TechTonic Justice, Inc. National Communications Director Remote · Full time Company website

Apply for National Communications Director

Governments, landlords, employers, and other powerful actors use artificial intelligence (AI), algorithms, and related technologies to make decisions about how low-income people work, live, learn, and survive. When people are hurt by AI decision-making, they have few places to turn. TechTonic Justice exists to change this. TechTonic Justice fights the ground-level harms AI causes low-income communities. We do this mainly by supporting local justice movements--legal aid organizations, frontline service providers, grassroots organizers, and affected communities--to identify and fight harmful uses of AI. We emphasize a multidimensional advocacy approach that blends litigation, community activation and organizing, public education, and narrative advocacy. We are based in Los Angeles and offer our services nationwide, with emphasis on the South and the West Coast.

Organization: Governments, landlords, employers, and other powerful actors use artificial intelligence (AI), algorithms, and related technologies to make decisions about how low-income people work, live, learn, and survive. When people are hurt by AI decision-making, they have few places to turn. TechTonic Justice (TTJ) exists to change this. 

 

TTJ fights the ground-level injustice AI causes low-income communities by blending legal advocacy, community organizing, public education, and storytelling to (1) reduce immediate harms and (2) build the long-term power needed to win systemic protections. To these ends, we focus on and work with local justice movements--legal aid organizations, frontline service providers, grassroots organizers, civil rights advocates, and affected communities–to identify and resist harmful uses of AI. The primary substantive issue areas our work touches on are public benefits (primarily Medicaid, SNAP, Social Security, and Unemployment Insurance), K-12 education, workers’ rights, and housing. 

 

TTJ publicly launched in November 2024. The Communications Director will be the 13th member of our fast-growing team. We are inspired by dozens of collective years of justice work in the U.S. South with an ongoing commitment to the region, have teammates in several states/regions (California, the South, the DC area, and New England), offer services nationwide, and do state-level work in Arkansas and California.

Position Description and Responsibilities: The Communications Director is a permanent, full-time, remote role. Candidates must live in the continental U.S. (unfortunately, we cannot hire someone in Hawai’i or Alaska for this role) and, due to the many time zones involved, should anticipate working a schedule that maximizes availability between 9 am and 2 pm Pacific time. 

The Communications Director will ensure we communicate effectively to key national, state, and local audiences, prioritizing (1) low-income communities, (2) grassroots movement partners, (3) legal aid and frontline advocates, and their direct advocates in antipoverty efforts and grassroots movements, (4) policymakers, (5) professional policy advocates who are more distant from the ground, (6) institutional funders, and (7) targeted parts of the general public. The aim of all such communication is to build trust with our audiences so that we increase engagement with our issues and approach, expand the reach of our harm reduction efforts, strengthen our organizing, and maintain and expand funding opportunities. Successfully balancing various audiences, focuses, and purposes (e.g., state comms needs may differ from those of our national strategy) is a critical feature of the role. 

The Communications Director will develop and execute a strategy aligned with these priorities, understanding that we see the narrative landscape as a critical front in our multi-dimensional fight against AI injustice. Put otherwise, we want someone who sees themselves as an advocate whose primary tool (or weapon) is communications. 

The Communications Director will supervise TTJ’s Digital Manager, who manages our day-to-day social media work, and future Comms roles we may add. The senior-level position reports directly to TTJ’s President and includes the following activities: 

• Bolstering TTJ’s presence in traditional media through strategies that could include cultivating relationships with key reporters and outlets, proactively pitching stories and securing coverage, positioning TTJ staff as expert sources, and placing OpEds. 

• Bolstering “new media” presence by reaching influencers, streamers, podcasters, YouTubers, and related content creators and outlets and preparing our team to engage with them successfully. 

• Supervising and expanding our digital engagement efforts, including via social media (including text, photo, and video platform), partner toolkits, newsletters, webinars, our website, and alternative spaces, with particular focus on increasing audience size, intensifying audience engagement, and recruiting activated people into our digital organizing pipeline.

• Managing the design, graphics, and distribution of written work (e.g., guides, toolkits, frameworks, fact sheets, and reports). 

• Amplifying the reach and impact of a first-in-the-field model of a Story Fellow with a distinguished background in journalism.

• Building and institutionalizing TTJ’s Communications Department, including, among other activities, by developing operating procedures, cross-team information flows, appropriate performance indicators, a departmental spend budget, and relationships with ecosystem partners.  

• Otherwise strengthening organizational communications practices, whether by developing strategy, devising narrative campaigns, building more storytelling vehicles (e.g., audio, visual, animation, zines, etc.), executing plans, testing messages, training and supporting teammates, harmonizing language, or doing rapid-response work when appropriate.

Requirements: The successful candidate must possess the skills and experience needed to fulfill the responsibilities above, including the following: 

  

• Extensive experience working as a communications professional with high-stakes responsibilities meeting deadlines in a fast-paced environment, including at least modest experience supervising paid full-time teammates.

Note: To succeed in this role, we estimate that a person would need at least 8-10 years of experience and at least 2 years of supervisory experience, but these are not strict thresholds. Candidates with modestly less experience who otherwise meet the qualifications should apply. However, this is not a role for junior comms professionals or people who need significant professional growth to perform well.  

