Director of Membership and Research

LION Publishers is looking for a senior leader who deeply understands the needs of current and aspiring independent news organizations, wants to ensure those needs are being addressed by LION’s membership offerings, and can communicate those needs to external stakeholders through research and data that ultimately helps inform our strategy for strengthening the independent news industry.

Over the past two years, LION Publishers has grown into a $3 million journalism association with over 250 members and a staff that’s tripled from three to nine. We’ve launched a suite of programs, including the Google News Initiative Startups Boot Camp, Startups Lab, and the Tiny News Collective, to help existing entrepreneurs become sustainable and aspiring entrepreneurs launch news businesses.

As an association, our strength and future growth is based on how well we continue to understand and serve the needs of the growing independent news industry. That’s why we’re searching for our first-ever Director of Membership and Research to help design and lead this work.

Here’s what we anticipate your responsibilities to be:

Lead membership growth and retention strategy

• In collaboration with communications manager, design a marketing strategy to attract new LION members
• In collaboration with the membership programming manager and others across LION teams, explore opportunities to create new LION member benefits
• Ensure day to day operations of membership internal workflows, processes and team communication run smoothly and make adjustments as needed
• Propose updated membership levels and criteria as members’ needs change and LION grows
• Ensure that LION’s team understands existing and potential member needs and is adjusting and updating its membership offerings to ensure long-term value and membership retention

Build on and expand research about the independent news industry

• Identify information and research needs across the independent news industry and assess LION’s ability to meet those needs through existing datasets and new research projects
• In collaboration with the product manager, oversee the continuation of Project Oasis and produce regular data-informed research reports on the independent news industry that helps inform LION and other industry support organizations’ offerings
• In collaboration with the membership and research team, oversee the analysis of membership data to inform LION’s work and to tell the story of LION’s membership to external stakeholders

Oversee communications and marketing across all platforms

• Collaborate with the communications manager to ensure communication across all platforms for members and external stakeholders reflects our organizational values
• Offer data-informed insights for LION-created content, including members to profile, industry trends to highlight and resources to aggregate

Serve as a key collaborator and adviser on other work across LION

• Collaborate with deputy director to pitch potential partners and sponsors to provide member benefits and funds for additional research
• Collaborate with the director of teaching and learning to ensure members’ needs are being met through membership teaching and learning programming
• Oversee and advise the membership programming manager on the LION Awards