VP, Growth Investments

The American Journalism Project (AJP) is seeking a Vice President of Growth Investments to serve as a strategic partner and coach to leaders of news organizations in the AJP portfolio across the country. In this role, you will build trusted relationships with CEOs, leadership teams, and boards of some of the nation’s largest nonprofit local newsrooms—helping them set and execute ambitious growth strategies while leveraging the insights, resources, and collective expertise of AJP’s national portfolio.

As a steward of AJP’s multimillion-dollar investment portfolio, you will support organizations in scaling their impact—often doubling or tripling revenue—while strengthening long-term sustainability. You will work alongside leaders to unlock new sources of philanthropic and community investment, positioning their organizations as essential, enduring institutions in their markets.

This is a unique opportunity to play a leadership role in a growing national movement to rebuild local news—ensuring communities across the country have access to trusted information through organizations that are both independent and financially sustainable.

Who we are

We’re a small but entrepreneurial team working to re-shape the future of local news in our country. We’re passionate about journalism, civic engagement, and how local news plays a unique role in shaping our democracy. We help build and grow sustainable local news organizations all over the country — through financial investment, venture support, and movement building — that are governed by, sustained by, and look like the public they serve. Learn about our portfolio. 

AJP has raised over $240 million for the cause so far, and aims to catalyze enough investment in nonprofit local news to create thriving, equitable, public service-oriented newsrooms that increase civic engagement and make communities work better for their residents.

Our team is deeply connected to our mission and supportive of each others’ goals and overall well-being. We aim to be an organization where everyone feels heard, respected, and valued. We are an entirely remote, distributed team and strive to maintain a healthy, fun, and productive workplace, working alongside smart, energetic colleagues who enjoy one another and the work. Meet our full team.

Our values

• Local First: We know that local journalism must serve and be led by local communities. We make a practice of listening to, and making decisions with – not for – those communities, and connecting them to find strength in each other. 
• Bold Leadership: We understand the severe economic challenge facing local news and thus democracy, and we embrace a sense of possibility with courage, urgency, and perseverance.
• Constant Learning: We recognize the unknown in front of us. Therefore, we operate with humility and a commitment to continuous improvement and collaboration.
• Commitment to Equity: We commit to creating a better, more diverse, and more inclusive news media that advances human and civil rights. We actively fight against injustice and racism, and that starts with doing the work ourselves.
• Integrity: We accept the responsibility of earning trust every day. We operate with honesty, transparency, dignity, and respect, and without allegiance to party, ideology, profit, or power.

Your team

The Growth Investments team is dedicated to strengthening the nonprofit news sector nationwide. We identify high-potential nonprofit news organizations across the United States, invest catalytic capital to accelerate their revenue growth, and provide hands-on coaching and support to help them reach their full potential. Our goal is to position every grantee to become a best-in-class local institution—equipped with the sustainable resources needed to serve their communities’ information needs at scale. This position reports to the Senior VP of Growth Investments.

Compensation & benefits

Our total compensation package is competitive in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, and we are committed to supporting our team with what they need to show up every day ready to bolster the local press our democracy deserves.

We benchmark our salaries against similar organizations, and use a scale that considers job complexity and magnitude of responsibility to determine role levels and corresponding base salaries, as well as regular cost-of-living adjustments.

The salary range for this position is $175,239 – $192,763

Read about our benefits here.

The position

The VP, Growth Investments is a critical role at AJP that leads our work in ensuring our portfolio of organizations are on track to meet ambitious growth targets and deliver more impact for their communities. This role is a coach, an orchestrator, a steward, and a movement builder. You will be charged with working with a selection of grantees; providing excellent coaching, support, and leadership development to executive leaders in your portfolio of grantees; and ensuring we are building community, insights and resources from across our grantee portfolio to inform the broader field. You will also work directly with grantees on building the philanthropic movement for local news in their markets and will be accountable for ensuring that grantees meet their revenue goals while achieving their vision for impact.

This role sits at the intersection of philanthropy, entrepreneurship, and journalism. You’ll collaborate with leaders who are transforming how local communities stay informed and connected, ensuring AJP’s investments yield strong, lasting outcomes. Your work will directly influence the future of local news — helping communities in America access trusted, independent journalism.

