Posted On: July 3, 2018

Media-Related Job

Media Organization: Future Laboratories

Company Description

Overview of Future Laboratories & The Future Project

Future Laboratories and The Future Project are two rapidly scaling organizations aiming to unleash the creativity, passion, and unbridled potential of people for the good of humanity.

Future Laboratories is a startup that aspires to become society’s R&D department. Just as Bell Labs came to life a century ago to pursue the technical moonshots of their times, Future Laboratories exists to pursue moonshots for humanity. We’re growing brilliant teams made up of pragmatic idealists across every imaginable discipline who aren’t afraid to envision a new future and bring it to life. But we don’t just dream big – we translate these new ideas into tangible projects with the structure and resources to actually come to life. Sometimes the outcome is a product, policy, or public campaign. Sometimes it’s a company, concept, or category not yet invented. Armed with our curiosity, our passion, and some incredible people, our ambition is to be the most effective and reliable team for changing the world for the better.

Future Laboratories grew out of The Future Project, one of the fastest-growing nonprofits in America, dedicated to unleashing the possibility and power of young people to change the world. The Future Project came together in partnership with some of the most visionary educators, leaders, and young people in America. Together we built an innovative service for schools by employing our unique method that combines the best scientifically supported techniques from across multiple research domains to build will and skill in students and transform school culture. To date, we’ve launched programs in schools nationwide—impacting 30,000 young people—and have built a diverse national community committed to the mission of youth empowerment in the process.

For both organizations, the ultimate aim is to make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time, and while we will celebrate progress along the way, nothing less will suffice over the long run. Given advances in technology, more human willpower than ever before, and momentum around thinking anew about how to truly change the world, radical improvement is more possible than ever before.

Job Description

As Director of Correspondence, you will be accountable for…
Executive Office Communications Strategy (10-15%)
Work directly with the CEO, Chief of Staff and Sr. Executive Assistant on the development of a proactive and reactive strategic outreach and communication strategy for the CEO in alignment with related travel schedules, organizational strategy needs/inflection points, etc.
Work directly with the CEO, Chief of Staff, Creative Director and Management team to support the development of communications strategy for the Executive Office, focused on CEO related external facing communications with a focus on relationship building, partnership cultivation and stakeholder engagement.
Collaborate with the Creative Director and Director, Partnerships to identify opportunities for “think pieces” to highlight the organization through leveraging the CEO’s voice and related content strategy and development.

Correspondence Content Drafting & Management (60-70%)
Create a correspondence system to monitor, categorize, prioritize, draft and manage internal and external communication streams for the CEO, including inbound and outbound written communication and follow-ups (email and handwritten, as appropriate), organization-wide memos/updates, social media presence, etc.
Liaise with function owners to understand which CEO-related external communications need to be launched on behalf of the CEO, and support content creation with the CEO voice in mind.
Meet with the CEO consistently to identify and prioritize communication needs; action needs, as appropriate with a high sense of urgency.
Take and/or process CEO dictations/memos to draft content for organization-wide and personal communications from the voice of the CEO.
Work with the CEO to hone and develop written communication voice and tone to ensure the ability to effectively curate drafts. Work at a high-pace to take dictation, turn around drafts and meet other highly sensitive related deadlines.
In collaboration with the Executive Assistant, monitor communication flows and tweak systems, as appropriate.
Leverage organizational content knowledge experts to curate content with the appropriate information and detail based on stakeholder interests and needs; maintain relationships with organization-wide stakeholders to improve information flow from teams/content knowledge experts into CEO-related communications.
Meet and exceed communication related goals (set daily); work collaboratively with the Chief of Staff and Executive Assistant to manage communication deadlines and receive input on drafts to finalize communications rapidly.

Special Projects & Administration (10-20%)
Provide in-house copywriting broadly in support of marketing materials, bespoke one-page overviews, decks, and other similar assets.
Provide strategic support on internal communications platform design and systems to enhance internal communication efficiencies and communications (e.g. Slack).
We're looking for someone who...
Is an experienced writer and editor who has proven success distilling, synthesizing, and producing clear, compelling content across email, publications, etc.
Is detail-oriented and has proofreading skills in grammar, spelling, and style that are absolutely second nature.
Is an impeccably organized and can write in different styles across media such as emails, marketing materials, etc.
Is extremely skilled in the nuances of relationships, especially in management and administration.
Is extremely conscientious of sensitive information and has proven experience in roles that require high levels of confidentiality.
Is a creative thinker who is skilled at crafting ideas, taking a generally vague note and boiling it down to its essence to propose a more specific message or direction.
Believes in the power of leveraging voice to build and play a key part of a brand identity.
Ideal candidates may have a professional background as...
A copywriter, speechwriter, or similar role that has the skills and interest to master someone else's voice to make a compelling pitch or launch a new product.
A skilled writer who has had ghostwriting experience on behalf of a CEO or other externally-facing executive leaders.
A journalist, or have other communications experience that they would like to apply to the social impact space.
There are many backgrounds, industries, and life experiences that give rise to leaders who can manage effectively. Backgrounds in science, business, technology, engineering, government, media, and design - or hybrids thereof - may all yield the right experiences for this role.

The Future Laboratories team is based in New York City, at our new HQ located on Union Square West.

To Apply

Apply directly at: https://jobs.lever.co/futurelaboratori/afe65692-6d4a-4de8-a1e0-8d85f322a0ef

Once you’re on our radar, we’ll have a few conversations. If those go well, we’ll have you make something meaningful with us, and we’ll see how that feels.

Our hope is that we have our Director of Correspondence in place place as soon as possible!

Future Laboratories is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and will not discriminate against an applicant or employee based on the basis of race, creed, religion, color, national origin, age, alienage or citizenship status, ancestry, nationality, national origin, marital or domestic partnership or civil union status, familial status, sex, pregnancy, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. In addition, Future Laboratories will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.