Join the Global Wave Team

We’re always on the lookout for great people! Even if you don’t see a position below that’s a perfect match, reach out via work@globalwavedigital.com so we can connect.

- Digital Campaigns Director
- Digital Strategist

WHO WE ARE

Global Wave Digital is a boutique digital agency established in 2013 with a mission of empowering groups all across the world to build and lead powerful movements for social change.

Since our founding, we’ve provided digital advocacy strategy, digital campaign development, technical assistance and capacity building to movements on the ground in 70+ countries working in the areas of human rights, social good, and public health.

From climate change and reproductive rights to epidemic preparedness and road safety, we’re inspired by the big, consequential fights that we get to support and the bold, effective social movements we get to work with.

In terms of work culture, we are a small team with a fairly flat organizational hierarchy where everyone’s voice and opinion matters.

In addition, whether it’s allowing people to take on as much responsibility as they prove capable of handling, our unlimited PTO policy, or providing a generous upfront bonus for bringing in new work (5% of the gross contract for the lifetime of the client), we seek to foster an environment that’s sustainable, rewarding and conducive to long-term employment.

Digital Campaigns Director

ABOUT THIS ROLE

We are looking for a Digital Campaigns Director to help social movements around the world leverage digital tools to drive social change.

This will involve developing and managing digital campaign strategy and managing client relationships. In addition, this role will include providing technical assistance and capacity-building support so the groups we work with can reach their advocacy goals.

This role is a good fit for a well-rounded digital strategist with deep experience managing digital advocacy campaigns (including, but not exclusively, those that involve both organic and paid social) and either agency experience or some other kind of consulting experience that clearly demonstrates their ability to manage advocacy clients.

In addition, while this is not a requirement (there is some flexibility depending upon the background and interest of the person we hire), we’d be especially interested in finding someone with experience working with youth movements and/or on gender justice issues or public health issues using a gender framework (e.g. reproductive rights, sexual health, gender-based equity, etc.).

Finally, after nearly a decade in business, we’re a maturing firm looking forward to our next phase of development. The Digital Director will be a core member of our team, and there will be meaningful opportunities for their professional growth and advancement as our firm continues to grow.

Are you a creative and effective digital strategist who wants to use your talents and drive to help social movements around the globe take flight and win tangible victories for social good?

Are you a well-rounded digital professional who is both adept at using a wide variety of digital tools, tactics and platforms to advance specific policy outcomes, and eager to apply this expertise to a diverse set of country-specific contexts?

Are you a resourceful self-starter with great project- and client-management skills who would be excited about being a core member of a small agency that’s making big waves?

If so, read on!

What You’ll Do:

Manage the relationship with and lead the client work for a portfolio of 1-2 clients (75%), and provide secondary support on an ad hoc basis for an additional 2-3 clients (25%).
Coordinate with clients on our campaign activities: Set agendas for meetings, perform periodic check-ins, demonstrate progress on contract goals and deliverables, and present data and analytics at the overall client level.
Develop digital campaign strategies across multiple channels to meet our clients’ policy or advocacy goals. Channels could include: social media, email, chat-based clients like WhatsApp, SMS, online content (including micro-sites), digital influencers and/or digital ads.
Work with groups on the ground to facilitate creative brainstorming and campaign ideation.
Help groups on the ground understand the digital playbook and map digital tactics to the digital strategy, review content they created, and monitor campaign progress and campaign execution on an ongoing basis.
Do country-specific landscape assessments to understand what kinds of digital campaigns are effective in a particular country.
Identify what the capacity needs of the groups on the ground are that might stop them from being able to successfully execute the kinds of campaigns identified in the landscape assessment.
Build the capacity of groups on the ground to successfully execute their campaign through trainings and resource development.
Lead the development of training resources for groups on the ground (e.g. curate helpful examples and case studies, create toolkits, set up learning-management systems on different topics and ensure they’re populated with content, etc.).
Support Global Wave Digital company marketing and new business efforts by supporting new client communications and outreach, and by contributing to agency thought leadership.
Please note: There will be opportunities for international travel as part of this role for someone who is interested in it, but no international travel will be required for US-based candidates.

