Digital Engagement/Community Manager Contract Service Provider Opportunity
Description of Organizational Needs and Requirements:
The Oregon State University Alumni Association is looking for a service provider to support digital engagement and community management across technology and social media platforms. The team is currently focused on expanding the community of engaged stakeholders and volunteers working with them on key organizational priorities.
The following strategic priorities reflect the alumni association focus to support them in advancing their engagement work and achieving their goals:
- Increasing the number of digitally-engaged stakeholders (alumni, friends, parents, students, volunteers, and members)
- Generating a career network of OSU alumni supporting students and recent graduates in navigating their continued career development
- Growing digital engagement and meeting needs of 2023 targeted audience segments: recent graduates and early career professionals, diverse alumni (BIPOC alumni as a core focus), OSU volunteers, OSU Alumni Association prospective and current members, distributed regional alumni networks
- Actively listening and documenting the needs of the OSU community
- Implementing a refined menu of digital and in person experiences for the OSU community to engage with
- Increase collaborations and partnerships with other OSU affiliated teams that have shared goals
By focusing on these priorities in 2023, the OSU Alumni Association team is working to expand the number of individuals engaging with them and cultivating more active participants, volunteers and supporters of their programs and initiatives.
To support the team in scaling their engagement work, the service provider will execute on the following work items in a one year service agreement:
- Provide digital community management and individual member engagement for all alumni association technology/social platforms
- Cultivate, engage and connect volunteers and supporters across digital platforms and programs
- Coordinate with program and membership team members to facilitate digital experiences for stakeholders
- Collaborate with the team during the content/engagement planning process throughout the year (this may require occasional travel to Corvallis, OR).
- Execute the digital portion of planned engagement across engagement campaigns.
- Organize volunteers and helpers–perform community management coordination (we have students, graduates, alumni, friends of OSU who are ready to help us engage our community digitally)
- Track engagement interactions and outcomes and provide regular reports/results to the team as outlined in the service agreement
- Stay up to date with new digital engagement and social media best practices. This includes applying new technologies and new trends and communicating this knowledge to the team.
Service Provider Desired Expertise/Demonstrated Capabilities:
- Performed digital engagement work in the past for volunteer, membership or education organizations
- Demonstrated understanding of engagement techniques for community building and management versus brand promotion and marketing engagement (We have a seasoned marketing team managing social media accounts and brand communication across digital platforms)
- Understands current trends and able to grasp and act on future trends, particularly in the areas of social media, community management, and digital engagement for volunteer and membership organizations
- Proven success leveraging digital engagement techniques with the goal of cultivating and activating volunteers to support an organization's programs and initiatives
- Excellent communication, project management and cross departmental consulting experience
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate on a content calendar with a distributed team and follow processes in place while consistently meeting deadlines
- Experience in social listening across digital platforms and identifying needs of stakeholders
- Strong analytical skills in interpreting and translating metrics, and ability to act on findings
- Must have some availability to connect with the team during PST working hours, 8am-5pm PST
- Ability to travel occasionally to Corvallis, Oregon for engagement evaluation, planning and coordination work (terms can be negotiated in service agreement)
- Experience working remotely as a contract service provider and supporting distributed networks/teams
The OSU Alumni Association is open to exploring a service provider partnership with either individual freelancers or firms with demonstrated expertise in digital engagement and community management for volunteer/membership organizations.
To learn more about our needs or the service provider selection process, please send an email to Grow Together(an operations consulting firm supporting us in our selection process), admin@growtogethersolutions.com, with the subject line: “OSUAA Service Provider Inquiry” and the team will schedule time to speak with you.
If you would like to formally submit materials for consideration, please email any or all of the following materials to our consulting partners at Grow Together, admin@growtogethersolutions.com, with the subject line: “OSUAA Service Provider Materials”:
- Professional resume or profile including information about your relevant work experience and including links to your digital engagement/community management work with past clients
- Digital Portfolio including examples of your engagement/community management work
- Client Testimonials or Case Studies
We ask that you submit any or all materials no later than February 20, 2023. We hope to have a service provider selected by March 31, 2023. The hours will be negotiated based on finalized scope of work with the selected service provider. OSUAA has budgeted 5-7k per month for this contract. Thank you for your interest in supporting the OSUAA engagement work this year!
