Director of Civic Partnerships

CalMatters seeks someone who will put our journalism into the hands of the Californians who need it, by building relationships with organizations people trust.

That means nonprofits, schools, advocacy groups, political clubs, libraries, churches, community centers, even restaurants. The places where people come together and talk about their lives, and where they get information from trusted sources.

As a nonprofit newsroom, CalMatters’ mission is to make California’s government more transparent and accountable and to give Californians the information they need to understand and engage with it. That’s why all our articles and tools are free for anyone to read and republish, and why we invite organizations across California to freely share our work with the people they serve.

You'll start with Digital Democracy, one of the most advanced applications of AI to journalism and civic engagement. It combines an unprecedented database with real-time capture of legislative activity, giving Californians direct access to what their representatives are doing. Your first job is to get it into the hands of civic organizations across the state, training them on the tool and how they can best make use of it. From there, you'll extend the same approach to the rest of our journalism. 

You’ll work closely with our Director of Partnerships, who has been handling all outreach until now. Going forward, that role will focus on our relationships with newsrooms while you build our ties elsewhere. And you won't be starting cold. You’ll build on the real relationships we’ve already established with a handful of libraries, churches, schools and community organizations.

This position is based in California and reports to our Chief Impact Officer.

You Will:

• Map the landscape of California organizations we should reach, to build a pipeline of prospective partners
• Work with our newsroom to identify which communities each project most needs to reach, and prioritize outreach accordingly. 
• Build and keep partners’ trust, which includes meeting them in person across the state. 
• Design and lead trainings that show partner organizations how to use Digital Democracy and our other tools and share them with their members and broader networks
• Develop materials partners can use in their newsletters and social channels, so our journalism reaches their communities directly
• Co-host events with partner organizations and collaborate with our events team to build audience for our live-journalism convenings
• Track and report on partner engagement: active partners, how often and how widely they share our work, what their members tell us, and the total audience we reach through them
• Gather feedback from partners and use it to sharpen the ways we support them
• Represent CalMatters at conferences, convenings, and community events across the state

What We're Looking For:

• At least 4 years of relevant experience building and managing relationships with a wide range of organizations, from community organizing, nonprofit partnerships, government relations, coalition-building, business development, sales or adjacent fields 
• Willingness to start relationships cold, introducing yourself and CalMatters 
• Comfort getting deep enough into a data-driven tool to teach it; you don't need a technical background, but you'll need to know Digital Democracy well enough to show people what it can do for them
• Comfort designing and leading trainings for audiences 
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain our tools and journalism for a non-journalism audience
• Comfort saying "let me check and get back to you" when you don’t know the right call. As you build relationships across the political spectrum, you’ll field requests where the answer has to adhere to CalMatters' nonpartisanship and journalism ethics. If you're new to journalism, we'll teach you.
• Experience setting and tracking real metrics of success, including when some of the data lives with a partner rather than with you
• A real interest in California civic life, government accountability, or community engagement
• Experience working independently in a remote-first, distributed team
• Willingness to travel regularly across California

Not Required, But a Real Plus:

• Experience working in a newsroom, or a working understanding of how journalism gets made
• Familiarity with CalMatters — whether you've read us for years, come to our events, or otherwise know the work
• Existing relationships with California community organizations, civic groups, or regional networks
• Spanish or another language widely spoken in California communities
• Experience organizing or co-hosting public-facing events

Compensation and Benefits

This full-time position with benefits is based in California.

The salary range for this position is $85,000 to $100,000 per year. We offer a complete benefits package with medical, dental and vision insurance — we cover 95% of the cost for employees and dependents — from a range of HMO and PPO providers. We also offer paid family leave and will match contributions of up to 4% of your salary to our 401(k) program and provide life insurance at no cost.

The salary range above is our best estimate, in good faith, of what we expect to pay for this position. Our final salary figure will take into account the candidate’s experience and skills, as well as our commitment to pay our staff equitably.

How To Apply

If you’re interested, provide a resume, cover letter and work samples (if applicable). In your cover letter, please answer the following questions:

• Why do you want to work at CalMatters/TheMarkup? Tell us what draws you specifically to our organization, this role, or this work. If you’ve never worked in journalism before, tell us what makes you interested in joining a nonprofit journalism organization.
• Tell us about your experience building and managing relationships with a wide range of organizations, and why you’re a great fit for this role.

We believe strongly in personal and authentic engagement in our recruitment process and want to hear from you. We ask that you answer these questions yourself without the aid of AI or other automated tools.

Please do not contact the hiring manager or other staffers directly. If you have questions, or a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, don’t hesitate to contact [email protected].

CalMatters is committed to becoming an antiracist organization. We are an expanding and collaborative newsroom, successfully forging a new model for sustainable, intelligent, nonprofit journalism. We do our best to center justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in all that we do—of which hiring is just one part. We encourage you to ask us about what concrete steps we are taking in service of these ideals. We strongly encourage applicants who are people of color, LGBTQ, and people with disabilities, regardless of national origin, alienage, and/or former incarceration status.

A college degree is not required.

About CalMatters/The Markup

CalMatters is an award-winning nonprofit, nonpartisan news venture dedicated to explaining the policy and politics of America’s biggest state and the world’s fifth largest economy. In 2024, we merged with The Markup, a nonprofit national news publication that challenges technology to serve the public good.

We produce vivid, original multimedia journalism, data-driven news analyses and watchdog accountability reporting oncalmatters.org andthemarkup.org, and we distribute our work at no cost to more than 250 media partners. Our success metric isn’t clicks — it’s impact. CalMatters/The Markup’s work serves millions of people. For example:

• More than 1 in 5 California voters head to the pollsinformed by CalMatters’ nonpartisan Voter Guide.
• Blacklight, our real-time privacy inspector, has been used over 18 million times and helped journalists, nonprofits, and academicshold tech accountable.
• Digital Democracy, our unprecedented, custom-built AI tool that tracks everything you’d want to know about state legislators hasunearthed stories and prompted legislators to call for change.

We also have the most diverse major newsroom in California. Here you’ll be working alongside dozens of experienced journalists in a supportive, collaborative atmosphere.