Our Mission
We are driven by our mission to foster hope in God by closing the achievement gap and preparing our students for college and beyond. Our love for God and His care for every one of our students motivates us to get better every day. Hope Academy serves over 650 students with the objective of reaching 1200 students. Join our team of mission-driven brothers and sisters to work hard, do good, and make a difference.
Before applying, it’s very important that you read, carefully review and agree with our Mission & Values, Faith & Life Covenant, and our Guiding Principles about Cultural Harmony. All board members, faculty and staff are joining a covenant community in serving here at Hope Academy.
Position Summary
The Project Manager & Communications Specialist is responsible for ensuring Hope Academy's marketing and communications work is organized, excellent and advancing. This role combines project management and written communications.
The Specialist serves as the primary coordinator for Marketing projects, developing project plans, managing timelines, coordinating tasks and stakeholders, preparing meetings, and ensuring deliverables move from idea to completion.
This position plays a key role in leading Marketing’s work with Recruiting & Admissions – helping us achieve expected enrollment targets. In addition, it will help design and execute our new plan to grow family and staff loyalty.
Working closely with the Manager of Marketing, Design and Brand and Digital Marketing Specialist, this role ensures that communications and projects are strategically aligned, well-executed, and delivered with excellence.
Key Responsibilities
Project Management
- Serve as Marketing’s Project Manager for work across all Hope departments; including:
- Academics / school-wide events
- Process marketing project requests and clarify objectives, timelines and deliverables
- Build and maintain project plans, timelines, task lists, and deliverables for assigned projects.
- Use Basecamp or the department's designated project-management software.
Recruiting & Admissions Project Management
- Serve as Marketing’s lead with Recruiting & Admissions department
- Manage Recruiting-related projects, lead meetings, drive decisions, optimize marketing effectiveness and manage all Recruiting-related marketing projects; hold Recruiting team accountable to meet deadlines and deliverables
- Support the Manager of Marketing, Design and Brand in keeping enrollment marketing initiatives aligned with broader marketing strategy.
Communications & Messaging
- Plan, write, and coordinate clear, engaging and mission-aligned communications for Hope Academy, including:
- Key all-staff communications
- Develop communication plans for major initiatives, determining appropriate audiences, messages, channels, timing, and frequency.
- Work with school leaders and departments to gather information and translate it into clear, audience-appropriate communications.
- Coordinate translation and multilingual communications as needed.
- Maintain communication calendars and establish strategic communication rhythms.
Events & Communications
- Provide project-management and communications support for Development and school-wide events and initiatives.
- Coordinate marketing deliverables for events
- Help establish and maintain a consistent process for Marketing's involvement in events.
Family Loyalty & Engagement
- Help execute the family loyalty and engagement plan to strengthen families' connection to Hope Academy and increase their sense of belonging, trust, and investment in the school community.
- Identify and write stories, moments, celebrations, student experiences, parent voices, and other content.
Staff Engagement & Internal Communications
- Help execute the staff loyalty and engagement marketing plan focusing on content that reminds staff of the mission and impact of their work.
- Cultivate and write stories of student impact, staff excellence, answered prayers, community impact, and other moments that inspire and encourage employees.
- Help establish clear distinctions between information that staff need to know and content that helps staff feel connected, inspired, and invested.
Collateral & Print Management
- Serve as the primary coordinator for collateral requests and production needs.
- Maintain an organized inventory of current collateral and identify when materials need to be updated, reordered, or retired.
- Coordinate with the Manager of Marketing, Design and Brand on creative direction, design, and brand standards.
- Prepare final files and coordinate production with print vendors.
- Manage print production timelines, proofs, quantities, shipping, and delivery.
Qualifications & Skills
- Bachelor's degree with 2-4 years experience in communications, marketing, public relations, journalism, project management, or a related field preferred.
- Demonstrated experience managing multiple projects with competing priorities and deadlines.
- Strong organizational, writing, editing, and proofreading skills.
- Excellent organizational and follow-through skills.
- Strong interpersonal, communication and relationship-building skills.
- Experience coordinating print production and working with vendors preferred.
- Proficiency with Basecamp or another project-management platform is required.
- Strong proficiency with Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, or comparable productivity tools.
- Ability to learn and effectively use new technology and organizational systems.
- Strong attention to detail without losing sight of the larger purpose and strategic objective.
- Supportive of the school's mission to foster hope in God within the inner-city neighborhood of Minneapolis by providing youth with an outstanding, Christ-centered education.
Anticipated Salary
- The salary for this role is expected to be approximately $53,000-$58,000 based on experience.
