Opportunities & Internships
Promote participation in democracy
Team Leader
HeadCount is adding Team Leaders all across the country. Team Leaders are the heart and soul of HeadCount and are the people most responsible for registering thousands of voters at concerts, festivals, and community events. They represent the organization any time a HeadCount-affiliated artist appears in the team’s metropolitan area. Within their metro, Team Leaders also work with venues, promoters, and community event organizers to identify the best local opportunities to register voters.
This means organizing and scheduling teams of volunteers (using HeadCount’s volunteer portal), training new volunteers and managing the process of setting up a voter registration table at an event. It also involves directly interfacing with staff at local concert venues and tour production crews from our affiliated bands.
Team Leaders also reach into their community to identify gaps in voter registration access and provide registration services. This could be at high schools, street fairs, or other relevant community events. The goal is for at least 25% of annual activations to come from community events.
Team Leaders must be reliable, professional, and good communicators. Most of all, they need to inspire volunteers to work together toward a common goal. If you love music and consider yourself a natural leader, this may be the position for you.
This is considered a volunteer position, but Team Leaders are eligible for a yearly performance-based stipend of up to $1,500.
Requirements
- Strong work ethic, maturity and sense of accountability
- Flexible schedule allowing you to be on site at concerts before doors open
- Natural leadership ability
- Commitment to following protocol
- Relevant leadership experience
Music and Politics Internship
Students with an interest in politics, music or grassroots organizing can channel their passions by interning with HeadCount. This is an opportunity to get invaluable hand-on experience and make an important contribution to a dynamic and growing organization. Our interns work side-by-side with seasoned staffers and play an important role from day one. Many of our interns have been offered and accepted full-time position with HeadCount and others have landed jobs within the music industry and at other non-profits.
Responsibilities
- Attending concerts and registering voters
- Content creation (blogging, drafting and proofreading documents, social media, creating excel data sheets, research, compiling music playlists)
- Grassroots and community outreach (volunteer program planning, conference calls)
- Artist relations (identifying potential artist partners, tracking concert schedules, coordinating events)
- Voter registration administration (researching election dates and deadlines, routing voter registration forms to election boards, communicating directly with voters)
- General non-profit management and administration.
Qualifications
- Student working towards a degree in related field
- Nonprofit or social activist experience a plus
- Proficiency required in MS Office programs
- Excellent attention to detail and proofreading skills required
Field Internship
HeadCount.org, a non-profit organization that stages large scale voter registration drives at concerts and other public gatherings, offers field internships to college students interested in political organizing. We provide a unique opportunity to learn leadership and organizing skills, while mobilizing fellow students and also experiencing great music!
Interns will set up voter registration tables at their campuses and educate their campus community about voting regulations that affect students, while also working directly with local concert venues and concert promoters to stage voter registration at live music events. You will be closely supervised via weekly check-in calls and a structured itinerary, but also have the freedom to manage your time independently and take a unique, original approach to leadership.
Responsibilities
- Lead 12-15 voter registration drives at local concerts or campus events
- Learn local and national voter registration guidelines
- Participate in weekly conference calls
- Communicate directly with school officials to obtain authorization for all on-campus activity
- Recruit volunteers
- Be responsible for voter registration forms and their submission
- Create educational resources to inform campus on local elections and other voter information
- Participate in HeadCount’s digital media efforts
Qualifications
- Student working towards a degree in related field
- Minimum of 15 hours per week
- Strong work ethic, maturity and accountability
- Natural leadership ability
- Ability to organize peers
Regional Coordinator
Regional coordinators oversee 5 to 8 "Team Leaders." They organize, motivate, recruit, train, and manage individuals spread across a region of the U.S., and serve as the key liaison between HeadCount and our representatives in the field. This is primarily a phone and e-mail-oriented position, but we encourage Regional Coordinators to join us at festivals and occasionally travel to other cities to train new Team Leaders. This position requires people who are proactive, thorough and enjoy leading others.
This is considered a volunteer position, but Regional Coordinators are eligible for a yearly performance-based stipend of up to $1,000.
