Communities of Hope: Community Engagement and Relations Staff
Job Description
Communities of Hope, a growing journalism and community news organization in the Department of Media, Design & Communication, is looking for a student to develop working relationships with local communities in Rhode Island.
The primary role of the Community Engagement and Relations staff member will be to assist Dr. Bernardo H. Motta to identify, contact, build and maintain relationships with community members, organizations’ leaders, local media outlets, and other institutions within the target publics of the program.
The student working in this position will be expected to:
- Assist with the planning, liaison, and organization of projects by making contacts on campus and in local communities (phone calls, Zoom sessions, etc.), identifying potential source materials, and organizing and assisting students’ work.
- Assist with developing public relations materials such as press releases, informational and educational pamphlets, brochures, social media products, etc.
- Develop and manage the program’s social media accounts, web presence, and any other form of social relationship building and identity development.
- Assist with the maintenance of a database of projects, organizations and community needs.
- Assist with the researching, planning, and delivery of tip sheets, resources and databases to help students in the program to cover local communities.
The student will receive credit (bylines) and hold shared copyrights of every distributed product.
Special Skills Needed (You will learn most of it during the job):
Intercultural communication; Public relations; Social media management; Community organization and/or engagement; Organizational skills
Basic media law and data management using Google Sheets (preferred but not required)
Academic Major/Minor Preferred:
Public Relations; Communication & Media Studies; Journalism; Cultural Studies
Any majors with community and social media management skills, intercultural communication knowledge, organizational skills and a general understanding of news media may apply.
Starting Date:
Applications will stay open until the position is filled.
*Students are prohibited from driving during work-study employment with the limited exception of authorized work-study driver positions.
**Only students who are fully vaccinated are permitted to work on-site. Unvaccinated students will be permitted to only work remotely.
About Communities of Hope:
Communities of Hope is a community-driven solutions journalism news service working with specific groups of people who have been erased, marginalized, underrepresented, misrepresented, and maligned by mainstream media outlets.
Our mission is to empower people in those communities through training, paid work, information gathering, and educational storytelling so that they can participate in the public conversations about their histories, their roles in society, and the issues that affect them, making them a central part of the decision-making process.