SPEND - Communications Specialist

# Strategic Public Education National Data (SPEND) Initiative *Modernizing America’s Education Finance Data Infrastructure* ## Communications Specialist **Location:** Remote (U.S.-based required) About the SPEND Initiative Accurate and comparable education finance data is the essential foundation for effective governance and robust research. The Strategic Public Education National Data (SPEND) Initiative is a non-partisan organization and a fiscally sponsored project of Education Resource Strategies (ERS). Our mission is to maintain and modernize the technical pipeline that improves the accuracy, comparability, and timeliness of education finance data. We aim to provide a stable, objective data foundation—a modern data utility that serves the needs of researchers, state and district leaders, and the broader education field. Why Work at SPEND? - **Build Something from Scratch:** SPEND is a new organization with a still-developing external presence—and this role is how that changes. You won't be maintaining someone else's communications infrastructure. You'll be designing it, building the audience, and establishing the voice that the field will come to associate with SPEND. - **Work at the Intersection of Technical Rigor and Public Impact:** The data SPEND produces underpins billions of dollars in education funding and decades of research on resource allocation. The communications challenge here is real: making technically complex, genuinely important work accessible and findable to the researchers, state and district leaders, and policymakers who need it. - **Shape How a Field Understands a Critical Problem:** Education finance data infrastructure is fragmented, inconsistent, and at risk. SPEND exists to fix that—and this role is how we make sure the right people know it. You'll have a direct hand in how the field perceives and engages with one of the most consequential data challenges in public education. - **Join a Mission-Focused Team with Institutional Stability:** Contribute as a foundational member of a new initiative supported by a multi-year general operating grant and the established operational infrastructure of ERS. ### Role Overview We are seeking a Communications Specialist to join our small, high-impact team and own the communications function for the SPEND Initiative. This is a mid-level role designed for someone with modern digital communications instincts—someone who understands how audiences are built organically, how content surfaces in both traditional and AI-driven search, and how to maintain a consistent, credible voice across platforms. In this role, you will take day-to-day ownership of SPEND's external presence, supporting a thought leadership strategy grounded in technical expertise rather than advocacy, and helping the organization grow a meaningful audience in the education finance research and policy, state education leader, policymaker and broader data and technology fields. Key Responsibilities **Organic Audience Building** - Lead strategy and execution for building SPEND's organic audience across owned digital channels, with a focus on direct cultivation rather than traditional media outreach. - Develop and maintain a content cadence and editorial calendar that keeps SPEND publishing consistently and purposefully. - Build and segment SPEND's distribution list, ensuring we are reaching the right audiences—researchers, policy analysts, state and district leaders, journalists, and field partners—with content that is relevant to each. - Support SPEND's positioning as a technical subject matter expert through earned media and direct channel publishing. **Search and Discoverability** - Optimize SPEND's content and web presence for discoverability in both traditional search engines and AI-generated results—understanding that search increasingly means appearing in LLM responses, not just blue links. - Ensure SPEND's technical products and publications are structured and described in ways that make them…