Requirements
- Excellent leadership and management skills
- Strong work ethic, maturity and sense of accountability
- About 4 to 8 hours per week of availability for phone and email communication
- Being self-motivated and thorough
- Passion for voter engagement and
- Relevant leadership experience
Director of Digital Strategy
ABOUT HEADCOUNT
HeadCount is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that promotes participation in democracy through music, culture, and digital media. Since 2004 the organization has registered one-million voters and worked with a long list of musicians and partners including Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Camila Cabello, Dave Matthews Band, JAY-Z, Beyoncé, March for Our Lives, RuPaul’s DragCon, MTV, and Dead & Company. With 40,000 volunteers, street teams in most major U.S. cities, and a presence at more than 1,000 events each year, HeadCount ranks as one of the most active grassroots civic participation organizations in the United States. Following COVID-19 restrictions, the organization quickly pivoted to an all-digital approach that led to innovation and online initiatives to fill the needs of the public in using their voices in democracy.WHAT'S GREAT ABOUT THIS JOB
You get to drive positive social impact through music, culture and technology, and help increase voter turnout among young people. In this job, you’ll oversee HeadCount.org’s communications, technical stack and digital campaigns, working with partners to further our non-profit mission of promoting democratic participation. You’ll manage a collaborative, passionate digital team dedicated to helping HeadCount mobilize thousands of young voters for the 2022 midterm elections and beyond.WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING
- Leading digital strategy Help meet HeadCount’s core objectives with high-level digital strategy by collaborating with leadership across the organization, meeting the needs of external partners, and working with your team to create a best-in-class experience for our audience
- Managing our digital tools and communication platforms Optimize the full suite of voter action and communication platforms and CRM. Actively seek out new platforms and tech to meet our audience where they already are
- Guiding voice, tone, and written communications Help craft content, marketing communications and external storytelling while overseeing our marketing communications, social media and website. You’ll edit for tone to sound accessible, human, and easy to understand to our young audience. You’ll also set the overall direction and strategy on how to best engage our community through digital touchpoints.
- Leading the digital team Empower the Social Media Marketing Manager, Digital Marketing Manager, and outside technical contractors in their work, professional development, and collaboration with the rest of the organization
- Collaborating with artist and brand partners Help build digital campaigns based on the needs of our partners, nurture these relationships, and report on success and opportunities to do better
- Utilizing our CRM tool Help HeadCount get the most out of our CRM tool by cleaning up our data organization in HubSpot, targeting communications, setting up automations, and creating accessible dashboards for other staff
- Making data-driven decisions Evaluate digital data to understand campaign success, and identify opportunities for growth and change in the organization
- Crafting effective digital campaigns Whether it’s an activation with a brand or educational campaign, create an impactful digital experience using action tools, our channels, and creative assets
- Managing our website Direct website strategy, edit content, build new landing pages with a drag-and-drop editor, identify bugs (and solve them when you can), and continue to develop our website into an effective tool to inspire new audiences to get out and vote
- Prioritizing diversity, inclusion, and youth View all work through a lens of diversity and serving historically disenfranchised communities as well as young people at large. Your mandate will be to engage diverse groups of young voters.
HERE'S HOW YOU CAN BE EXCELLENT AT THIS JOB
- Operate with a digital-first mindset and experiment with new platforms You’re a natural at learning new tools and getting the most out of them quickly. You’ve worked with CRMs like HubSpot, and digital organizing tools like Phone2Action. You get the basics of HTML and CSS, even if you’re not a master. You’ve got a finger on the pulse of new industry trends and technologies– whether it’s Twitch or TikTok, you’re a natural at noticing and experimenting with new platforms.
- Lead to empower your team and collaborate with others You’re an emotionally intelligent communicator who makes space for others, understands the unique skills of your team and helps cultivate their growth. You can translate complicated digital-speak to others on staff in a way that builds buy-in, makes collaboration easy, and achieves shared wins.
- Measure, measure, measure You measure everything you do and define success with measurable results. You are able to define meaningful metrics for your department and the organization, and you hold yourself and your team accountable to hitting those goals.
- Write superbly You prove that you can adapt your writing to HeadCount’s existing voice. You make voting more accessible to young people by breaking down complicated issues into non-jargony, simple language.
- Put the voter first You listen to our audience and reflect what they value and need back to them. You are a cheerleader for young voters in everything you do.
- Be organized and communicate You meet deadlines, stick to plans, and love checklists. When you can’t complete something by the requested time, you proactively communicate that to stakeholders.
- Be nonpartisan Even in these divided times, you can put your personal politics aside and embrace the nonpartisan aspect of our mission. You can take a values-driven approach that welcomes all voters into the democratic process, regardless of who they might support at the polls
- Display impeccable work ethic This job will be challenging, especially in the buildup to elections. You’re ready to give it your all and achieve at the highest level.
REQUIREMENTS
- 5+ years experience in digital media and strategy
- Strong knowledge of voting process/political campaigns
- Strong knowledge and comfort working with various technology tools
- Awareness of trends in social media and digital communications
- Experience supervising employees, overseeing contractors and managing projects
- Personal commitment to social impact
Bonus Points if you…
- Use platforms like Twitch, TikTok, and Discord
- Love music (we’ll be asking about your all time faves)
- Have previously worked on grassroots organizing, or non-profits
- Speak Spanish
- Are driven to adapt and continually learn and are unafraid of failure