Responsibilities

• Manage the editorial calendar and owned content
• Write, build, and send CDI's higher education newsletter, and produce the blog, maintaining a reliable publishing cadence, growing our audience over time, and holding a high bar for quality, accuracy, and on-message voice.
• Run a single, unified organic social calendar across brand, executive, and thought-leadership content, coordinating contributions from across the team to grow reach and engagement.
• Collaborate with Partnerships and Marketing to align communications initiatives with other key workstreams such as webinars and conferences, tailor content for target segments, and sequence content for outsized pipeline impact.
• Turn CDI's research (white papers, briefs, studies) into a full family of related content, blog posts, op-ed drafts, social posts, and newsletter features, maximizing the reach of each release.
• Draft and package thought-leadership content while our subject-matter experts provide the underlying substance.
• Coordinate production timelines with the Impact team and our subject-matter experts so content ships on time without overloading contributors.
• Help build and maintain CDI's press lists, draft pitches, and support the VP in securing media coverage.
• Track and log CDI's media coverage and mentions, contributing to CDI's earned-media goals.
• Build more direct media relationships over time, as your familiarity with CDI's work grows.

Requirements

• An experienced comms professional. You bring 5+ years in communications, content marketing, editorial, or journalism, ideally in a mission-driven, B2B, higher education, or advocacy context, with a portfolio of published work across formats (newsletters, articles or blogs, social, long-form).
• A strong editorial operator (our top priority). You think in calendars, cadences, and systems, and you can keep many pieces of content moving at once without dropping quality or missing deadlines. You have thrived in a startup or scrappy environment, driving execution independently while building for scale.
• An exceptional writer and editor. You produce clear, accurate, on-message content across many formats, and you do it fast, with a sharp editorial eye.
• A sharp cross-functional collaborator. You work fluidly across subject-matter experts, marketing, and partnerships colleagues, and you keep work on track without constant direction.
• Media-aware. You understand what makes a story newsworthy and are comfortable drafting pitches and building press relationships. Direct media experience is a plus.
• Brand- and design-minded. You have a strong eye, can direct external designers, and can maintain templates and standards that keep a brand consistent. Canva experience a plus.
• Politically astute and mission-aligned. You have the judgment to communicate constructively and credibly across ideological lines, you understand why nonpartisan restraint matters as much as visibility, and you are genuinely motivated by CDI's mission. Familiarity with the higher education landscape is a plus.
• Fluent with tools, and with AI. You are comfortable with content and marketing tools (a CMS, an email platform such as HubSpot, social schedulers), and you use modern AI tools to accelerate drafting and production while treating human editing and judgment as non-negotiable, especially on sensitive topics.

Preferred

• Brand- and design-minded. You have a strong eye, can direct external designers, and can maintain templates and standards that keep a brand consistent. Canva experience a plus.
• Politically astute and mission-aligned. You have the judgment to communicate constructively and credibly across ideological lines, you understand why nonpartisan restraint matters as much as visibility, and you are genuinely motivated by CDI's mission. Familiarity with the higher education landscape is a plus.
• Fluent with tools, and with AI. You are comfortable with content and marketing tools (a CMS, an email platform such as HubSpot, social schedulers), and you use modern AI tools to accelerate drafting and production while treating human editing and judgment as non-negotiable, especially on sensitive topics.
• Media-aware. You understand what makes a story newsworthy and are comfortable drafting pitches and building press relationships. Direct media experience is a plus.

Benefits

• Compensation — $85,000-$95,000
• A Mission-Driven Culture — our work culture genuinely reflects our mission, characterized by intellectual humility, continuous improvement, and open-mindedness
• Remote-First — CDI was founded as a remote-first organization, and we work hard to maintain a strong team culture across vast distances
• Unlimited PTO — as well as 13 company holidays
• Remote Work Support — up to $500 reimbursed for home office equipment (like desks, chairs, or webcams) and up to $50/month reimbursed for home internet or cell phone expenses
• Other Benefits — employer-supported health, vision and dental plans, subsidized parental leave, 3% 401k match, short- and long-term disability insurance, life and AD&D insurance, $1,000 annual professional development budget
• Role Specs
• - Reports to: VP of Strategic Communications
• - Direct Reports: None
• - Schedule: Full-time, flexible within U.S. time zones