We’re Hiring: Technology & Community Manager in Washington, DC

See also: Hiring project managers in Washington, in Cape Town, and journalists and researchers for the Global Integrity Report field staff. 

 

 

 

 

Global Integrity is looking for a new colleague who can contribute to two portfolios of work: Providing the Indaba fieldwork platform to internal and external projects, and two-way communication about our work. 

 

1) Providing the Indaba fieldwork platform to internal and external projects from across the social sector, building a community of practice around public interest data gathering as we go. Indaba (http://getindaba.org) is an online open-source software-as-a-service shared across 14 organizations (so far) and operated and designed by Global Integrity. The Technology and Community Manager will take a lead role in the partner-facing aspects of Indaba including consulting, support, documentation, community building and marketing. 

 

2) Two-way communication about our work via new media, including blogs, web video, social media and whatever comes next. The Technology and Community Manager will serve as our in-house documentarian by keeping the diverse projects of Global Integrity — spanning 100+ countries, revenue-generating and non-profit business models, and dozens of partner organizations — visible to the outside world. Our new colleague will have a significant role in both strategy and execution of building audience, creating engaging content, and reporting insights from that community back to the organization. 

 

 

Successful applicants should be able to demonstrate specific experience in the following:

• Online and offline community building 
• Writing for blogs and non-academic media 
• Light media production for photos, video, text 
• Using a content manager and/or running a blog (or something equivalent). 
• Enthusiastically adopting technology, particularly online services. 
• Welcome but not required: experience with software or design; journalism; online or offline community organizing; or consulting. 
   

 

• Successful applicants will demonstrate evidence of the following:
• Detail obsessive project management. A love of spreadsheets and the ordered universe they represent. Comfort with being thrown into the deep end with multiple stakeholders, shifting priorities, and limited resources. 
• The curiousity and persistence to tinker, debug, hack and carefully document new software tools long after the new-car-smell has worn off. You should have opinions about how software should work. 
• A willingness to put yourself into the online narrative of people, projects, and outcomes you will document. Engagement is a two-way conversation — you'll be highly visible on video, blogs, photos, and Twitter talking with our public. 
• Comfort with cultures across borders, demonstrated primarily through mutual respect and good listening. 
• Independent self-starter with insticts for social entrepenuership. You want to have influence and shape the growth of a small, nimble organization. You are flexible and can live with uncertainty and change. 

 

What you will actually do
 

• On Monday, you'll be a technology consultant, sitting in the office of a Famous Nonprofit as they design a project that uses Indaba's data collection tools. You'll mostly listen and take lots of notes. 
• On Tuesday, you'll be inputting the project you just co-designed, using a familiar but complex web interface. It's a good thing you have spreadsheets full of notes, because you already forgot most of what you talked about yesterday. Halfway through the day you'll drop everything and write up an annoucement for a new Global Integrity project and schedule it for mass email. 
• On Wednesday, you'll write up a case study of this clever thing you figured out with the Famous Nonprofit on Monday and post it to our blog. You'll do a Skype interview video with our partner, but it comes out terribly. You post it anyway. Commenters on Facebook agree it's terrible. You heckle your own video, which the Facebookers "like."  
• On Thursday, you'll spend the morning reading NTEN and TechSoup on how to do a Skype interview video (hint: lighting), then write a tutorial blog post about what you learned. To practice, you interview a Global Integrity project manager in Tanzania about a recent project and post it. You also get a complex question from an Indaba user via the Help Desk. You test some options in Indaba, then write up a solution for her and post it to the Help Desk FAQ. 
• On Friday, you'll design an audience survey for a new blog, finish testing that new Indaba install, and host an Indaba communtity check-in call. 

 

 

Global Integrity (https://globalintegrity.org)  is one of the world's leading independent information providers on  governance and corruption trends globally, generating original,  bottom-up data and journalistic reporting through a network of more than  1,200 local experts in 120-plus countries.  Its information on  national-level anti-corruption systems is used regularly by aid donors  (World Bank, UN, Inter-American Development Bank, Millennium Challenge  Corporation), civil society advocates, and reformers within government  to design and implement evidence-based governance reform strategies.  

