Communications Associate

Communications Associate, Education

Redwood City, CA

Founded by Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg in 2015, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is a new kind of philanthropy that’s leveraging technology to help solve some of the world’s toughest challenges – from eradicating disease, to improving education, to reforming the criminal justice system. Across three core Initiative focus areas of Science, Education and Justice and Opportunity, we’re pairing engineering with grantmaking, impact investing, policy work, and movement building, to help build an inclusive, just and healthy future for everyone.

Our Values

We believe we can help build a future for everyone.

We aim to be daring, but humble: We look for bold ideas — regardless of structure and stage — and help them scale by pairing engineers with subject matter experts to build tools that accelerate the pace of social progress.

We want to learn fast, but build for the long-term: We want to iterate fast and help bring new solutions to the table, but we also realize that important breakthroughs often take decades, or even centuries.

Stay close to the real problems: We engage directly in the communities we serve because no one understands our society’s challenges like those who live them every day.

Our success is dependent on building teams that include people from different backgrounds and experiences who can challenge each other's assumptions with fresh perspectives. To that end, we look for a diverse pool of applicants including those from historically marginalized groups — women, people with disabilities, people of color, formerly incarcerated people, people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or gender nonconforming, first and second generation immigrants, veterans, and people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

The Opportunity

The CZI Education team works to ensure that every child enters adulthood able to recognize and realize their full potential. Our goal is to empower more teachers and school leaders to create learning environments that meet the unique needs, interests, and learning preferences of each child while supporting them as a whole person during four key areas of their academic careers: kindergarten readiness, third grade literacy, smooth transition to high school, and postsecondary success.

We’re looking for a Communications Associate to support the work of the communications team in sharing our education work with grantee partners, policy leaders, media, and the public. The ideal candidate has an exceptional grounding in planning small and large events, experience in policy and advocacy efforts, and a love of people. Experience in philanthropy or development is a plus but not necessary. You should also be comfortable with a morphing environment and be collaborative, hungry to learn, nimble and proactive about figuring out how to make things happen and create new systems and processes.

You will

Plan events and engagements for educators, researchers, nonprofit advocates, technologists, philanthropic leaders and many more (e.g. conferences, workshops, panels, bus tours, reporter roundtables, sponsorship events, etc.)

Work with the policy team to plan key meetings and school visits for traveling senior leaders

Manage logistics for events ranging from small meetings of 12-18 people to large multi-day gatherings of over 200

Hire and manage vendors and consultants to support planning and execution of large events

Support grantee communications strategy to keep current and potential grantee partners updated and engaged on the priorities and perspectives of CZI Education (i.e., webinars, newsletters, email list maintenance and building, feedback collection)

Support media relations, including producing and managing dissemination of public-facing content under tight deadlines, including press releases, newsroom posts, statements, messaging guidance, talking points, social media content, op-eds, and blog posts

Create, re-format and review internal and external materials and presentations, maintaining CZI brand and style rules and consistency with key messages

Support the development of briefing memos under tight deadlines for education leadership speeches, presentations, media interviews and events

Support the development of annual, project-based, and organization-wide communications plans and projects such as CZI’s annual update of grants database

Communicate regularly with the CZI Education & Brand teams to ensure alignment and transparency on the communications team’s goals, tactics and progress, including sharing news coverage roundups, proactive announcements, and maintaining CZI Education and Brand communications calendars

You have

A minimum of 5 years of event planning experience, preferably in education, philanthropy, or public policy

Proven success owning and executing projects and project deadlines

Collaborated and coordinated with internal and external stakeholders

Exceptional written and verbal communication skills

Passion for promoting equal opportunity in education

Strong time management skills with ability to multitask and prioritize across projects

Experience working with nonprofits or government agencies in the areas of education, advocacy or community relations preferred