Learning & Community Manager - Report for America

About Report Local

Report Local, home to Report for America, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening local journalism and the communities it serves. Our flagship Report for America program has placed nearly 850 journalists in almost 500 newsrooms across the country, in communities where they are needed most, helping newsrooms produce new and exceptional journalism while building a stronger foundation for long-term sustainability.

With the rise of misinformation, overwhelming news feeds, and a rapidly changing media landscape, people struggle with what information they can rely on and trust. Every week, two U.S. newspapers close, leaving communities without the vital thread of local news that connects neighbors, holds leaders accountable, and helps communities understand themselves and their place in the world.

Report for America exists to rewrite that story. We believe local journalism is a critical building block for every community and democracy, and by investing in it, we foster trust and build a brighter, more connected future.

Report for America partners with innovative local newsrooms across the country to recruit and place talented reporters (corps members) in high-impact, often overlooked beats. We provide ongoing mentorship and training for corps members, offer newsrooms grant support for reporter salaries, and provide fundraising coaching and hands-on revenue development to help sustain essential reporting beyond our two-to-three-year placements.

About the Role

Report for America corps members include local reporters, photojournalists, and video journalists and represent a broad range of experience levels and backgrounds. They are based in a variety of local newsrooms, from tiny nonprofit digital startups to public radio newsrooms to legacy newspapers. Some are working in their own communities, while others are embedding themselves in an entirely new place. No matter their story, access to effective training and a community of local journalists are critical ingredients that help our corps members thrive in their roles.

As Manager, Learning & Community, you'll own the training and peer community corps members rely on, as well as provide periodic training for newsroom editors and leaders. You'll set the plan and the standards, then deliver through expert trainers, facilitators, and partners. Your impact shows up less in what you personally teach and more in what you make possible for every corps member.

What You'll Do

Own Training and Professional Development
Own the design, delivery, and quality of training:

• Run training end-to-end, from onboarding and orientation to ongoing skills sessions and later-year development, with clear milestones and measures of success.
• Set the annual training calendar and priorities, and re-prioritize as cohort needs and organizational goals shift.
• Recruit, prepare, and coordinate expert trainers, facilitators, and partner organizations so sessions are engaging and useful.
• Manage and curate our training library, including creating tip sheets and editing videos of training sessions.
• Set and hold standards for quality and consistency, from session design to facilitation to follow-up.
• Contribute to planning and executing training at our biennial in-person National Gathering.
• Extract insights and learnings from training session recordings and package them into shareable, asynchronous learning content.

Build Community Among Corps Members
Create the connections that help corps members learn from each other and stay in the work:

• Manage our online community for corps members and alumni, including cultivating engagement and responding to questions and requests.
• Oversee onboarding, group creation, and user permissions for our online community, and keep up with new features.
• Enable peer learning, including through virtual meetups for various beats and cohorts.
• Write and send our newsletters to corps members and host newsrooms, including training and other opportunities of interest.
• Manage our relationship with the app developer for our online community.

Measure, Learn, and Improve
Use data and feedback to strengthen the quality and effectiveness of our training program:

• Track participation, feedback, and outcomes, and use them to decide what to keep, adjust, or stop.
• Pilot new formats on a small scale, and make the call on when to scale and when to pause.
• Use existing tools and platforms to make training and community delivery more efficient.

Connect Across the Organization and the Field
Make training and community one part of a coherent corps member experience:

• Partner with colleagues who manage our one-on-one support and mentorship program so training, community, and coaching fit together and corps members get the right support at the right time.
• Decide what to handle, what to escalate, and what to share proactively with adjacent teams.
• Cultivate a network of trainers, partners, and journalist-serving associations and organizations in service of program results.
• Work with the finance team to process trainer/speaker honorariums and journalism association membership reimbursements.
• Represent Report for America at journalism conferences and industry events, and bring back what's working elsewhere.

Skills and Experience You Bring

We don't expect one person to tick every box, but we are looking for someone exceptional who brings many of the following:

• A passion for local news and a belief in the essential role local journalism plays in helping communities flourish. You care about the people and places local news serves, understand its importance to healthy, informed communities, and are energized by the opportunity to strengthen local news and the journalists who produce it.
• 6+ years of journalism experience. You understand the needs of local journalists and newsrooms because you've been there, working as a reporter, editor, or newsroom leader.
• Experience owning a program end-to-end, with results to show: clear goals, milestones, processes, standards, and follow-through.
• Tech-savvy and quick to pick up new tools. You're comfortable editing videos, creating graphics in Canva, running Zoom sessions, and working in Airtable (or similar databases).
• Strong writing and editing skills, with the ability to synthesize information in a compelling way for busy audiences like journalists.
• Experience managing or cultivating an online community, or leading a community engagement effort.
• Strong facilitation skills and an understanding of how adults learn, both online and in the room.
• A habit of using feedback and data to decide what to keep, change, or stop.
• A commitment to creating spaces where people from different backgrounds feel they belong and do their best work.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience.
• Ability to travel approximately 5% for convenings and team gatherings.
• Fluency in Spanish is a plus.

Benefits

As a mission-first organization, we strive to build a culture centered on impact and nurturing the growth and well-being of our staff.

• Comprehensive health coverage (medical, dental, and vision)
• Employer-paid life and disability insurance
• 403(b) retirement plan with organizational contributions
• Generous paid time off, including personal flex days, sick leave, and vacation days, that grows with your tenure

As a fully remote team spread across 20+ states, we are intentional about creating meaningful connections. We prioritize in-person gatherings, foster small-group hangouts during our all-hands, and nurture community through shared hobbies and interests in our Slack space.

Come join us in reimagining what's possible for local journalism and helping communities thrive.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Report Local welcomes applications from individuals of all backgrounds and strongly values diverse lived experiences. Report Local is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected by federal, state, or local laws where we operate.

We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. If you need a reasonable accommodation to apply or to participate in our recruiting process, contact hr@reportlocal.org.

Applicants must have legal authorization to work in the U.S. without requiring visa sponsorship.