 

The organization has won an Ashoka "Changemakers" award an “Every Human  Has Rights” award from The Elders and Internews; its methodology for  assessing the existence and effectiveness of anti-corruption mechanisms  is described by the World Bank as "best practice."

 

Global Integrity is known in particular for its  expertise in developing quantitative indicators to assess the existence,  effectiveness, and citizen access to accountability mechanisms at the  national, sub-national, and sector levels.  It also has significant  experience working on sub-national accountability reforms under the  auspices of its Local Integrity Initiative (see http://local.www.globalintegrity.org),  and regularly blends qualitative journalistic reporting with its data  gathering efforts. Across all of its fieldwork at the national, sub-national, and sector levels in more than 100 countries, the  organization has designed, fielded, and published more than 80,000  quantitative indicators of accountability, transparency, and  anti-corruption mechanisms.

 

Beginning in 2007, Global Integrity began to seek  out opportunities to convene governments with our local research teams  to discuss and debate the results of Global Integrity fieldwork in an  attempt to stimulate consensus around next steps on the governance  reform agenda in particular countries. That model, which we eventually dubbed our “Global Integrity Dialogues,” has proved successful and more  than a dozen highly-specific, intensive workshops have been carried out  in countries as diverse as Brazil, Timor-Leste, and Rwanda.  

 

Our focus on providing technology to bolster the  capacity of like-minded groups is a key priority going forward.  One of  the reasons Global Integrity has been able to scale its work so  efficiently without increasing overhead is our heavy reliance on (and  investment in) a low-bandwidth web-based platform that allows  researchers and reporters anywhere on the planet to collaborate on data  gathering and reporting from anywhere they can find an internet  connection.  The third generation of our global fieldwork platform is  currently being developed to allow external, third-party partners to use  the system to design, execute, and publish their own governance and  corruption assessments with little to no involvement by Global Integrity  staff (see http://getindaba.org for details). 

 

 

Our office environment (now spread between  Washington, New York, Chicago, and Cape Town) requires openness,  collaboration and flexibility. Our staff has an uncommon diversity of  responsibilities: from high level strategy to online messaging to logistics issues (we book our own travel and fix our own computers), everyone contributes. You will develop new skills in this job; expect to  learn and adapt constantly. We are very much a learning organization.

 

We have a “no jerks” policy; you will be supported by results-oriented yet frequently cheerful coworkers whose primary mode of social engagement is based on trust and respect.

 

International literacy and cross-cultural sensitivity are considered core competencies.

 

 

We anticipate this position’s salary ranging  between US$40,000 – $55,000 depending on the candidate’s experience and  demonstrated skills.  

Global Integrity provides full health and  disability benefits, as well as a modest life insurance policy, to all full-time employees and currently pays 100% of the premiums associated  with those benefits.  Holiday and sick time are also provided.

 

 

We will only be accepting applications for this position online via the following web form:

 

 

Links to your prior published work — professional or not — will be highly influential. We're made a previous hire based in part on the strength of a travel blog.  

After reviewing submitted applications, we  anticipate calling back a small number of potential candidates for  individual interviews via phone or in-person. We are happy to answer  additional questions directly (see Contact Information below), but all  interested applicants must use the online form to apply for the  position.

 

Deadline for Application: July 20 2011

 

 

Q: Do I need to be an anti-corruption “specialist” to apply for this position?

A: No, though familiarity with issues of governance, transparency, and corruption are welcomed.

 

Q: I am not an American citizen, nor do I have a  green card or work visa, but I’m interested in applying for this  position.  Will you sponsor a work visa for me?

A: Possibly.  We do not want immigration issues to stand in the way of a great match for this position.  Apply and let’s see where the discussion goes.

 

Q: Will I need to wear a badge every day if I work at Global Integrity?

A: As long as we’re breathing, no.  We’re light on the formal trappings typical of larger institutions.  We do have a neat looking coffee maker, however.  And we painted the walls of our office ourselves last year. “Perpetual startup” is a good way to think about  what the 9-5 environment is like.

 

 

Jonathan Eyler-Werve

Phone:  +1-202-449-8123

jonathan.eyler-werve@globalintegrity.org