Community Stewards Lead

Chicago Public Media is one of the nation’s largest local nonprofit news organizations. Home to WBEZ 91.5FM, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Vocalo. Chicago Public Media reaches more than 3.3 million people weekly across broadcast, print, and digital platforms. As a mission-driven organization, we aspire to be the most trusted news source Chicagoans turn to for understanding the people, events, and ideas shaping our community.

Chicago Public Media is a 100% community-funded newsroom powered by nearly 97,000 members whose support makes our journalism possible. This sustained community investment helped drive nationally recognized work in 2025, including 29 awards from esteemed organizations, including the Public Media Journalists Association, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the National Association of Black Journalists.

We believe independent journalism is essential to a healthy democracy and that access to objective, fact-based news is a right for every citizen. We serve the public interest by creating diverse content that informs and enriches our community, supported by a dedicated staff of approximately 250 professionals.

For more information, please see the Chicago Public Media Annual Report .

About

is a new digital platform from Chicago Public Media designed to strengthen the connection between Chicagoans and their local communities. The platform creates online communities where residents can discover what is happening around them, ask questions, share trusted information, and connect with the civic life already underway in their neighborhoods.

Online communities are a bridge to deeper local connection and real-world engagement.  launched with these features serving five Chicago communities, with the potential to expand to additional communities over time.

Each community is supported by a paid Community Steward: someone rooted in the neighborhood who facilitates conversation, helps establish and maintain community norms, surfaces useful local information, connects residents to civic and in-person opportunities, and helps shape the platform as it develops.

Chicago Public Media is seeking a Community Stewards Lead to build and lead the stewardship program that supports this work.

Position Summary

The Community Stewards Lead will oversee the initial cohort of Community Stewards and build the systems, training, coaching, and support infrastructure needed for the stewardship model to succeed and grow.

This person will manage, coach, and motivate stewards serving the five neighborhood communities during the initial launch. They will help stewards develop strong local strategies, establish effective moderation and community-building practices, and make progress against community growth, retention, and engagement goals.

The Community Stewards Lead will also assist in building the stewardship program itself: developing a playbook, training materials, peer-learning structures, performance expectations, and feedback systems that allow Chicago Public Media to learn from the initial cohort and apply those lessons as  expands.

This is a full-time role.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead interviews, selection, onboarding, and ongoing management of Community Stewards (the first five stewards will already be selected, but as the program expands to more communities, additional stewards will be added)
• Build on initial recruitment and training work already underway and ensure stewards successfully complete required onboarding and training.
• Establish clear expectations for steward performance, responsibilities, and deliverables.
• Conduct regular 1:1 coaching and performance conversations with each steward.
• Identify performance or support gaps and develop clear plans to address them.
• Manage performance issues when necessary, including steward transitions or offboarding when expectations are consistently not met.
• Help build a strong cohort culture in which stewards can learn from and support one another.

• Develop and maintain a Chicago Public Media stewardship playbook covering core areas including onboarding, community building, content, moderation, events, growth, editorial standards, and platform use.
• Create practical resources for stewards, including onboarding and posting guides, FAQs, content calendar templates, event checklists, platform guidance, and other tools.
• Establish a visible calendar of key dates, milestones, and deliverables for the steward cohort.
• Design and…