Specific responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Leading regular, ongoing and strategic conversations with executives at our portfolio organizations about maximizing their organizational assets and overcoming challenges to growth, including staffing, organizational structure and culture, fundraising, earned revenue, audience, board leadership, and local movement building.
• Serving as the primary co-conspirator for growth plans by collaborating on strategic plans to grow revenue by millions of dollars for news organizations in your portfolio.
• Designing strong support plans that leverage the AJP staff of specialists and experts (including yourself), consultants, peer organizations, and others to provide best in class support for grantees in one to one or group settings, virtually or in person.
• Collaborating with other members of the Growth Investments team to build community across content areas and design learning and venture resource experiences alongside our Portfolio Learning and Specialized Support teams to advance grantees’ knowledge and skills.
• Actively networking in the local journalism ecosystem, building external relationships and a pipeline of current and future grantees, and pursuing strategic opportunities for new growth investments.
• Stewarding the leadership of new grantee organizations into our portfolio in a way that meets all technical requirements, builds a trusting relationship, and sets clear expectations for both the grantee and AJP.
• Collecting and amplifying examples, stories and learning from your grantee portfolio that will benefit the larger grantee portfolio.
• Developing resources either by yourself or collaboratively with other experts.

Who you are

We know not all strong candidates will have all the skills we list. That’s OK. Research shows that women and people of color are less likely to apply for a position if they don’t meet every skill listed. At AJP, we are committed to creating a better, more diverse, and more inclusive news ecosystem, and that starts with doing the work ourselves. So if your past experience doesn’t align perfectly, but you know this is the role for you – please tell us! 

• Fluent in business development and revenue generation, with real world experience you can leverage as you work with organizations to outline their organizational and revenue growth plans. 
• Proven ability to coach and develop CEOs, Executive Directors and their senior business and operations leadership teams, supporting them to accelerate  revenue growth, lead change, and strengthen their teams.
• Experience diagnosing opportunities and challenges to organizational growth and creating actionable plans to maximize potential.
• Demonstrated success increasing significant revenue in one or more of the following: sales, marketing, partnerships, and/or fundraising — and the ability to help others do the same.
• Experience building and maintaining external relationships that result in sustained revenue growth.
• Experience working in or with nonprofit news organizations, with a track record of finding and delivering sustained financial resources for those organizations.
• An understanding and fluency in fundraising and donor relationships from both sides of the donor/recipient relationship is strongly preferable.
• A depth of understanding of growth planning, execution, organizational development, and/or continuous improvement techniques.
• Senior leadership experience in the context of either a news organization or a nonprofit organization is required; experience as a CEO, Executive Director orChief Revenue Officer strongly preferred.
• The ability to influence and build trust at all levels of an organization.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to synthesize large amounts of information and clearly communicate key insights, with a strong grasp of business concepts and numbers; must be a persuasive communicator.
• An understanding of the value of trust-building and community representation in workplaces, newsrooms, and coverage; willingness to learn and coach others through operationalizing fair and people-centered practices.
• Meticulous attention to detail and accuracy in documentation.

This role might be a fit if you are…

• Energized by coaching and advising senior leaders, drawing on your own leadership experience to accelerate their growth and confidence.
• Excited to apply your hands-on experience growing revenue to help news organizations reach ambitious, sustainable scale.
• A strategic thinker and innovative problem-solver who enjoys finding solutions even when there’s no clear playbook.
• Intellectually curious and adaptive, with a proven ability to drive organizational change and growth.
• Highly empathetic and collaborative — you love mentoring, inspiring, and partnering with others to achieve shared success.
• Comfortable in environments where feedback is freely given and received, and where experimentation and learning are part of the work.
• Personally accountable and results-oriented, with strong situational management skills (including managing up, laterally, and down).
• Enthusiastic about tackling challenges in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment that rewards creativity, adaptability, and continuous learning.
• Passionate about making the country a better, more equitable, and just place by helping to build a new local news ecosystem across the U.S.
• Ready to travel as needed while thriving in a remote organization (we estimate this person would need to travel approximately 6–10 times a year).

What to expect in the hiring process

Our approach to hiring is to create a consistent and transparent process for all candidates. We hope to fill this role as soon as possible, though the hiring process can typically take from a few weeks to several months. We will do our best to communicate with you about timing expectations throughout the process.

Candidates who advance to later rounds of this process can expect multiple interviews with members of our hiring committee. Semi-finalists will be asked to complete a hiring exercise designed to help us understand your thinking and approach to the role, and you will be offered an optional prep session to ask any questions that will help you put your best foot forward in this process. We aim to truly get to know you, to help you fully understand the role you’re applying for, and to get to know your prospective team.

Please submit an application through our portal. Download the full job description here. If you have any questions please feel free to email careers@theajp.org with “VP, Growth Investments” in the subject line.

The American Journalism Project is dedicated to equal employment opportunities for all applicants and employees. AJP encourages people of all races, colors, national origins, ancestries, creeds, religions, genders, ages, disabilities, veteran status, sexual orientations, and marital statuses to apply. 

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