Deputy Creative Director, Social Media

CHICAGO, IL

About the Obama Foundation

At the Obama Foundation, we are guided by a core belief: that ordinary people working together can change history. Our mission is to inspire those people to take action, empower them to change their world for the better, and connect them so they can achieve more together than they can alone.

We were founded by community organizers, so when we seek change, we do it by bringing people together. 

That approach begins at home, on the South Side of Chicago, where we are building the Obama Presidential Center. The Center represents a historic opportunity for Chicago: a chance to build a world-class museum and public gathering space that celebrates our nation’s first African American President and First Lady, steps away from where he began his career, where she was raised, and where—together—they made their home. 

But that approach extends to all our work, whether it’s holding leadership training sessions in communities throughout the U.S., bringing local leaders together in countries around the world, working to support the global education of girls, or ensuring young men of color have pathways to opportunity.

As President Obama has said, “we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together.” So join us. 

For more information, please visit www.obama.org.

Purpose of the Role

The Deputy Creative Director, Social Media plays an integral role in the Foundation’s efforts to engage audiences in our mission and meet people where they are online. From enhancing the creativity and effectiveness of our owned and operated social media channels, to forging new strategic partnerships with platforms and creators, you’ll collaborate with teams across the organization to engage key audiences, with a particular focus on young people, and move them from hope to action at scale. A member of our growing Creative & Communications team, this is a management role that reports to our Creative Director.

Core Job Responsibilities

• Create memorable and engaging content: As we continue to inspire, empower, and connect people to change our world for the better, translate our mission, programs, and the vision for the Obama Presidential Center into a compelling social narrative that engages new and existing audiences.
• Evolve our voice: Working collaboratively across the Foundation, evolve our voice and strategy on social media to produce dynamic and creative content with the goal of inspiring audiences to act on the issues they care about most. 
• Expand our reach: Develop strategies to activate surrogates, ranging from staff and influencers to creators and corporate partners, to expand the reach of our mission; create systems and leverage platforms for making surrogate strategies turnkey.
• Build and execute strategic partnerships: Through mission-aligned collaborations and content distribution strategies, identify and engage with a range of partners with the goal of reaching new audiences and generating engagement.
• Manage social media team: Lead the Foundation’s social media team to deliver against strategic goals and to connect with priority audiences. Foster a positive team culture to unlock full potential and invest in team members development, growth, and mentorship.
• Develop integrated engagement strategies: Collaborate with teams on the development of strategies and executions for integrated campaign activations (including in-person events) with the goal of expanding our reach, making them more social media centric, generating enthusiasm for the Obama Presidential Center, and showcasing our efforts in Chicago to broader audiences online.
• Provide reporting and metrics: Lead efforts to establish data-driven goals to measure success with a focus on meaningful actions taken to create change. Collaborate with teams on goal setting, reporting, and continued iteration based on learnings.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Key Deliverables / Outcomes

• Social media strategy — Within 6 months, define and implement the Foundation’s social media strategy, including audience expansion and the development of a 5-year plan.  
• Surrogate activation plan — Within 3 months, define and develop a social media surrogate activation plan that scales
• Social media performance — Within 3 months, establish monitoring of our performance metrics and suggest improvements for continuous and rigorous focus on analytics in service of goals
• Social media calendar — Manage our short and long term social media calendar, bringing innovation to our storytelling and more connectedness with our broader campaign themes
• Evolve our social dialogue from one-way to two-way communication
• Foundation immersion — Develop a deep understanding of our programs and audiences; building strong working partnerships throughout the organization

Required Qualifications

• An experienced manager of people and process
• Proven track record of leading the creation of engaging and effective social media content; ideally for a high-profile brand or non-profit with a large audience
• Skilled at developing social strategies, including innovative approaches and partnerships to meet goals, grow audiences, and reach new targets
• An exceptional storyteller with expert command of the medium; always up-to-date on best practices and emerging platform capabilities
• Operates effectively in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment — moving seamlessly between strategy, concept and detail-oriented, hands-on execution