[Hiring] Community Engagement Associate @StartOut

Role Description

As the Community Engagement Manager (6-Month Fixed-Term Contractor), you will champion and manage StartOut’s core infrastructure for regional and virtual community mobilization. You will lead, recruit, and inspire a network of over 80 local and topical Leadership Council members (volunteers), while collaborating closely with corporate sponsors and community partners. Your mission is to foster a deeply connected ecosystem and support the execution of 65+ impactful events annually that empower LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs.

Key Responsibilities

• Community Volunteer Support & Leadership Councils
  • Lifecycle Management: Recruit, onboard, and offboard diverse Leadership Council Chairs across all new and existing regional chapters, ensuring strict alignment with StartOut’s annual strategic growth goals.
  • Volunteer Enablement: Empower Council Chairs by providing ongoing outreach strategies, recruitment tools, code of conduct oversight, and localized volunteer engagement support.
  • Program Planning & Design: Guide Council Chairs in architecting high-value local events that expand the StartOut founder footprint.
  • Training & Governance: Deliver comprehensive annual training sessions covering board responsibilities, meeting facilitation, and event excellence.
  • Data & Diversity Tracking: Conduct monthly audits of volunteer and board compositions, translating findings into quarterly actionable insights on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
  • Operational Infrastructure: Equip leaders with localized event-planning kits, templates, and best-practice playbooks. Act as the primary point of contact for urgent or emergency regional council requests.
• Event Logistics & Performance Management
  • End-to-End Execution: Drive cross-departmental logistics for community events, managing venues, vendor relationships, KPI monitoring (attendee data), speaker/judge sourcing, registration pipelines, in-kind contributions, fundraising, and local budgets.
  • Performance Metrics: Continually evaluate event-level KPIs, lead generation rates, and conversion metrics to provide optimization recommendations for future programmatic cycles.
  • Inclusive Design: Ensure all community initiatives actively reflect, represent, and celebrate diverse intersections of LGBTQ+ founders.
  • Feedback Loops: Oversee post-event debrief sessions, aggregate partner feedback, and compile formal post-mortem reports to drive iterative improvements.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of dedicated experience in volunteer management, corporate affinity groups, or grassroots community organizing.
• Proven track record of recruiting, motivating, and managing distributed or volunteer-led teams to hit collective programmatic targets.
• Exceptional interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to exercise high diplomacy, tact, and cultural sensitivity.
• Strong cross-functional alignment skills—adept at building consensus across internal departments while managing competing priorities.
• A self-starter capable of managing shifting timelines and fast-moving priorities independently, with minimal day-to-day oversight.
• A deep, visible passion for supporting entrepreneurship, economic empowerment, and the LGBTQ+ professional community.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience in event production or event marketing.
• Familiarity with the startup accelerator, incubator, or venture capital ecosystem.
• Hands-on proficiency with Salesforce, Asana, and Eventbrite.

Compensation and Benefits

• Position Type: Part-time, non-exempt, temporary through Dec 31, 2026 with possibility of extension.
• Reports To: Chief Program Officer.
• Compensation: $25/hr for 20 hours/week.
• Unlimited PTO.
• 403b optional retirement plan.
• Professional development stipend.
• Remote allowance.