• Experience thriving in a dynamic start-up environment where (a) systems and processes are still being built and refined, (b) immediate needs and timelines may shift, and (c) teammates must flexibly adapt their role.  

• Extensive networks among some collection of (a) established journalists and news outlets, (b) “new media” creators and platforms, and (c) social change organizations or movements, with concrete plans to build out missing networks. 

• Deep familiarity with current topics, trends, and personalities sufficient to take advantage of often-narrow windows of cultural relevance.       

• Outstanding writing skills. 

• A strong sense of visual design and experience working iteratively with and managing graphic designers.  

• Skills and experience to work independently with minimal supervision, including the ability to (a) see organizational needs and proactively seek out potential responses, (b) exercise good situational judgment, (c) execute important tasks with exquisite attention to detail and few preventable errors, (d) synthesize complex topics into digestible written work product requiring minimal revisions, and (e) the discernment to know when to ask questions and seek support.

• Significant experience in justice-focused work in a nonprofit or nonprofit-adjacent environment, preferably within anti-poverty, tech justice, or civil rights ecosystems.

Note: We understand that relatively few people have existing expertise in the anti-poverty, tech justice, and civil rights fields. We do not expect that the Communications Director will possess all of the needed substantive expertise upon starting. We will provide the time, support, and individualized attention needed to learn. But, we also expect that a Director-level professional has the initiative and acumen to learn and communicate effectively about our issue areas reasonably quickly. 

• Empathy, righteous fury, and a sense of humor.

• Collaborative spirit, cultural competence, and the skills needed to work affirmingly with diverse teammates, partners, coalition members, consultants,  and the communities we exist to serve.

• Comfort articulating the intersections between poverty, race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, language, age, disability, and related characteristics.

Desired but not required:

• The ability to create compelling graphic designs.

Be Encouraged to Apply

If you meet many, but not all, of the requirements, please still consider applying or email us to ask about where you fall short. 

We encourage applications from Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, women, LGBTQI+ people, people with disabilities, formerly incarcerated people, and people most impacted by systemic injustice.

Employment decisions are made based on qualifications and organizational needs, without regard to race, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, citizenship status, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any protected characteristic under applicable law.

Salary: $120K-$140K, depending on experience. Current budget projections anticipate annual cost-of-living salary increases. Service time raises are anticipated but still to be determined. The position is exempt. Employment is at-will.

Schedule Flexibility: TechTonic Justice will allow flexibility in scheduling regular work hours to fit the successful candidate’s personal situation, including health needs or caregiving responsibilities. This flexibility will be limited by reasonable organizational needs, including sufficient availability for internal and external meetings. Candidates should anticipate working a schedule that maximizes availability between 9 am and 2 pm Pacific time (with some flexibility). Candidates should also anticipate regular deviation from scheduled work hours to complete deadline-driven projects. 

 

*** Presently, we do not anticipate offering regular four-day workweeks. ***

Benefits: The benefits package presently includes (1) 100% of the employee’s platinum-level medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance, (2) 50% of dependents’ medical, dental, and vision, (3) an automatic contribution by TTJ of 4% of annual salary to a Vanguard 403(b) retirement account that vests after one year (employees may also contribute), (4) unlimited paid time off, subject to approval by leadership in accordance with relevant operational considerations, (5) monthly internet reimbursement up to $75, and (6) a professional development fund of $1,500. 

Travel: Anticipate about 2 to 4 trips per year, plus 2 in-person staff retreats. TechTonic Justice covers mileage, airfare, hotels, meals, and other necessary travel costs. 

To apply: Submit the following via our Careers page by 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on August 16. Late applications will not be considered.  Please include the following: 

 

• In lieu of a cover letter, please respond to these questions in the application portal (please, no AI-generated answers): 
• Up to 150 words: What specifically about TechTonic Justice’s mission and approach interest you? How will joining us advance our work and your career development? 
• Up to 200 words: Please describe in detail your experience fighting for justice through narrative advocacy. Please include specific examples of campaigns and explain how your work contributed to whatever success you achieved. 
• Up to 150 words: What differences do you perceive between your past communication experiences and communicating about AI injustice with an anti-poverty lens? How does your experience prepare you to succeed here? 
• Up to 100 words: Is there other information relevant to your candidacy, including from your resume, that you want to expand on? 

• Resume of up to 5 pages. 

• Relevant writing sample of public-facing work of up to 5 pages, plus up to 1 page of explanatory context needed to orient the reader. 

• One up-to-4-minute sample of “new media” content (e.g., placements with influencers, streamers, podcasters, YouTubers, etc.--not a social media post) you created or contributed to with up to 1 page of explanatory context. Please include working links and relevant time markers. 

Process: TTJ aims to review all applications within two weeks of the application deadline. The most promising applicants will be selected for a first interview likely to happen in early-to-mid September. The most promising interviewees will be selected for a second interview likely to happen within two weeks of the first round closing. We will check finalists’ references and may ask finalists to complete a short exercise. We may conduct a third round of interviews if needed. We plan to extend an offer by early October with a likely start date in late October or early November. 

 

Accommodations: We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities during the application process and after hiring. Please write [email protected] to request any needed accommodations. 

 

Questions:  Please submit any questions to [email protected]. Please do not call unless needed for purposes of accommodations.