Floodlight Deputy Executive Director
SUMMARY
Floodlight is hiring a Deputy Executive Director to join our leadership team. This person will help us turn our strategic vision into reality, breaking it down into necessary systems and steps. They will work across the organization, supporting business, development, HR, operations and promotion, as well as editorial work. They are comfortable not just implementing systems, but building new ones as needed from the ground up.
ABOUT FLOODLIGHT
Floodlight is a nonprofit, independent newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action. Since launching in 2021, Floodlight has collaborated with local and national news outlets including The Guardian, NPR, ProPublica, the Los Angeles Times, the Texas Tribune, the Louisiana Illuminator and Capital B. Floodlight stories reach millions of readers. Each story is distributed directly to hundreds of news editors and republished through aggregation services.
Floodlight’s model has shown how collaborative investigative journalism can have an impact. Our reporting with NPR and Florida news outlets about how power company consultants swayed elections, spied on journalists and bought media coverage was followed by the departure of two Fortune 500 CEOs. The stories were seen nationwide and reposted by more than 2,000 outlets. The coverage was a finalist for Harvard’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.
More recently, Floodlight, along with local and national media partners, won top honors from the National Press Club in 2025 for exposing how corporations and special interests were manipulating public opinion by creating “news” outlets to push their hidden anti-renewable, pro-fossil fuel agendas — in two cases even taking over legacy local newspapers to do it.
This role will join a team of six: two investigative reporters, an investigative producer, an editor-in-chief, an audience and development director and an executive director. We all work remotely, with occasional travel for reporting, in-person meetings, industry conferences or events.
ABOUT THE ROLE
The Deputy Executive Director manages key behind-the-scenes systems to support Floodlight’s organizational performance, including HR, IT, legal, finance, travel and more.
At their best, the Deputy Executive Director builds automated, invisible systems to help the editorial team focus on producing great investigative journalism.
The ideal candidate is industrious, detail-oriented and a quick learner. Their role will be both strategic and tactical.
Applicants need not have experience in the news industry, but they must be well-versed in a similar nonprofit field.
RESPONSIBILITIES
STRATEGIC PLANNING
- Partner with executive director, editor-in-chief and audience director to set and follow a strategic business and editorial plan
ORGANIZING SYSTEMS & IT
- Develop and/or manage the systems we use to track our work, including our databases for fundraising and editorial impact, as well as our back-end systems for retaining key documents
- Leverage efficiency tools and automations via Slack, Zapier, Airtable, Asana and more
- Manage shared tech stack (e.g., Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, 1Password, etc.)
- Identify cybersecurity risks and work to mitigate them
HR
- Manage employee onboarding and offboarding processes
- Manage benefits administration
LEGAL
- Work with contractors on annual audit, 990 document and other compliance requirements
TRAVEL AND EVENTS
- Manage team travel bookings via Navan
- Spearhead planning for the annual staff meeting, as well as occasional events with external partners, which are aimed at increasing our brand recognition
BOARD
- Lead board engagement, including onboarding new members and scheduling quarterly meetings
FINANCE
- Monitor and manage expenses in QuickBooks
- Manage budget model, including projections and cash runway
- Manage expense reimbursements in Expensify
- Organize and manage payments, invoices and receipts in Justworks and Expensify
DEVELOPMENT
- Help us plan and execute reader donation drives
- Assist in developing our new major donors program
OTHER
- Draft and/or design external and internal communications, including board decks, donor updates, team presentations, etc.
- Serve as a key deputy/thought partner/troubleshooter to the executive team
IDEAL CANDIDATE QUALITIES
- BS/BA degree
- 5+ years experience in business operations, HR or nonprofit management
- Exceptional communications skills
- Self-starter who is highly motivated and resourceful
- Exceptional organizational abilities
- Strong attention to detail
- Adept at juggling competing priorities in a fast-paced, results-driven, rapidly changing environment
SALARY AND BENEFITS
- The salary for this position is commensurate with experience, starting at a minimum of $90,000 per year.
- Floodlight provides 25 days of vacation/PTO, plus 12 paid holidays, 10 days of medical/emergency/bereavement leave and 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
- To give staff maximum flexibility for choosing appropriate health insurance plans, Floodlight reimburses health insurance premiums and other qualified health expenses up to the federal maximum (currently $537.50 per month for an individual and $1,091.67 per month for a family).
- Floodlight provides a retirement 401(k) plan match of up to 4% on employee contributions to a pre- or post-tax plan.
We know there are great candidates who might not check all these boxes or who possess important skills we haven’t thought of. If that’s you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself. We also encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including people of color, LGBTQ people and people with disabilities.
TO APPLY
Apply by Feb. 13, 2026. Please submit your application at the link below. No phone calls please.