Company Description

Middlestate is a strategic consultancy and community of practitioners that believes in the power of inclusive, collaborative design. We envision a world where every person has the tools, skills, and capacities to advance collaborative decision-making, and every community has what they need to co-create solutions.

Our team of pragmatic optimists partners with work and learn institutions, nonprofits, and mission-driven companies to unearth human insights and co-create solutions to public challenges. We specialize in strategic planning, community engagement and program and service design.

We are a small group of bright, curious, cross-disciplinary, super fun humans. We hold firm to the values of participation, learning by doing, collaboration, and transparency. Aside from client events, onsite facilitations and some community engagement activities, we are a hybrid (remote and in-office) business with an office in Downtown Visalia. We encourage team members to work in the office at least once a week so we can maintain our connections. Please note that some community engagement events require staffing on evenings and weekends.

Job Description

We are seeking a self-directed, collaborative, and service-minded problem solver who wants to apply public sector knowledge, project management excellence, and community/stakeholder engagement skills to further the work of Middlestate and our clients.

The Project Manager (with guidance from a principal) will lead multiple client projects (3 - 5) simultaneously and will work collaboratively with clients, stakeholders and other team members to achieve deliverables and measurable outcomes. The Project Manager will report to one of the company’s Principals and will delegate work to other team members / contractors.

The ideal candidate is a reliable and action-oriented yet flexible and responsive Project Manager who is comfortable juggling multiple complex projects and serving as the direct point of contact to our clients. This role requires skill in meeting client needs while providing constructive feedback and course-correction, and continually learning and iterating while staying on top of long timelines and multiple deliverables. Excellent communication, prioritization and delegation skills are a must.

This is primarily a client-facing role with significant responsibility and autonomy for owning client projects with multiple contributing stakeholders. Candidates should have a genuine desire to serve public sector clients on challenging projects with rewarding outcomes. Additionally, they should thrive in collaborative environments that require open communication, flexibility and teamwork.

What you will do:

You will directly manage multiple client projects in the areas of community engagement, strategic planning, program/service design and evaluation across multiple issue areas (e.g., local workforce services, project-based learning at community college and even Bay Area public services). You may also contribute to business development activities in pursuit of new projects, and/or marketing and communications support for Middlestate. Below is a sampling of the kinds of tasks you can expect. These are subject to change and evolve, just like the nature of our field and our growing business.

Client-Facing Project Management

• Craft creative project approaches in collaboration with team members, partners and clients

• Create and oversee project budgets, work plans and timelines

• Facilitate meetings with clients, partners, team members, and community stakeholders

• Delegate weekly tasks to teammates, partners and clients

• Review client deliverables to ensure quality and value

• Lead and contribute to the design and implementation of project deliverables, such as:

communications/outreach plans, stakeholder engagement strategies, workshop agendas, workshop facilitation, evaluation frameworks, interview protocols, journey maps, field research, desk research, summary reports or white papers, and so much more!

Client-Facing Project Work

As a Project Manager, you may oversee and/or contribute to the following types of tasks across multiple projects:

• Conduct stakeholder assessments, including identifying key audiences or stakeholder groups, snowball

sampling, conducting gap analysis

• Create and roll-out outreach campaigns, including copywriting, editing and collateral production (e.g.,

graphic design, video production, project websites, email outreach and newsletters, social media, paid advertising, and coordination with promotional partners such as City departments and community-based organizations)

• Craft engagement plans, participatory research plans, evaluation plans, etc.

• Design, coordinate and facilitate in-person and online client, stakeholder and community meetings (e.g., City

council retreats, staff working sessions, community workshops, open houses, focus groups, etc.), including Eventbrite setup and administration, Zoom setup, presentation design, activity design, accessibility design, note taking, and more

• Design, build and manage online surveys (e.g., Typeform, Google Forms, etc.) and digital engagement tools including content development, community management, and reporting

• Create translation documents and coordinate professional translations

• Synthesize and summarize findings from meetings and other engagement efforts, including both qualitative

and quantitative data analysis

• Write and produce reports, including recommendations for improvements to relevant plans, policies,

programs, services, and engagement processes

Sales/Business Development (optional)

• Help identify new business opportunities

• Contribute to and craft creative proposals for new work

• Help refine our annual sales strategy

Communications & Marketing for Middlestate (optional)

• Co-create communications and marketing campaigns

• Copyedit, proofread, and revise marketing, outreach, and thought leadership communications (case studies,

white papers, newsletter content, blog posts, etc.)

• Produce marketing and outreach collateral

• Design and implement targeted/automated marketing and social media campaigns

• Administration of CMS (e.g., Wordpress), including updating web content for www.Middlestate.com

• Help manage relationships with clients, partners and our community through our CRM (Hubspot) and other tools

• Set up and analyze marketing metrics

• Support event production for Middlestate events, including Eventbrite setup, promotion, and coordination

Preferred

• Native fluency (verbal & written) in Spanish language which is commonly spoken by communities we commonly engage

• Familiarity and/or experience with human-centered design or design thinking

• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification

• Proficiency with Google Workspace (Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, etc.), Slack, Zoom, Typeform and Basecamp.

In Addition...

• You are proactive, self-motivated and think many steps ahead to consistently drive work forward

• You leverage resources creatively to solve problems and collaborate with your teammates to take concepts

from idea to implementation

• You have an innate drive to deliver value for our clients and the communities we serve and you hold a high

bar for quality even when multiple projects demand your attention

• You thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced environment amid competing priorities

• You learn quickly and like to wear multiple hats

• You are skilled at prioritization, time management, and task delegation

• You are willing to meticulously track your time by project and task on a daily basis

• You are enthusiastic about reimagining public engagement and improving public service delivery!

Compensation

This is a full time exempt position at 40 hours per week, with a salary range of $62,000-70,000 based on experience.

• Annual bonus, contingent on performance and profit

Benefits

Time off:

• 20 paid vacation days with advanced notice and supervisor approval (eligible after 4 months of employment)

• 12 paid holidays and the week between Dec. 25th - Dec. 31st off

• 10 paid sick days

Medical/Dental:

• [We are exploring the possibility of adding medical/dental as we continue to grow our team]

Professional Development:

• Conferences

• Certifications/Trainings/Courses - up to $500/year

Equipment:

• MacBook Air

• $500 workspace setup stipend

We provide you with a company laptop and the necessary tools to do your job effectively and comfortably from the office or remotely.

Location

You need to be based in the Middle State and able to commute to our Visalia office, and available to travel to client locations throughout the Middle State and beyond..

Equal Employment Opportunity & Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging

Middlestate is committed to building a culture that reflects our values of inclusion and equity. We actively encourage women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, ethnic minorities and others from diverse backgrounds of all types to apply. Reasonable accommodations will be made for candidates with disabilities.

EEO GUIDELINES

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

middlestate jobs

Project Manager