Director of Editorial Events

CalMatters seeks a visionary and entrepreneurial Director of Editorial Events to build and lead a strategy that expands our audience, elevates California's most important conversations, and strengthens our organization.

The ideal candidate is equal parts creative producer, journalist, audience strategist and general manager. If that’s you, you’ll create compelling, journalism-driven experiences that bring our reporting to life, convene influential newsmakers and community leaders, and engage Californians in meaningful dialogue about the issues shaping the state. 

These will become must-attend experiences for Californians interested in politics and policy, how they affect the 39 million people who live here, and the future of the state. You’ll identify event formats that attract audiences beyond CalMatters' existing readership while creating opportunities for sponsorship and revenue growth.

Key Responsibilities

In this role, you’ll begin with the events we’ve already built: The CalMatters Ideas Festival and occasional local convenings in partnership with news organizations statewide. You’ll supervise, and work closely with, our Events Manager, and you’ll report to our Editor in Chief as part of our editorial leadership team. 

From there, here’s what we expect you’ll do: 

• Conceive, launch, and produce pillar events that become defining CalMatters experiences. 
• Develop and test innovative formats that differentiate our events from traditional conferences and panels, perhaps with new storytelling formats, audience participation, and interactive programming.
• Identify timely issues and recruit influential policymakers, experts, journalists, and community voices.
• Work closely with newsroom leaders and reporters to ensure editorial excellence while maintaining the highest standards of journalistic integrity.
• Bring CalMatters journalism to audiences who may not already engage with our work and would find it valuable. 
• Introduce people to CalMatters and our nonprofit model, working in partnership with our membership team to foster relationships with new donors. 
• Partner with the development team to create, market and execute sponsorship opportunities that deliver value for sponsors and align with our mission and editorial independence.
• Manage budgets for the overall events business and for individual events. 
• Track audience growth, engagement, revenue, and overall impact.

What We’re Looking For:

• Significant experience producing high-quality live events, conferences, festivals, or public forums.
• Strong editorial instincts and a deep understanding of journalism, current events, and civic engagement.
• Demonstrated ability to create original concepts that attract audiences and generate excitement.
• Experience working with journalists, public officials, executives, and other high-profile speakers.
• Strong project management and organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple complex productions simultaneously.
• Experience developing sponsorship opportunities or partnering with fundraising, business development, or marketing teams.
• Excellent communication, relationship-building, and leadership skills.
• Passion for CalMatters' mission of delivering trusted, nonpartisan journalism that helps Californians understand their state.

Compensation and Benefits

This full-time position with benefits is based in California. There is a preference for candidates located in the greater Sacramento area but it is not required.

The salary range for this position is $105,000 to $125,000 per year. The salary range is our best estimate, in good faith, of what we expect to pay for this position. Our final salary figure will take into account the candidate’s experience and skills, as well as our commitment to pay our staff equitably.

We offer a comprehensive benefits package with medical, dental and vision insurance (95% employer-paid for you and your dependents) from a range of HMO and PPO providers. We also offer paid family leave, FSA/HSA accounts, a 401(k) match of up to 4%, life insurance at no cost, cell/internet stipend, and professional development funds.

How To Apply

If you’re interested, provide a resume, cover letter and work samples (if applicable). In your cover letter, please answer the following questions:

• Why do you want to work at CalMatters/TheMarkup? Tell us what draws you specifically to our organization and this work. If you’ve never worked in journalism before, tell us what makes you interested in joining a nonprofit journalism organization.
• How would you approach this role?

 We believe strongly in personal and authentic engagement in our recruitment process and want to hear from you. We ask that you answer these questions yourself without the aid of AI or other automated tools.

Please do not contact the hiring manager or other staffers directly. If you have questions, or a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, don’t hesitate to contact [email protected]. 

CalMatters is committed to becoming an antiracist organization. We are an expanding and collaborative newsroom, successfully forging a new model for sustainable, intelligent, nonprofit journalism. We do our best to center justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in all that we do—of which hiring is just one part. We encourage you to ask us about what concrete steps we are taking in service of these ideals. We strongly encourage applicants who are people of color, LGBTQ, and people with disabilities, regardless of national origin, alienage, and/or former incarceration status.

A college degree is not required.

About CalMatters/The Markup

CalMatters is an award-winning nonprofit, nonpartisan news venture dedicated to explaining the policy and politics of America’s biggest state and the world’s fifth largest economy. In 2024, we merged with The Markup, a nonprofit national news publication that challenges technology to serve the public good.

We produce vivid, original multimedia journalism, data-driven news analyses and watchdog accountability reporting on calmatters.org and themarkup.org, and we distribute our work at no cost to more than 250 media partners. Our success metric isn’t clicks — it’s impact. CalMatters/The Markup’s work serves millions of people. For example:

• More than 1 in 5 California voters head to the polls informed by CalMatters’ nonpartisan Voter Guide. 
• Blacklight, our real-time privacy inspector, has been used over 18 million times and helped journalists, nonprofits, and academics hold tech accountable.
• Digital Democracy, our unprecedented, custom-built AI tool that tracks everything you’d want to know about state legislators has unearthed stories and prompted legislators to call for change.

We also have the most diverse major newsroom in California. Here you’ll be working alongside dozens of experienced journalists in a supportive, collaborative atmosphere.