Success in the first 6 months of this role looks like:

Leading client relationships and projects for 2 key clients.
Understanding the digital advocacy environment, campaign dynamics and our service model for country-specific advocacy work.
Developing good working relationships with client staff and civil society groups on the ground, and supporting the building and management of those campaigns.
Leading junior staff, designers and web developer team members in development of resources toolkits for several clients, and marketing/launching those toolkits to stakeholders.
Leading capacity building training programs on digital advocacy topics such as campaign development, managing influencer networks or paid advertising 101.
Providing strategic oversight and project management of 2-3 digital ad campaigns with 5-figure budgets (ensuring budget is spent effectively, in accordance with campaign goals, and in a way that promotes client learning), and supporting the executions of those campaigns.

You could be a good fit for this role if:

You have at least 5-7 years of digital campaigning, digital organizing, or online advocacy experience, including significant experience coming up with and leading sophisticated digital advocacy campaigns with specific targets and clear policy goals.
You either have agency or consulting experience working with advocacy clients (preferably at an Account Director or similar level) or have a background that clearly demonstrates your ability to manage advocacy clients in an agency setting (e.g. you worked in-house at what was a de facto internal agency).
You’re adept at using a broad range of digital tools and tactics, and have a track-record of successfully overseeing and driving digital campaigns across a variety of digital channels and platforms. In particular:
- You know how to run social media campaigns not just to drive awareness but also to drive meaningful engagement toward specific policy outcomes.
- You have a holistic understanding of how digital ad campaigns can compliment organizational objectives and are adept at overseeing large-scale digital advertising campaigns across a variety of campaign objectives (advocacy, acquisition, fundraising, e-commerce and/or behavior change/awareness goals).
- You’re comfortable at the strategy level in an advocacy context with some of the following (and willing to get up to speed on the rest with appropriate support and guidance): email-based engagement, mobile SMS campaigns, influencer campaigns, the use of chat-based apps like WhatsApp, web-based engagement and online-to-offline activation.
You have sharp strategic instincts and the skills to develop a strategic vision, articulate it and get buy-in from others on that vision
You’re a great all-around communicator, and a strong, persuasive writer with significant experience producing written content for direct-response digital campaigns.
You are highly organized, have experience managing large projects with lots of moving pieces, and are able to juggle multiple competing priorities without letting something fall through the cracks.
You’re a self-starter with a high degree of initiative who combines a strong ability to take an idea and run with it with good judgment about when and how to get the necessary input and buy-in from stakeholders.
You possess good problem-solving skills and an adaptable style that can drive progress even amid ambiguity and complexity.
You have strong interpersonal skills. You are good at managing up, down and laterally, giving and receiving feedback, and managing conflict while maintaining strong and effective relationships.
You’re very comfortable with digital metrics and analytics, and have experience using testing to optimize digital campaigns.
You have experience managing designers, videographers, and/or coders to produce work on time, on spec and on budget.
You have a sensitivity to and appreciation for cultural difference, and are able to work effectively across various dimensions of personal difference.

While not required, a strong candidate might have some of the following:

7+ years of experience in the digital advocacy space.
Experience in a senior-level agency role or as a successful independent consultant.
Experience working on gender justice issues and/or public health issues within a gender framework (e.g. reproductive rights, sexual health, sex positivity, etc.).
Experience working with youth movements.
Experience building and managing high-level advocate or ‘influencer’ programs.
Significant experience at organizations or campaigns that are either explicitly progressive or in the human rights, public health or international development space and promote policies that align with progressive values.
Experience providing resource, training or capacity building in a distributed or spoke-and-hub fashion (e.g. by helping various chapters or affiliates of a larger organization, or various global offices of an international organization).
Skills – professional working proficiency or better– in another language, particularly Spanish, French, Mandarin, Swahili, Vietnamese or any widely spoken South Asian language (Hindi, Bangla, etc.).
Significant experience managing digital ad campaigns at various scales/budget-levels, from $1,000 ad spends to ones with budgets over $50,000.
Either experience living in, working in East or West Africa, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Latin America or Eurasia – or a strong cultural connection to one of those areas.
Experience running advocacy campaigns outside of the US.
A background in international development.
A good understanding and knowledge of the global social media landscape, with particular emphasis on lower-middle income countries.
Experience with training, facilitation, digital course creation, or digital knowledge sharing (esp. using an e-learning platform).

Note: If you’re interested in the role and think you could do this job successfully we welcome your application even if you might not check all of our boxes.

