The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation of Florida seeks a Deputy Communications Director, Digital. The Deputy Communications Director, Digital works closely with the Communications Director and Digital team to achieve the organization’s goal of protecting the liberties that define our democracy. This position can be remote or be located in one of the organization’s offices in Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville or Tallahassee and includes some travel.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida is an affiliate of the national ACLU, a national public interest organization devoted to the defense of the Bill of Rights. For over 100 years, the ACLU has served as the nation’s primary protector of the liberties that define our democracy. The organization implements its vital civil liberties mission in all 50 states in large part through affiliate entities such as the ACLU of Florida. Operating out of six offices—Miami (main), Tampa, Pensacola, Orlando, Tallahassee, and Jacksonville—the Florida affiliate has a budget of over $8 million and 55 staff members, placing it among the larger ACLU affiliates in the nation.
The ACLU of Florida, the state’s largest civil rights and civil liberties organization, employs litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education to protect and promote a broad range of constitutional values and individual rights, such as freedom of speech, racial justice, right to privacy, religious liberty, criminal justice reform, voting rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, disability rights, and immigrants’ rights. The ACLU of Florida litigates a broad range of complex constitutional cases in federal and state courts through direct representation, filing amicus briefs, and submitting administrative complaints to state and federal agencies.
POSITION OVERVIEW
The ACLU of Florida’s Communications Department leads the media and digital communications for the organization. The department works to drive conversations around civil rights and civil liberties and enhance public understanding and support for our issues. We accomplish this by working with high-impact media, launching multimedia advocacy campaigns, releasing reports and research, and running the organization’s websites and digital channels.
Reporting to the Communications Director, the Deputy Communications Director, Digital will manage the organization's digital team and strategy, including email, social media, the website, graphic design, and other digital platforms. They will be responsible for creating emails and mobilization campaigns on priority issue areas across the organization with direction and support from their team. The Deputy Communications Director, Digital will supervise members of the digital team, including the Digital Strategist, Graphic Designer, and Digital Storyteller, to produce and deploy campaigns to increase social media engagement, expand engagement through a curated email marketing strategy, and support the organization’s policy goals through targeted advocacy efforts.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Leads all aspects of digital work at the ACLU of Florida, including developing and deploying digital campaigns, and leverages best practices related to email outreach.
- Applies and uses digital tools and techniques to produce communications media on a variety of platforms and products, i.e., informative web content, social media presence, online petition campaigns, electronic forms development/management, email subscriber communications
- Develops the organization’s emails for supporters and donors. Code and test responsive HTML and CSS emails using email marketing software.
- Develops a robust email marketing strategy to increase engagement with ACLU supporters.
- Develops a robust digital media strategy for social media, web, graphic design, and video, to increase engagement, action-takers, and audience building.
- Helps develop and execute compelling digital campaigns that drive supporters to take action and donate to the ACLU of Florida.
- With support from their team, implement A/B and multivariate split tests across email, web, and assist with reporting
- Works cross-departmentally as well as with vendors, consultants and contractors to produce digital and email campaigns.
- Contributes to a culture of continuous, data-driven learning and evaluation.
- Maintains weekly analytics reporting and identifying campaigns that require a closer look.
- Develops new tools and templates to increase production efficiency for the Digital team.
- Engages in collaborative planning efforts with the communications team to design digital media outputs, products, and services that expand visibility, outreach, and engagement efforts of the ACLU in the local and broader communities
- Supervises the production of online advocacy forms, donation forms, event forms, and other campaign landing pages.
- Supports their team in identifying opportunities for high-impact digital engagement and advocacy campaigns through email, web, and social media on our advocacy, programmatic, and legislative work, and to generate email lists and social media audience growth.
- Monitors, responds to, and completes production requests as assigned by the Communications Director
- Ensures ACLU of Florida messages are accurately and professionally delivered through reviewing, editing, and approving the release of news stories, interviews, and feature articles to local, state, and national media resources and outlets
- Leads and facilitates internal and cross-departmental collaboration in development and implementation of digital campaigns and public education initiatives to advance ACLU of Florida priorities in both the local and broader communities
SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Provides support, coaching, training, and guidance to the organization’s digital team including, the Digital Strategist, Graphic Designer and Digital Storyteller and other colleagues as needed.
