect with institutional and major gift fundraising efforts, including budgeting for restricted and multi-year funding streams
• Experience diagnosing assets and challenges within a finance and administration team and helping that team improve their success
• Experience building templates, tools, and other resources that can be used to help others learn finance knowledge or skills
• 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
• Meticulous attention to detail and accuracy in documentation
• 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

This role is a fit if you are…

• Excited about advancing finance management and business models for the leading local nonprofit newsrooms in the U.S. today
• A passionate relationship builder and advocate for local journalism
• Enthusiastic about tackling challenges in a fast-paced startup environment and 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 of 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, skilled at situational management (including being able to manage up, laterally, and down)
• Ready to travel as needed but also excited to work for a remote organization (we are a fully virtual team; however, we estimate this person would need to travel approximately 6-10 times a year)
• A person passionate about making the country a better, more equitable and just place for its residents by helping 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 $170,965-188,062 Read about our benefits here.

What to expect in the hiring process

Our hiring process is designed to be thorough, transparent, and consistent for all candidates. We take the time to truly get to know you—and for you to get to know us—because we believe that finding the right fit is essential for both sides.

Positions at AJP are unique within the field, so we want to give you a real sense of what the work looks like day-to-day. That’s why our process includes opportunities for you to demonstrate your skills in ways that mirror the role’s responsibilities. We also want to ensure that you have a clear understanding of our team, our expectations, and whether this is a role where you can thrive.

The timeline for our hiring process varies, typically ranging from several weeks to a few months. We will keep you informed about timing expectations along the way. Candidates who advance to later rounds will have multiple interviews with members of our hiring committee, and may be asked to complete a hiring exercise designed to showcase your thinking and approach to the role. We recognize the time and effort this requires, so we provide compensation for hiring exercises. Ultimately, our goal is to ensure a great match—for you and for us—so that if you join our team, you’ll be set up to do meaningful, impactful work.

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 “Finance Lead” in the subject line.

Information session

AJP is hosting an Information Session on Tuesday, August 19, at 5:30 p.m. ET, for all candidates interested in learning more about the Finance Lead role. Attendees will have a chance to hear directly from the hiring manager(s) and the AJP People & Operations team.

The Information Session will be held via Zoom webinar. Please click here to register.

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.