The Oregon and Washington chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists are seeking a contest manager to work alongside the chapter presidents in managing the 2021 Northwest Excellence in Journalism contest.

The contest manager will dedicate between 100-125 hours between December and July for a total payment of $2,700 or negotiable based on experience. The busiest working months will be between February and April.

The SPJ Region 10 Northwest Excellence in Journalism Contest is one of the largest of its kind in the nation. In this role, you would be helping shine a spotlight on the best, most impactful work in journalism. It honors journalists across SPJ Region 10, which covers Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Oregon.

Tasks include helping organize a judging swap with a similarly sized SPJ region; setting up the year’s contest within the platform OpenWater; communicating with applicants; managing judges; managing entries; creating contest promotional materials; ordering trophies; and managing public announcements.

The contest manager will work closely with the Oregon and Western Washington chapter presidents to successfully plan, manage, and close out the annual contest.

This project can be done remotely, although we ask that the candidate be based in Oregon or Washington. Workloads will vary by month, although they’ll generally have to dedicate 2-10 hours of work each week.

QUALIFICATIONS

This project will require sufficient knowledge of Google Sheets (and/or Excel), Google Drive, Twitter, and Facebook, and general knowledge of contest platforms.

We’re looking for candidates who have at least a year of professional experience working as a journalist, either as a freelancer or with an organization, so they are knowledgeable about the industry and Oregon/Washington news outlets.

The best candidate will have strong organizational skills. Every year this contest gets about 3,000 entries into about 60 different categories. We spend weeks before the contest analyzing the previous year’s entries to assess any potential changes to the upcoming year’s contest categories or rules. We work closely with another region to judge their contest then assign our entries to their judges. Then we run reports to tally winners, calculate proceeds, and format a list of winners for public announcements. All of this requires attention to detail and adaptability.

HOW TO APPLY

Submit a one-page resume and one-page cover letter to spjnwcontest@gmail.com with the subject line “Contest Manager Application” before midnight on Sunday, Nov. 28.

Questions? Send them to that same email address.