Associate Manager, Communications, YouthTruth

The Opportunity

At YouthTruth, we equip education leaders and funders to integrate on-the-ground insights into planning, professional development, and improvement processes. For over 15 years, YouthTruth has led the movement to use research-backed survey instruments to learn from the student experience to improve by listening to student voice. As Associate Manager, you will have the opportunity to frame key messages that advance our mission of centering student voice and experiences to improve education. Your work will make a difference through writing stories and spreading the word about how listening to students influences schools, districts, and funders to improve education and the lives of young people.

Position Overview

Reporting to the Director of Research & Learning, working alongside our Creative Director, and as a member of the external relations team, the Associate Manager works to amplify YouthTruth's public voice to engage our audiences, support business development, and promote YouthTruth's brand, values, and point of view. Your work will raise YouthTruth's public profile, elevate student voices in national conversations, and share stories of impact with a wide range of diverse audiences.

Key Responsibilities

• Writing, co-writing, and editing YouthTruth content to be used for website copy, email messages, blog posts, op‐eds, case studies, social media content, and more.
• Leading media relations, outreach and campaigns for all research releases, including writing compelling press releases, distributing them over the wire, and crafting targeted story pitches.
• Periodically reviewing YouthTruth's core messaging architecture and codifying changes through internal management tools and team socialization.
• Writing content, establishing and managing clear timelines and review cycles for key colleagues, and executing dissemination of communications products.
• Tracking, analyzing, and learning about how YouthTruth audiences are engaging with our content, including monitoring our website analytics, and making recommendations based on insights.
• Project management, including creating and overseeing project timelines, tasks, and team protocols.
• Coordinate marketing needs with external vendors, including ads and printed materials.

Candidate Profile

We're looking for someone who:

• Is passionate about education and believes in the power of student voice to improve schools.
• Loves creating content with nuanced attention to tone, voice, and narrative arc.
• Is a strong writer with the ability to develop excellent first drafts independently and incorporate feedback by managing clear and planned review cycles with multiple individuals.
• Has ideas about how to get the right messages in front of the right people and is skilled at communicating with different audiences in diverse mediums.
• Is an avid consumer of education and education-adjacent media, staying up to date on key outlets, reporters, and narratives in both trade and mainstream press.
• Brings familiarity with the education field, including its key players, ongoing debates, and policy context—able to write and edit content that resonates with practitioners, policymakers, and funders.
• Has demonstrated strong writing, editing, and storytelling abilities.
• Brings the confidence and poise to interact with senior education leaders and funders, and the discernment to surface stories that align with our mission and demonstrate our impact.
• Has experience interpreting and writing about data and co-authoring content including reports, case studies, marketing emails, op-eds, and blog posts.
• Is a self-starter who can work both independently and collaboratively, motivated by team goals.
• A minimum of 7 years of relevant communications and or marketing work experience, including navigating cross-functional collaboration and managing up to drive complex projects forward in fast-paced, high-growth nonprofit or startup environments.

Position Requirements

• A Bachelor’s degree and at least seven years of relevant work experience.
• Outstanding communication skills. Strong writing and editing skills with keen attention to detail.
• Experience representing mission-aligned work on social media platforms.
• Familiarity with Microsoft suite, Salesforce, Pardot, Looker Studio, Canva, Mail Merge for Outlook, Google Tools, Creative Commons, and WordPress preferred; desire to learn new tools and pick them up quickly required.
• Experience managing multiple deadlines and juggling multiple work streams while adapting quickly in a fast‐paced environment.
• Comfort with ambiguity and ability to remain flexible in response to business needs of a growing team.
• A self‐directed learner and doer who can work independently and collaboratively, motivated by team goals.
• A work ethic consistent with the CEP/YouthTruth organizational culture: thoughtful, commitment to client confidentiality, and demonstrates the highest level of personal integrity and commitment to excellence.

We believe diversity and inclusion are key drivers of creativity and innovation, and we actively seek out candidates from many types of diverse backgrounds to apply for this exciting role.

Our nonprofit model is central to our identity: our bottom line is impact, not profit. Yet even as a nonprofit, we successfully compete for top talent across both the public and private sectors and offer competitive compensation and benefits including:

• A commitment to pay parity and salary equity. The 2025 annual base salary for this position is $116,347. In addition, this role is eligible for competitive Performance Based Incentive Compensation.
• Comprehensive health, vision, and dental insurance plans.
• Generous paid time off plan, including three weeks of annually accrued vacation, up to 15 holidays, plus an end-of-year break.
• 401(k) plan with a 1:1 Employer Match up to 5% of total compensation.
• Generous annual personal professional development allowance.
• Flexible spending and dependent care tax free savings plans.
• Life insurance covered 100% by the organization.

We strive to balance in-person time with flexibility and the needs of each person, their team, and the larger organization. We believe culture, collaboration, communication, trust- and relationship-building, training, and certain kinds of creative work benefit from in-office interactions – and we believe that the flexibility of remote work also has many advantages. We expect staff to be in the office at least two days per week, and more frequently during new staff introduction periods to support a robust orientation. Everyone will enjoy the option to work fully remotely from anywhere four weeks per year.