Details:

This is a full-time, exempt role with a salary of $100,000-120,000. In addition, we offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes annual bonus eligibility up to 7% of salary, 50% employer-paid health insurance for employees, their domestic partners/spouses and dependents, 4% employer match on 401k contributions, and unlimited paid time off, including all US federal holidays plus the week between Christmas and New Years.

There is a preference for this role to be located in the DC metropolitan area (either out of our WeWork office or remotely from a home office), but candidates who would like to work remotely from another location will be considered provided they are willing to travel to DC on a bi-monthly or quarterly basis.

Our standard business hours are 9am-6pm Eastern Time, with the occasional need to schedule calls at off-hours to accommodate an international client.

Applicants should be prepared to generally work and be available for calls/meetings on a schedule that substantially overlaps with our standard business hours, but there is some flexibility (e.g. for someone on the West Coast).

We are open to candidates who are not based in the US, provided they have US work authorization and meet the same guidelines as US-based candidates.

How to Apply:

We work with a tremendously diverse group of people, movements and organizations around the globe, and believe our work becomes stronger when there is a diversity of perspectives and lived experience within our staff. As such, we especially encourage anyone from systematically marginalized communities to apply for this role.

To apply, please email your application to: work@globalwavedigital.com with the subject line: “Digital Campaigns Director — First Name Last Name.”

Applications should include:

1) A resume

2) Answers to the following questions in lieu of a cover letter:

Why are you interested in this role? (suggested word limit: 200)
Which of the bullet points under the heading that begins “While not required, a strong candidate might have some of the following…” (above) do you bring to the table? Please list the bullet points and add a few words of explanation for each bullet point. If there are different ways to meet the criteria in a single bullet point, please indicate which one(s) you bring to the table.
What’s something you wished more people in the non-profit and social good sector understood about running advocacy campaigns on social media? (suggest word limit: 200)
How did you hear about this role (please be specific)?

3) Optional: Professional work samples relevant to this role.

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis, and we encourage anyone who is interested to apply ASAP and no later than the priority application deadline of January 15, 2024 at 11:59pm PT.

The Hiring Process:

While the hiring process may be subject to change, we are currently anticipating a hiring process that will consist of 2-3 rounds of interviews. The application process may also include one skills-based exercise that should take 1-2 hours to complete. If we ask you to take a skills test, you will be compensated for the time you spend on it.

Global Wave Digital provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

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Digital Strategist

We are looking for a Digital Strategist to run digital ad campaigns and support our work helping social movements around the world leverage digital tools to drive social change.

Roughly 70% of this role will involve executing digital advertising campaigns (with an emphasis on running paid social campaigns) along with some reporting and analytics work. This represents the core need we have for this role.

The remaining ~30% of the role will involve a combination of other functions that support our work (see below).

Are you an early-to-mid career digital campaign strategist who understands both social media and the nitty gritty of digital ad campaigns, and is excited to apply your expertise to different political systems and governments globally?

If so, read on!

Core Duties (70%):

Support 2-3 major digital advertising campaigns by assisting in advertising planning, running the ads, performing ad management, drafting ad copy and working with our designers to get content created.
Provide additional digital advertising help and troubleshooting on an ad hoc to 1-2 ad-training cohorts, each of which will be composed of staff from ~5-7 partner organizations running their own ad campaigns.
Support data and analytics/reporting needs for 4-5 clients including both paid and organic data reporting.
Participate in client meetings and periodically make presentations to clients.

Other Duties (30%):

Note: We could use support from the Digital Strategist in all of the areas below, but do not expect the person we hire to necessarily engage in every one of these activities. The precise mix of duties will be established in a collaborative manner by the end of the hiring process according to the skills and interests of the person we hire.

Put together training and e-learning resources related to digital tools and tactics (e.g. curate helpful examples and case studies, summarize reports, create toolkits, populate learning-management systems on different topics with content, etc.), and do the backend production of newsletters to market these resources to clients.
Use WordPress to upload and manage content for our online resource centers.
Work with back-end developers to ensure the technical functions of these sites are able to meet the program needs (e.g. by documenting technical problems, initiating a process to change the way information is organized and displayed, etc.).
Provide support for other digital advocacy strategy work and technical assistance

Success in the first 6 months of this role looks like:

Completing digital advertising campaigns that drive effective results, cost-efficient outcomes and learnings for multiple clients.
Support monthly reporting needs for Global Wave clients, utilizing social analytics and data dashboard tools.
Supporting resource center/package updating and curation for 1-2 client programs.
Learn Global Wave’s advocacy campaign strategy methods and tools for client support.

