By Nathan Young
A couple of weeks ago we hosted the SIXTH major event of The New Narrative on the theme of Work/Money. It was a great event with close to 200 people in attendance and amazing stories by our six storytellers. Whether you were at the event yourself or have been to one of our main events before, you probably have a pretty good sense of what they are about and how impactful the messages can be.
I’ve been doing The New Narrative essentially on my own for the last five years, and in the last couple weeks I’ve come to realize two things:
1) This project is bigger than me. I’ve always understood this on some level, but it’s come more highly into focus the last couple weeks. The project has always been limited by my own bandwidth and personal needs. On some level maybe it needed to be nurtured up to this point, but it won’t grow anymore if it’s only me. This does a disservice to all the people that have found value in the project, contributed so far, and would want to be involved in the future. The project is never going to grow unless I let other people in to help.
2) People love The New Narrative and want to help. I’m always full of self-doubt with everything I do, and The New Narrative has never been an exception. But leading up to and since the last event, I’ve gotten so many people that have reached out and expressed appreciation for the series and an interest in helping that it’s been hard to ignore. I feel like I’m finally realizing how impactful it could be to let others in on the process, both to grow the program and for their own sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.
So with all that being said. Here it is. I’m asking for help.
Help!
There are lots of different things to do. I tried to break down the different elements that I would need help with and how it would work below. This is only the first step and I’d like to bring in more leadership roles in the future. Obviously things could also change once we get started but this is a good list for now.
I also tried to break it down so the commitments would be somewhere between 2-5 hours a week depending on the role. Commitments can be of varying duration too, from month-to-month to a whole year.
And just to be upfront about it, I’m afraid there won’t be any money involved, at least not in the short term. This would almost all have to happen on an intern/volunteer basis. Ideally, we can structure it in such a way where you can learn new skills, get more exposure, and hopefully learn more about what you’re capable of in the right circumstance too.
Here are the jobs! If you see anything that especially interests or intrigues you let me know!
1) Social Media Manager: The basic role would be developing new content and repurposing existing content to maintain a regular social media presence for the New Narrative. This would also include scheduling regular posts about upcoming events and working to expand the audience as well. The platforms I’ve been prioritizing are Facebook and Instagram. I’m open to including other channels too.
Ideally, I’d like somebody that’s already pretty savvy with social media and can teach me a few things about how to do it better too, including ad buys, creating a calendar process, and other strategies. I’m open to somebody that wants to learn and could benefit from access to a platform and audience too though.
Another option for this would also be to break it into two roles, one for content development and one for strategy and implementation. Let me know if that makes it more appealing.
Workload: 2-6 hrs/wk.
2) Email Marketing Manager: I do a semi-weekly newsletter for the New Narrative via Mailchimp. I’d love to find somebody who is pretty savvy with the program and can handle the newsletter themselves. Bonus points if you’re willing to get deeper into the email marketing and automations via Mautic.
~2 hrs/wk whenever you got the time.
3) General Admin Help: Every event of the New Narrative requires making a graphic on Canva, setting up the event on Eventbrite, creating the Facebook event, updating the SquareSpace website, automating contact management with Zapier, creating the segments in Mautic, updating the follow-up emails, sending it all out and then doing it all over again. None of it is especially hard but it takes some time and focus.
This position could be especially ideal for a task-oriented person that wants to see how things are put together behind the scenes and also perhaps wants to get some rotations on the applications listed above.
~2-5 hrs/wk with a good degree of flexibility.
4) Event Manager / Co-Producers / Guest Hosts: This role has a couple of different tiers. The first tier could be a co-producer role where you’re working with me to manage an event start to finish. This could be ideation on the theme, recruiting speakers/facilitators, and logistics leading up to the events.
Eventually I’d like to have this evolve to an event manager role, where somebody is essentially managing the whole series. This would primarily apply to ReThink and Daring Stories, but I have a couple of other events series in the works too.
~1-10hrs/wk depending on where we are on the event timeline.
There’s also an option to have a guest host role. Ideally, this person would be involved in some aspects of the production, but the bigger idea would be that they have their own audience they could bring for a mutually beneficial symbiosis of audiences.
5) Web Design / Graphic Design: The current website is just something I threw together on SquareSpace and most graphics you see are just templates I created on Canva. If you got thoughts or ideas on how we can upgrade the game visually, I’d love to hear from you.
6) Outreach: There are other organizations we can partner with, other venues we can host events in, other people we can invite in to speak, but I’m only one person and my bandwidth to reach out to them is limited. If you’re well connected around town and see other opportunities or potential here, let’s talk.
7) Workshops: At some point in the not too distant future, I’d love to begin hosting workshops on various themes related to the New Narrative. If you’ve got an idea and you have the ability to draw some of the audience, let’s talk about that too. (This is actually one where we can talk about a financial split of some sort).
If any of this sounds interesting and intriguing to you let me know what you’re most interested in and what your availability would be. We can set something up from there!
My hope is to get a small group of folks that can be dedicated and engaged in what we’re doing, within whatever bandwidth they have available. In exchange, you’ll be a part of something that hopefully grows with the added help and creates opportunities to learn new skills, meet new people, and expand each of our spheres of influence too.
I’m excited about the possibilities, so let’s see what we can do!
If you’re interested in getting involved, send me an email or fill out the form below.
Thanks!
Nathan