- Provides day-to-day leadership and management to further the ACLU of Florida mission and core values and improve the organization’s structure, systems, staffing, and overall governance to achieve maximum effectiveness
- Works closely with senior staff, affiliates, and the broader ACLU community to ensure unified programs, common long-term objectives, and cohesion in communications initiatives
- Demonstrates proven leadership in a multi-disciplinary organization with multiple offices and coalition partners in diverse communities
- Reviews and evaluates work methods and procedures and meets with management staff to identify and resolve problems
- Assesses and monitors workload; identifies opportunities for improvement and implements changes
- Selects, trains, motivates, and evaluates personnel; provides or coordinates staff training;
- Participates in the development and administration of the departmental budget; approves expenditures and implements budgetary adjustments as appropriate and necessary under the direction of the Communications Director
- Develops and maintains documentation of team processes and workflows for production. Assesses and monitors workload; identifies opportunities for improvement and implements changes.
- A Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience and a minimum of five years of experience in digital marketing, online campaigning, or related fields.
- Proficient using HTML and CSS to code responsive emails. Experience drafting, editing, and executing email marketing campaigns is required.
- Familiarity with a range of online campaigning tools, tactics and strategies.
- Excellent verbal, writing, and interpersonal communication skills; strong attention to detail, ability to write and deliver work products under deadlines, and commitment to high-quality standards.
- Prior experience managing an agency, non-profit or organization’s social media and web platform;
- Experience getting supporters to take action for advocacy campaigns including petitions, letter-writing, texts, and calls.
- Constituent relationship management (CRM) system and email marketing platform experience required. Drupal, Springboard, Wordpress, and Sailthru experience preferred.
- Supervisory experience; or an equivalent combination of education, certification, training, and/or experience.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Unwavering commitment to the mission and goals of the ACLU of Florida, including a demonstrated commitment to equity and racial justice
- Knowledge of current/emerging digital content and production strategies, tools, and technologies
- Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite programs is preferred.
- Skill in writing and editing complex spoken, written, or otherwise articulated information and material into concise, accurate, and accessible formats
- Skill in the use of Microsoft Office products is preferred.
- Skill in using Asana or another product management software is preferred.
- The ability to thrive under deadline pressures.
- Ability to work effectively across multiple issue areas.
- Skill in adapting to a changing work environment, competing demands and ability to deal with frequent change, delays, or unexpected events
- Prior writing and editing experience translating complex legal material into accurate, accessible, and compelling messaging.
- Skill in developing, managing, and interpreting budgets, contracts, and fiscal and financial reports.
- Understanding of trends and best practices for communicating via email
- Experience working with and interpreting web, social, and email analytics preferred.
- A strong desire to test and learn, this includes a comfort with failure and a desire to learn from failures in order to improve.
- Excellent collaboration qualities, ability to work in a dynamic environment with a fast-paced and passionate team.
This job description provides a general but not comprehensive list of the essential responsibilities and qualifications required. It does not represent a contract of employment. The ACLU of Florida reserves the right to change the job description and/or posting at any time without advance notice. Employees may also perform other duties as assigned.
Compensation will be commensurate with experience, within the range of $82,000 - $100,000. The ACLU of Florida provides excellent benefits, including health and dental insurance with generous vacation, holiday and sick leave policies, as well as a Defined Contribution 401K Retirement Plan. Base vacation leave is five weeks per year (and six weeks per year after five years).
Please send a cover letter, resume, by email to [email protected]. You may include samples of past work. All inquiries should include Deputy Communications Director, Digital in the subject line and all attachments should be in Microsoft Word or PDF format.
Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Please indicate where you learned of this job posting. No phone calls, please.
The ACLU of Florida is an equal opportunity employer. We value a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture. The ACLU of Florida encourages applications from all qualified individuals without regard to race, color, religion, gender, LGBTQIA+, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, disability, or veteran status. We encourage formerly incarcerated individuals to apply. If selected for an interview, please inquire if financial assistance is needed to attend.
At the ACLU of Florida, we value diversity, equality, equity, and inclusion and embrace the uniqueness of everyone. We seek to create a place of belonging where candidates of diverse backgrounds will be included, represented, and heard.
The ACLU of Florida makes every effort to assure that its recruitment and employment efforts provide persons with disabilities with full opportunities for employment in all positions.
The ACLU of Florida undertakes affirmative action strategies in its recruitment and employment efforts to assure that persons with disabilities have full opportunities for employment in all positions.