Editorial Director

Unbound is hiring! Who would like to join me in working for an incredible organization filled with the most talented, intelligent and kind people I've ever had the pleasure to work with? We are looking for an Editorial Director! If you match the profile, consider applying.

Posted by: Tammy Marino

Position Summary

The Editorial Director owns how Unbound sounds. This role leads the development, creation and management of editorial content across the organization, and sets the language standard that every team draws from: the words we use for the families we walk with, for the people who support them, for our faith, and for the work itself.

Forty-five years of walking with families have taught us a great deal, and our language keeps evolving as we learn. We are clarifying what family sponsorship means and reaching audiences we have not historically reached: Catholics outside the pews, broader Christian traditions, and social-justice-oriented millennials and Gen Z. That work is a language problem before it is a marketing problem. The Editorial Director is the person who solves it, holding the fluency and reverence our Catholic roots require while writing in a register that welcomes people who do not share that vocabulary. Both audiences have to hear something true, and it has to be the same true thing.

This is a leadership role centered on a working writer. You will edit, you will write, and you will hold a high bar for accuracy, media law and ethics, and the dignity of every person who appears in our content. You will also lead a team that reports and gathers stories from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and serve as a trusted partner to colleagues across the organization who need language they can stand behind.

Who We Are

Unbound is an international nonprofit based in Kansas City, Kansas, and founded by lay Catholics grounded in the Gospel call to put the needs of the marginalized and vulnerable first. We build relationships of mutual respect that bridge cultural, religious, and economic divides. Working side by side with individuals and families in Africa, Asia and Latin America, we bring people together to challenge poverty in innovative ways. Our mission is to support families and communities worldwide on their self-directed paths out of poverty.

Key Accountabilities

• Voice and language. Define and steward Unbound's voice, dignity-forward, victory-led and partner-oriented, and maintain the language standards that allow the organization to speak to Catholic, broader Christian, and secular social-justice audiences authentically and without contradiction.
• Editorial leadership. Lead writing, editing, storytelling, and brand alignment for editorial purposes, and support the content curation function of the organization, ensuring that people and the organization are portrayed with dignity, respect, and honesty in accordance with Unbound's mission, vision, core values, motivation statement, and promise.
• Standards and ethics. Ensure media law and ethics standards related to defamation, privacy, copyright, trademark, truth and accuracy, organizational photo and consent policies, and charity evaluator standards for marketing and communications are followed and met.
• Media relations. Supervise the media relations function at Unbound and support the Media Relations Manager in developing and executing media relations strategies, messaging, and activities, as well as issue preparedness and crisis communications plans.
• Global content gathering. Supervise the Field Communications Director in managing the content gathering strategy, activities, and work of reporters in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Serve as lead editor for editorial content

• Develop concepts, plan, coordinate, write, and edit content for editorial purposes, ensuring that content is accurate, compelling, and consistent with Unbound's mission, vision, core values, branding, messaging, and medium.
• Serve as primary copyeditor for editorial content and support marketing and communications content through writing, editing and content development.
• Supervise and support the team responsible for reporting, writing, editing, content curation and media relations, telling the story of Unbound to target audiences and the general public and supporting the sponsor and donor acquisition and retention efforts of Unbound.
• Facilitate regular editorial team meetings to plan News and Stories, eNews and Faith Reflection calendars, vet story ideas and collaborate on assignments.
• Partner with social, digital, and paid media colleagues so that the editorial calendar feeds the organization's content territories and creative pipeline rather than running in parallel with them.
• Monitor news events that affect the Unbound community, lead the team in reporting issues and disasters, and notify key staff about breaking news stories.
• Make adjustments to the editorial content mix to keep communications responsive to audiences and events.

Own the language

• Develop and maintain the Unbound style guide, consistent with AP style and including the organization's consent and photography policies, and maintain the physical and digital archives.
• Maintain fluency in Catholic terminology, liturgical calendar, teaching and sensibility, and ensure that faith content is accurate, reverent and credible to practicing audiences.
• Develop and maintain guidance that enables the same core message to be expressed authentically to Catholic, broader Christian, and secular or social-justice audiences, without softening our identity or excluding people who do not share our vocabulary.
• Serve as a steward of the Dignity Standard, ensuring that families are portrayed as protagonists with agency and complexity, never as objects of pity, and that we do not publish numbers without stories.
• Hold the line on Unbound's standard for authorship: AI may assist thinking, research, and editing, but the voice that speaks for the families we walk with and for this organization is a human one.
• Advise program, philanthropy, outreach and international colleagues on language for new and evolving initiatives, and help translate internal terminology into words that land with external audiences.

Department leadership

• Serve as a brand standard leader for maintaining and developing the Unbound brand throughout Unbound's digital and print content.
• Serve as a consultant to leadership on issues affecting Unbound's reputation.
• Serve as subject matter expert on media law, ethics, and charity evaluator standards related to marketing and communications.
• Guide the Media Relations Manager on issues pertaining to Unbound's reputation, including development of issues preparedness and crisis communications plans and messaging.
• Contribute to department planning and quarterly priorities, and work on special projects as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities

May have up to four reports. Responsibilities include interviewing, hiring, and training employees; developing staff, planning, assigning work, appraising performance; rewarding and dealing with staff relation/corrective action; addressing complaints and resolving problems.

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor's degree from a four-year college or university; journalism, communications, public relations, marketing or English degree preferred. Minimum of six to 10 years of related experience and training. Nonprofit experience preferred but not required. Global experience is a plus.
• Demonstrated excellence in writing and editing, with a portfolio that shows range across audiences and formats.
• Working fluency in Catholic language, teaching and practice, sufficient to write and edit faith content that practicing Catholics find credible, and the judgment to know when a broader register serves the message better.
• Experience leading and developing a team of writers, editors, reporters or communications professionals.
• Working knowledge of media law and ethics, including defamation, privacy, copyright, trademark, consent and accuracy standards. Familiarity with charity evaluator standards for marketing and communications is preferred.
• Command of AP style and experience owning or building an organizational style guide.
• Media relations experience, including crisis and issues communications, is strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with content management systems, digital publishing workflows and the major social platforms is required.
• Comfort using AI tools responsibly for research, analysis and editing, along with a clear point of view on where their use should stop.
• Willingness to undertake business travel, including occasional international travel.

Bonus Points (preferred but not required)

• Newsroom experience, or a background reporting from outside the United States.
• Experience leading brand voice work through a repositioning or audience expansion.
• Working knowledge of Spanish, or another language spoken in the countries where we work.
• Experience with faith-based publishing, diocesan or denominational media, or religion reporting.
• Experience managing distributed or international teams across time zones.