You could be a good fit for this role if:

You have at least 3 years of digital campaigning, digital organizing, or online advocacy experience, including experience running digital ad campaigns on major social and digital platforms for political and/or issue-advocacy campaigns.
You have significant experience managing digital ad campaigns at various scales/budget-levels and understand the nitty gritty of digital ads. This includes:
- Experience running digital ad campaigns with a budget of $5,000+ that included testing/optimization of campaigns across multiple segments.
- Comfort with tracking ad performance objectives across a variety of campaign objectives (i.e. advocacy, acquisition, fundraising, e-commerce and/or behavior change/awareness goals).
- Experience with the social-issue verification process on major social platforms.
You’re adept at campaign data reporting and experienced in using social media reporting platforms such as Sprout Social, Hootsuite etc. to provide campaign analysis.
You have experience in an agency role or as an independent consultant, and you are able to juggle multiple competing priorities without letting something fall through the cracks.
You possess good problem-solving skills and an adaptable style that can drive progress even amid ambiguity and complexity.
You have strong interpersonal skills. You are good at giving and receiving feedback, and at managing conflict while maintaining strong and effective relationships.
You’re tech savvy and aren’t afraid to learn and use new online tools.
You have a sensitivity to and appreciation for cultural difference, and are able to work effectively across various dimensions of personal difference.

While not required, a strong candidate might have some of the following:

Experience working on gender justice issues and/or public health issues within a gender framework (e.g. reproductive rights, sexual health, sex positivity, etc.).
Experience providing resource, training or capacity building in a distributed or spoke-and-hub fashion (e.g. by helping various chapters or affiliates of a larger organization, or various global offices of an international organization).
Comfortable with front-end website management in WordPress.
An eye for design and the ability to create simple social media graphics using Canva, Photoshop or similar tools.
Experience with direct response copywriting (e.g. action alerts, fundraising appeals, ad copy, etc.) in a political or advocacy context.
Skills – professional working proficiency or better– in another language, particularly Spanish, French, Mandarin, Swahili, Vietnamese or any widely spoken South Asian language (Hindi, Bangla, etc.).
Either experience living in, working in East or West Africa, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Latin America or Eurasia – or a strong cultural connection to one of those areas.
Experience running advocacy campaigns outside of the US.
Experience with training, facilitation, digital course creation, or digital knowledge sharing (esp. using an e-learning platform).
Proficiency with Google Analytics or Microsoft Power Business Intelligence would be a great plus.
Experience creating and distributing digital media toolkits.
Experience working with developers on ongoing website projects.

Note: If you’re interested in the role and think you could do this job successfully we welcome your application even if you might not check all of our boxes.

Details:

This is a full-time, exempt role with a salary of $65,000-85,000. In addition, we offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes annual bonus eligibility up to 7% of salary, 50% employer-paid health insurance for employees, their domestic partners/spouses and dependents, 4% employer match on 401k contributions, and unlimited paid time off, including all US federal holidays plus the week between Christmas and New Years.

Our standard business hours are 9am-6pm Eastern Time, with the occasional need to schedule calls at off-hours to accommodate an international client.

How to Apply:

To apply, please email your application to: work@globalwavedigital.com with the subject line: “Digital Strategist — First Name Last Name.”

Applications should include:

1) A resume

2) Answers to the following questions in lieu of a cover letter:

Why are you interested in this role? (suggested word limit: 200)
Which of the bullet points under the heading that begins “While not required, a strong candidate might have some of the following…” (above) do you bring to the table? Please list the bullet points and add a few words of explanation for each bullet point. If there are different ways to meet the criteria in a single bullet point, please indicate which one(s) you bring to the table.
What is one of the most impactful digital ads campaigns you’ve run? Please do your best to quantify how successful it was and explain what you think made it so successful. (suggest word limit: 200)
How did you hear about this role (please be specific)?

3) Optional: Professional work samples relevant to this role.

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis, and we encourage anyone who is interested to apply ASAP and no later than the priority application deadline of January 15, 2024 at 11:59pm PT.

The Hiring Process:

While the hiring process may be subject to change, we are currently anticipating a hiring process that will consist of 2-3 rounds of interviews. The application process may also include one skills-based exercise that should take 1-2 hours to complete. If we ask you to take a skills test, you will be compensated for the time you spend on it.