The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for an agile and collaborative Community Relations Specialist to support and improve our communications with Wikimedia volunteers, communities, and readers. In this role, you will work independently or with other Foundation staff crafting and reviewing messages under time pressure, help colleagues develop better communication practices, and maintain a process to handle communications in a timely and effective way.

The Community Relations team strives for productive collaboration between the Wikimedia Foundation and the movement. We support communications between the Wikimedia Foundation staff and Wikimedia stakeholders. We maintain processes, tools, documentation and data to help Foundation teams understand our communities and communicate effectively with them. We strive to engage a high quantity and diversity of Wikimedians in the Foundation’s projects. Our ultimate goal is to contribute to good common understanding, smooth collaboration and results.

As a Community Relations Specialist, you will:

Lead or assist with correspondence management, which will include answering questions from both users and the public in a timely, clear, and respectful manner as well as crafting and reviewing replies and announcements from Foundation teams, based on defined goals and target audiences.
Watch designated community channels for news, incidents and requests.
Step into difficult discussions and situations when necessary to provide details and context to promote effective resolution, mutual understanding, and healthy communication.
Create and maintain systems for prioritizing communications requests to ensure that urgent needs are appropriately recognized and escalated.
Maintain FAQs, templates, and other means to address common questions efficiently.
Provide coaching to colleagues within Community Relations on communications best practices.
Contribute strategies, best practices, lessons learned and background information to our documentation on community engagement.

Requirements:

Professional experience in a communications field, such as in journalism, community management or similar.
Excellent written English and fluency with at least one other language.
Proficient use of online collaboration tools (for example: text editor, email client, ticket tracking system, chat, video conference, etc)
Experience working with or participating in multilingual and multicultural online communities.
Outstanding organizational and interpersonal communication skills, with an ability to communicate with key stakeholders in styles ranging from precisely detailed to clear and simple, depending on context.
Team player who cares deeply about his/her own work and also helps colleagues succeed
Quick-learning and flexible, particularly around online communities and technologies
Organized, efficient and able to meet deadlines
Emotionally mature and self-reliant; tolerates ambiguity and maintains positive, respectful professional relationships
Competence working in teams partially or totally remote, sometimes at inconvenient times.
Passion for online collaboration and constructive public discussion.

Pluses:

Experience editing Wikipedia or contributing to other Wikimedia projects.
Experience working with MediaWiki or another wiki tool.
Experience working with a Customer Relationship Management tool.
Experience working with volunteers.
Participation in free knowledge projects.

To apply, please submit a resume, cover letter and a writing sample. In your cover letter, we’d like to answer this question: Why do you enjoy collaborative writing?

The Wikimedia Foundation is…

…the nonprofit organization that hosts and operates Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute something to our shared knowledge, and that everyone should be able to access that knowledge, free of interference. We host the Wikimedia projects, build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia content, support the volunteer communities and partners who make Wikimedia possible, and advocate for policies that enable Wikimedia and free knowledge to thrive. The Wikimedia Foundation is a charitable, not-for-profit organization that relies on donations. We receive financial support from millions of individuals around the world, with an average donation of about $15. We also receive donations through institutional grants and gifts. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA.

The Wikimedia Foundation is an equal opportunity employer, and we encourage people with a diverse range of backgrounds to apply

Benefits & Perks *

Fully paid medical, dental and vision coverage for employees and their eligible families (yes, fully paid premiums!)
The Wellness Program provides reimbursement for mind, body and soul activities such as fitness memberships, baby sitting, continuing education and much more
The 401(k) retirement plan offers matched contributions at 4% of annual salary
Flexible and generous time off – vacation, sick and volunteer days, plus 19 paid holidays – including the last week of the year.
Family friendly! 100% paid new parent leave for seven weeks plus an additional five weeks for pregnancy, flexible options to phase back in after leave, fully equipped lactation room.
For those emergency moments – long and short term disability, life insurance (2x salary) and an employee assistance program
Pre-tax savings plans for health care, child care, elder care, public transportation and parking expenses
Telecommuting and flexible work schedules available
Appropriate fuel for thinking and coding (aka, a pantry full of treats) and monthly massages to help staff relax
Great colleagues – diverse staff and contractors speaking dozens of languages from around the world, fantastic intellectual discourse, mission-driven and intensely passionate people

* for benefits eligible staff, benefits may vary by location

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